by Rich Wright
Did you see this report from KVIA?
Former District 6 City of El Paso Representative Claudia Rodriguez spent more than $7,500 in one day using her taxpayer-funded procurement card (P-card), according to documents obtained by ABC-7 through an open records request.
The representative at the time made eight purchases on October 13, 2022, seven of which occurred at the same Walmart store. Five of those seven purchases were within four dollars of $1,000 but did not exceed that amount.
The other purchase was for $993.20 at Target.
ABC-7 also requested receipts of the transactions in an open records request on April 19, 2023, but we have not received anything to date.
That is a bad look.
Seven purchases at one Walmart store on the same day?
Five of which were for close to a grand each?
And no receipts?
But don’t worry about, the local media is on it.
No, wait. Only KVIA is reporting on this apparent abuse of city credit cards.
Where is the rest of the media?
Where is El Paso Matters? Where is the El Paso Times? Where are the rest of the alphabet soup of local teevee news stations?
I’ve been laying off former representative Claudia Lizette Rodriguez, because she’s a former rep, but this apparent abuse reeks of systemic corruption. How could Ms. Rodriguez ring up nearly $7,500 in one day with no recognition from someone in control?
It looks like we let the fox patrol the hen house, and now the chickens are coming home to roost.
You are so right, Rich! I’d surmise that our lack of decent news coverage might well be just what these sleazy theives want. They have been getting away with ripping us off for a lot of years now, and there is no apparent end in sight. How could there be? I know that we’re supposed to believe that print journalism has been replaced by the digital interweb and social media, but nothing is out there that provides what a good daily newspaper used to provide. People tell themselves that they don’t have time for a newspaper, but that really only means we don’t have time for what is currently available. Unfortunately, I just don’t see any turn around since nobody reads these days.