City Rep. Romero says he had nothing to gain if former partner was hired by city

City Representative Larry Romero said he had nothing to gain if the City had hired his former business partner, Noe Hinojosa, and had only recommended Hinojosa’s company because of its good reputation and because “they’re good people.”

“You all have me as the most powerful person here at City Hall. You all think I can go to purchasing and I can say ‘hire this person.’ I can go to streets and say ‘do these streets.’ That’s not my job. The city manager runs the city. He’s the one who makes the decision. And yet you all keep coming on me like I’m the one who keeps doing everything,” Romero told reporters on Monday.

ABC-7 approached Romero at city hall after he has refused interviews for the last week.

Romero admits he spoke with former City Manager Joyce Wilson soon after he was elected about Estrada Hinojosa, Noe Hinojosa’s financial advising company. He said he did not disclose to Wilson he had worked with Hinojosa because it was so long ago.

“Even though it was 12 or 15 years ago, you think that makes it that relevant that I should have said something? You all are just focused on ‘you knew Estrada Hinojosa.’ Yeah I did. And I did work for them. But again 12 or 15 years ago. Did they contribute to my campaign when I ran for office? No, they didn’t. Have they given me money since then? No, they haven’t. So, what am I gaining out of this? ” Romero said to ABC-7.

Romero said he wasn’t pushy with Wilson when she told him the City would stay with financial advisor First Southwest instead of looking for a new firm. “So I backed off. I didn’t push it. I didn’t come out and say you better hire them or else. I just sat there and said ‘okay I just wanted to know what the process was.’ That was that.”

Romero also admits he called Hinojosa soon after being elected to “ask why he wasn’t doing business with the city” but only because of the company’s good reputation, he said.

“They’re the second largest firm in the state of Texas. Have you seen the work that they do? Go back and look at their portfolio. If we’re not going to get the biggest one in Texas, we should at least try to get the second biggest. Is that wrong? Obviously you all (media) think that I’ve been partners with them since 15 years ago and that’s not true but I knew they did good work. I trusted them. They’re very good people.”

The city didn’t go through with it, but in April did start to look for a new financial advisor, at Romero’s suggestion and again he did not disclose his history with Hinojosa who was competing for the job.

Mayor Oscar Leeser wants to know how the city started the process and then abruptly stopped in October to fire the current financial advisor. He’s ordered separate reports from the city manager and the internal auditor. Both reports are due Wednesday.

City Rep. Claudia Ordaz has expressed concern over the city investigating itself. “It was the administration’s doing of moving forward the bidding process without the public’s knowledge, without council’s knowledge and then we want the same administration to handle an investigation and I don’t think that’s appropriate,” she told ABC-7 last Wednesday.

The Internal Auditor reports to the City Manager but Leeser said he wants the auditor to report to his office for the report. Leeser said the city could hire an outside investigator too, but he first wants to see if answers can be found without spending tax dollars. “At the end of the day we look at it and if that’s not sufficient evidence, we will hire someone from the outside because it’s that important that we come forward but first thing we don’t want to do is spend taxpayer dollars if we can determine what happened.”

In a related matter, City Representative Emma Acosta on Monday said she will be returning two $500 contribution from Hinojosa. “Not because I think I did anything wrong but because I don’t want my constituents to be burdened by an issue of maybe an impropriety,” she said in an interview.

Acosta over the summer had accepted the donations from Hinojosa for her movies in the park events. She said she did not know Hinojosa was competing for a city contract at that time.

Acosta on Tuesday also asked the City Attorney to provide the council an updated list of lobbyists, litigants and people and companies bidding for city contracts so that city representatives could avoid accepting contributions from such individuals.

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