MISSION, Texas - Mission Economic Development Corporation board member Noel Salinas says he was saddened to be removed from the organization.
This happened at this week’s Mission City Council meeting. Salinas served on the MEDC board at the pleasure of the council.
Salinas said he believes he was removed for speaking out about a certain city council action. Namely, failing to send the EDC its rightful share of sales tax revenues for many months.
Salinas, the CEO of a healthcare company, said he believes the residents of Mission deserve to know where their tax dollars are being spent. He spoke out publicly when the Progress Times, which covers the western side of Hidalgo County, asked what he thought of the money not being transferred.
Salinas was then criticized by Mission Mayor Norie Gonzalez Garza for confirming to the newspaper that the City of Mission held back more than $3 million in sales tax revenues over seven months that should have gone to the EDC. Since the news broke, the City has started paying the EDC back.
Salinas spoke to the Rio Grande Guardian International News Service via telephone the day after he was removed from the EDC board.
“It’s sad, but I guess we're will keep on getting involved as resident and citizen of Mission,” Salinas said, when asked about his removal from the EDC board. “I think I can still be involved without having to be on a committee.”
Asked if anyone either from the EDC or the city council had called you to explain why he was being removed, Salinas said: “No, nobody. I haven't gotten a call from anybody since the day that I talked about the situation. I would have thought that they somebody would want to know or discuss or even explain something but nobody, nobody reached out.”
Asked why he thinks he lost his slot on the board, Salinas said: “I feel that it's because I talked about the situation of the EDC not getting the sales tax revenue. But, as the (Progress Times) article said, the mayor's claiming that she had already thought of replacing me. The thing that I don't understand, or I would like to ask is, there are five other members or six other members. Why me?”
Salinas said he has never had any disciplinary problems while serving on the EDC board. Asked if he was ever told he was not doing a good job, Salinas said: “Never. If they look at the voting record, I don't think I ever opposed any of the things that we voted on.”
In a previous interview with the Guardian, Salinas said he was looking forward to the next EDC board meeting, scheduled for later this month, so he could ask questions about the EDC funds not being transferred by the city administration.
“My concern was that we had approved inaccurate documents and I guess that's not important. Because that would be one of the things that I would, if I were the other board members, I would be concerned with. We don't know when this started, but the monthly financials showed that we had cash on hand and according to staff, we didn't have that money, and we still approved those documents.”
Salinas said as soon as the story broke he requested copies of the EDC’s bank statements. He did not get them and now, as he is off the board. But, he said, he would still like some clarity.
“I approved the financial documents and it affects me, because I approved them. So I need to have… sometime in the future, if this ever comes back, I want to I want to be able to prove that I was the one that brought up the problem.”
It was pointed out that if he wants those records now he will have to make an open records request as a private citizen of Mission.
“You know it's sad. I didn't do anything wrong. I just talked about what I was told by leadership. And I was the one that got fired.”
Asked if he feels as if he has been treated shabbily, Salinas said: “I think so. I think so. Because everybody's a public servant. And I think we owe it to the citizens to be transparent. And by the looks of how it's been handled, they don't want the public to know what's going on.”
The Guardian asked Salinas if he believes the public will ever be told who was responsible for not transferring the sales tax revenues to the EDC and why. Salinas responded:
“I doubt that they will, based on their actions for the past few weeks. They just don't want to accept what I said on the Progress Times is true.”
In a previous interview with the Guardian, Salinas said he had nothing but praise for Mission EDC CEO Teclo Garcia. He said he worked hard to bring new business to Mission. However, he said with hindsight, Garcia should, perhaps, have called a board meeting when it was learned that the EDC was not getting its share of the sales tax revenues. Instead, all the board members were informed through individual meetings.
“Yes, I do believe that should have happened. It should have happened with EDC and the city council should have also tried to address it,” Salinas said, in his most recent interview.
Asked what message he would like to pass along to the citizens and the taxpayers of Mission, Salinas said: “I just recommend that everybody get involved in start questioning where what their leadership is doing. We elected our leaders and we should hold them accountable for what they're doing. It's taxpayer money that's being spent. And the citizens are ones that own or they run… they're the bosses.”
Salinas said the city leadership is making it sound like it's not a big deal that they were not transferring the funds. “It’s sad that they're trying to make it like it's not a big deal.”
Asked if there was anything else he would like to say, Salinas said: “Hopefully, the residents will get answers and, you know what, Good luck to all the board members of every committee because if every board member is going to be removed for questioning or talking about a problem, where's the integrity of a board?”
Salinas has been replaced on the Mission EDC board of directors by Mission resident and banker Julian Alvarez.
Editor's Note: Here is an audio recording of the interview with Noel Salinas:
