The City of Eagle Pass once again may be on the spot light for not following its own procurement policy under City Manager George Antuna. Residents may remember that the City Manager used a city credit card to purchase Major League Baseball Playoff tickets for some of his directors, a city council member and himself last year during the Houston Astros play-off run. When we spoke to the City Manager he said he used the credit card knowing he would pay off the tab eventually. After two weeks Antuna did pay the $1,600 plus charged to the city credit card.
Recently the City of Eagle Pass announced that they had purchased a number of properties in the downtown area. Typically with a purchase of that magnitude the city would opt to advertise a request for proposals or RFP in the a newspaper with general circulation in the community. Our source tells us that no advertising was conducted and that the City of Eagle Pass moved forward without following their own procurement policies. We followed up with Aranda Real Estate to ask some questions. Former Maverick County Judge Pepe Aranda responded to our question via email. The questions and response are below:
We submitted a Texas Public Information Act request on this situation to confirm or deny the procurement process was followed. See the public information request below:
Here is what we researched from the Texas Municipal Procurement Made Easy Handbook 2019 Edition provided by Texas Municipal League (TML):
We reached out to City Manager George Antuna, he has not responded.
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