(l-r) TxDOT Executive Director Amadeo Saenz,and Chano Falcon, one of three TxDOT employees being
investigated by the FBI for bribery charges.
Well, it turns out that the AP missed the fact that Amadeo Saenz, TxDOT Executive Director, not only knows the three TxDOT employees who were indicted, but they are all “best friends”, according to an inside reelable source.
Expect “Saenz to resign” after Chano Falcon flips on him for his bribes, says source.
The quote Amadeo Saenz gave the AP would give the impression that he doesn't even know the three, who are now accused of bribery in an FBI case:
"Any allegation of wrong-doing by a member of the TxDOT family is saddening, but this incident renews my commitment to transparency and integrity in all that we do. I will continue to monitor this investigation and if necessary, will take the appropriate disciplinary action," said Amadeo Saenz, TxDOT executive director.This latest investigation by the FBI and the Texas Rangers is just scratching the surface of the real corruption in TxDOT.
One of the three indicted, Cresenciano "Chano" Falcon, maintenance administrator of Pharr District, “will do just about anything”, including bribes, back door deals and even flipping on his pal Amadeo Saenz, who is at the heart of the TxDOT corruption — just to get a better deal with the FBI, says my source. Chano Falcon, Amadeo Saenz, and Ray Llanes hang out and go to bar-b-ques and other parties together says source.
As I’ve been saying for years, the TxDOT culture is poisoned with insider deals and bribes, and the folks at the top like Amadeo Saenz are the worst. This culture of fraud and waste is one of the reasons TxDOT wants a whole new source of revenue, they get directly — the toll tax for driving on tax funded freeways.
UPDATE: Saenz joined TxDOT in the Pharr District in 1978. He was the Pharr district engineer from 1993 to 2001. From 2001 to 2007, Saenz was TxDOT's assistant executive director, until he became the executive director on October 1, 2007.
5 comments:
Sal, I am getting sick of hearing TxDOT top administration talking out of both sides of their mouths by saying they are committed to transparency and integrity all this is a bunch of BS!!! It seems no one is listening to the working employees of TxDOT that their jobs are in jeopardy. The cleansing needs to start at the top! the working class should not have to pay with losing their jobs due to upper management is not being transparent, ethical, no integrity and continue to show the redundancy that they claim the working people of TxDOT are doing. It seems to me that every one is buying into this restructuring with out asking questions and allowing top brass to be non transparent to this so called new direction. It seems that if Amadeo says he has ocean front property in El Paso that everyone will believe him. Come on people get your head out of the sand and start asking questions about this secret and quick action being taken to regionalise. I read all of the news articles and TxDOT spokes persons are not being honest with the media and most important you the tax payer. If questions are not asked the corruption will only get worse at the expense of working people.
Regionalize TxDOT? What is really going on? Lots of things are happening but few of us TxDOT employees really know what is going on. I have heard thru some of my contacts in other districts that the powers that be are wanting to create even more contracts for things that are already being done in house.
Why is everyone involved in TxDOT so contract happy?
Can someone honestly explain how contracting out work saves money?
When I started working at TxDOT we did almost everything in house...yes back in the day it was not nearly as busy as it is now but why would we contract out mowing our own grass at our district, AO's, and maintenance offices. Now we contract it out and the guy that used to do it supervises the contractors to make sure they do it according to contract. Big bucks to a contractor! We have the facilities to work on our own equipment but choose to not do the majority of our repairs and maintenance on our own fleet. Big bucks for another contract! Hire a couple certified mechanics and pay them a competative wage and I bet you will save some bucks in that department. IT and Desktop support is slowly being contracted out under the table. Huge contract with IBM and multiple IBM sub-contractors.My people are losing the once instant support we had with our local IT staff to a new system that requires you to jump through hoops a certain way just to get the most simple issue addressed. Instead of talking instantly with
IT personnel they have to put a trouble ticket into the system and then you will get a call back from someone else. Production and morale will get worse as the brains of our technology is given...yes to a CONTACTOR who 9 times out of 10 does not really have a clue what is going on. What the hell is going on with this once proud institution? Put a stop to the unneeded contracts. There are needed contracts and then there are lots of things we at TxDOT should be doing ourselves. Politics and Greed will be the down fall of TxDOT, just watch!
We even have a huge contract for Janitorial service? We can't hire a couple Janitors to clean our facilities. School districts do it in house, why? Because it is cheaper than paying a fat contract.
WTF?
Regionlization is a joke for TxDOT and the clowns at TxDOT administration have no idea or experience in such. Neither of the senior administration excutives have any clue what reginlization is about and surely have no idea as to the impact and outcome. This chess game is about who benefits. The receiving TxDOT offices only get to expand personnel where the other districts lose valuable personnel who can not afford to relocate due to numerous personal situations. This regionalization plan was scrapped three administrations ago as not cost effective, unproductivie and a morale killer. How do know this? I was a key figure in the planning and study.
This so call plan to regionalize is simply a diversion from the the heart of the problem. You have inept leadership and followers who have no idea of what is ahead of them. Top heavy management in any agency will always lead to disaster.(i.e. Enron, Fannie Mae,Fannie Mac, CountryWide). Texans are being had. Understand, that this group of TxDOT administrators are simply employees of the taxpayers and should be removed from their positions. These administrators have no vested interest but their own. Just look around and see where all previous administrators ended up-working for consultants who do business for TxDOT.
I say that a "no confidence" petition should be placed on this blog so all Texans can voice their displeasure with TxDOT. Let's just do it.
My prior tech company contracted everything out too. I don't know why but I can guess- nepotism. My company's top brass had friends up top at the other company. Big bucks and kickbacks. And when the contractor screws things up, our engineers had to work 100 hours a week cleaning up their mistakes. But in-house engineer were never rewarded. Only reprimanded. Thankfully there are many tech jobs in austin so many of us quit! Luckily in the USA there is competition and since the quality of my former company's products was bad, nobody HAS to buy them. But we all have to put up with TxDOT's screwups and sabotage of existing roads because they are eliminating competition and making a 99 year TOLL MONOPOLY.
When Chano Falcon was overseen the Special Jobs crew at the Pharr District #21 there was a complain from the employees as to improper set up operations while working on the roads; employees took pictures to indicate that the suppervisor was not porviding safety equipment and personnel for road work operations. Chano reply was; stop taking pictures and stop complaining. An employee reminded Chano as to TXDOT being one big family and that we should work together to better our ways. His reply was, "we are not a family, get to work".
Now TXDOT took it up a notch; they are creating a team to spy on employees while they work to look for human error and repremend as they see fit. Now that's a place you want to work for. Not.
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