County truck investigation

Observations Commentary

DISCLAIMER: In no form or fashion am I implying that the Hidalgo County Commissioners Court (either as a collective body or individual members) did anything unethical or illegal when it voted in 2016 to buy 12 used semi-trucks and vacuum trailers for a total sum of $1.44 million.

I am saying, however, that the whole deal looked odd to me when I first wrote about it two years ago, and it still looks odd to me today, two years later. The 2016 purchase had flown under my news radar until some kind reader happened to point it out to me. In 2017 I started writing stories about the purchase, but the trail led further than I had the time to follow it.

As mentioned in last week’s Advance (front page, June 12), state investigators and county investigators are now looking into the truck/tractor bid and subsequent purchase to see if the fishy smell is just coincidental. Apparently, something already looks out of sorts. At least one of the vacuum trailers has a VIN registered to another trailer, AKA, a cloned VIN, according to a confidential source.

Read the entire story on the e-Edition of our newspaper. http://www.etypeservices.com/Advance%20News%20JournalID455/