Let’s follow the money?

By G. Romero Wendorf

Virginia Townsend, a long-standing critic of county politics, didn’t mince words during Tuesday’s special called meeting of the Hidalgo County Commissioners Court to discuss the hiring of an architect to design the new county courthouse expected to cost in the neighborhood of $140 million (not counting interest).

Without being called on, Townsend strode to the podium and challenged the court: “I need to speak as a taxpayer. If we as taxpayers realized what we are paying our project (manager), Jacobs, I would fully expect them to have some kind of say in this. They came, they graded (the two architects), they said something, and then (the Commissioners Court) said, ‘Oh, no, we can’t use that.’ We’re paying them $4.5 million, and they’re not worth listening to? I don’t know, but I don’t think that’s good. I don’t think that’s professional of you all to just discount it, and say, ‘We can’t even

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