Blue Grit Podcast: The Voice of Texas Law Enforcement
2024: Ranked #1 Law Podcast
Host: Tyler Owen and Clint McNear discussing topics, issues, and stories within the law enforcement community. TMPA is the voice of Texas Law Enforcement, focused on protecting those who serve. Since 1950, we have been defending the rights and interests of Texas Peace Officers by providing the best legal assistance in the country, effective lobbying at state and local levels, affordable training, and exemplary member support. As the largest law enforcement association in Texas, TMPA is proud to represent 33,000 local, county and state law enforcement officers.
Blue Grit Podcast: The Voice of Texas Law Enforcement
#107- "Mayor Mayhem" with Juan Lucea
In this explosive episode, Balcones Heights City Councilman Juan Lecea pulls no punches as he exposes the toxic leadership of Mayor Johnny Rodriguez. Councilman Lecea discusses the mayor’s troubling pattern of targeting the Balcones Heights Police Department, including personal attacks, attempts to dismantle collective bargaining rights, and a broader agenda that threatens public safety and officer morale. This candid conversation sheds light on the growing tension inside city leadership—and why standing up for law enforcement has never been more critical.
email us at- bluegrit@tmpa.org
government, not a mayor strong government, and the mayor seems to think that he is running a mayor strong government, so his thoughts and his beliefs is what has to happen, not taking into account the structure of the city, that it must go through the city council, and he's wanting to do his his things by his, his approach.
Speaker 2:Welcome back. Watchers, listeners, I'm your host, tyler owen, guest host today mike the man, the myth legend gomez field services supervisor for our west side division. What's going on?
Speaker 3:man. Oh, nothing much, but just uh. You know, our guys are out there working hard yeah got a lot of irons in the fire. It's a big state and right now our biggest iron in the fire is in Balcony Heights. So that's what we're here to talk about, but you know, the guys are out there working and it shows Customer service is what we're about. Can?
Speaker 2:we talk about mission or maybe give an update. There's some situations going on there. Jp Rodriguez has been involved.
Speaker 3:Yeah, I think we need to wait until the attorneys talk it over a little bit more.
Speaker 2:Okay, that makes sense.
Speaker 2:We're going to rectify some things in mission soon, yeah yeah, well, for those that don't know, again, mike is the field rep supervisor for the Westside. He's worn many, many hats but, uh, the one that I got to know the best was legislative affairs, prior to him coming back to field services. And, uh, man, it's always interesting, I'm sure, when you're sitting back I say sitting back when you're, when you're in field services side, when lead is going on, you're, you're, uh, you're very thankful. You know that you're not down at the capitol, but I'm also, you're also kind of probably miss it a little bit.
Speaker 3:I do miss it for sure. But you know walking. You know more than 15,000 steps a day. Easy, you would log 15 flights of stairs. We went through shoes and boots halfway through session.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 3:It was a lot.
Speaker 2:Yeah, it was.
Speaker 3:Even just parking your car. Yeah, yeah, it was a lot. Yeah, it was Even just parking your car. Yeah, yeah, it was challenging.
Speaker 2:Well, speaking of Bacona Sites man, we've got a guest on today that's serving on the Bacona Sites City Council and, man, I'm grateful for you to be here today.
Speaker 1:Thank you, I appreciate it.
Speaker 2:Introduce yourself.
Speaker 1:Juan Manuel Acea, current councilman for the city of Balcones Heights, place three.
Speaker 2:Okay, and we typically like to start the podcast off of kind of where you grew up, how you got involved with politics, and then we'll dive off into let's just call it what it is the shit show going on right there because of the leader at the top.
Speaker 1:Well, born and raised in Laredo, Texas, moved to San Antonio in 1982, been in San Antonio forever. About six years ago we moved to the city of Balcones Heights Very welcoming community, and it got started when we had a tree fall in our front yard. Gentleman across the street we didn't know anybody came over, asked if we needed help. I said yes, he showed up with 10 people ready to help and just that gave us the complete sense of unity of the city.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and as time evolved, he started introducing me as the next city councilman and he just kept introducing me as the next city council that's what we call voluntold voluntold absolutely the gentleman ended up passing. So after his passing my wife and I talked about. We said you know what he did by us. Let's keep paying it forward. That's how we got involved in politics in the city of Balcones Heights.
Speaker 2:Well, talk about also your history. You've had some interactions with law enforcement, working in that industry a little bit. For how long?
Speaker 1:For 30 years I retired from Bexar County Facilities Management. I was a maintenance supervisor for the Adult Detention Center.
Speaker 2:So for 30 years I've been around law enforcement and officers, and just what was your day-to-day operations there? What would a day like your work day look like in that capacity?
Speaker 1:Fixing anything and everything that the officers needed fixed because of the clientele that they had in the detention center.
Speaker 2:And for those who don't know that I've never worked uh in uh in corrections man, those inmates can absolutely do some crazy things with wires, shanks, uh, and they can mess up a lot of stuff. So I'm sure you stayed busy there, uh, at the bear county jail yes, sir, we really did, stayed very, very busy and maintenance guys can be, honestly, your best friend, because if the doors don't lock, uh, you can't get people shut down and get, get people in the racks and uh, it's an interesting job, I'm sure very, very, very interesting well, let's talk about the climate.
Speaker 2:What's going on right now with bacona science? You've served there for four years as a city council place three uh, and there's been some I'm just going to call it lack of leadership right from, uh, the current mayor and kind of uh, how these challenges have kind of arose.
Speaker 1:We do have some challenges and it's a matter of being able to work it out and get to where we can best serve our citizens, and that's my objective, my goal and, at the current rate that we're going, it is extremely difficult.
Speaker 2:Yeah, can you touch on kind of when that, when those challenges began, when, when he took office, um, and how y'all have kind of navigated around that, and how difficult it can be to try to run you know city business in a city council meeting when he completely disregards uh, the way the council meeting should go.
Speaker 1:Pretty much it's. I've done a lot of research and a lot of studying and being ready to prepare myself to serve the community. One of the biggest things that I found is that City of Balcones Heights is a city administrator run government, not a mayor strong government, and the mayor seems to think that he is running a mayor strong government, think that he is running a very strong government. So his thoughts and his beliefs is what has to happen, not taking into account the structure of the city, that it must go through the city council, and he's wanting to do his, his things by his, his approach has?
Speaker 2:has there been a situation that you can kind of pinpoint? Uh, because from our perspective it certainly seems like, you know, he's kind of targeting our cops, he's targeting our members there at Bacona Sites Police Department. Can you think and recall kind of a changing point, a pivot moment, whenever you felt like that happened?
Speaker 1:From day one, the mayor has made comments, accusations, allegations against the police department. To my knowledge, all of those are unfounded, just comments that he's made against the police department. Our police department, in my opinion, is top-notch. We have what we need, our response time is phenomenal, our officers are great people all the way around, all our staff is great all the way around. But for some particular reason, the mayor has chosen to target our police officers and we're going to lead back into targeting.
Speaker 2:Speaking of targeting now, all of a sudden, within I guess about six months ago, this Prop A came up. Can you kind of pinpoint from your perspective of what that would do to the morale of the police department but also for the recruitment and retention of keeping officers there at Bacona sites?
Speaker 1:Again, I try to do a lot of research and studying and understanding the effect of ineffective leadership from the upper management takes a major toll on the officers. For one, I've already know that we know that for a fact. As far as as a pivotal point is how we got to this proposition being on the ballot, the officers, after being mistreated and targeted and whatever other words we can use, submitted a letter of no confidence to the council concerning the mayor. The following month, the mayor led the process to start the initiative to repeal collective bargaining, and it's my opinion and my thought that that is just another blatant act of retaliation.
Speaker 3:I sure hope the mayor wasn't using taxpayer money to repeal this.
Speaker 1:I'm not sure how how that came about. I know they were able to secure several votes to be able to get it on the ballot.
Speaker 2:Not votes, but signatures to put it on the ballot yeah, and I want to talk about that because it's been. There's been some discussion or I mean, I guess, accusations that there was some signatures that were obtained and I don't think that it was explained entirely true about what Prop A actually is to obtain those signatures. Have you heard that too?
Speaker 1:We've been doing our block walking, doing our typical thing, just to get our support and inform our citizens, our residents, of what is Proposition A and what it entails. Some of the people that we've talked to that signed the petition were being told that's not what was explained to me, that's not the way I was told this was going to happen. So we were having to go back and re-educate a lot of the people that signed the petition and telling them no, this is exactly what it means.
Speaker 2:Did they go into detail of how it was explained to them or was it just kind of assumed that it was just incorrect?
Speaker 1:It was told to us. It was not the way it was explained to them and I've had several residents ask me to come back to speak to their spouse because they weren't there at the time we went. So as of today, we've gone back to three residents to sit there and talk to them and explain to them what actually is proposition and then how it will affect our officers in our service and our retention yeah, I mean it's got.
Speaker 3:It's got to be difficult sitting back if you're a civilian sitting at home and you're not involved in what's going on in your city government or your police department and this proposition comes up and you ask about it and they tell you it has to do with collective bargaining and they're like, okay, well, what's that and how long have we had it? They don't know the history. Do they know that citizens actually gave the city of Balcony Heights and the police department the ability to negotiate a contract, police department the ability to negotiate a contract, and now, for no reason, they want to take it away as if it hasn't been working. It's been working all these years. There's that. You know where is. This is nothing but someone with a personal vendetta against the police department and trying to hurt them so you can control more of their budget, and that's kind of a hard pill to swallow for anybody when they know the truth.
Speaker 1:Exactly and I truly understand what you're saying and see what you're saying.
Speaker 2:The other day, or I guess Monday, there was a council meeting and I think it was. Y'all's council meetings are kind of set up a little bit different, in the sense that you've got the economic development portion portion and then it kind of flows into the general session and during the economic development uh portion there was some, there was some discussion about this crime control funding and of course, the mayor during this, this uh, this exchange between the person that was on on the on the podium, essentially said or accused that if we did not have the crime control district they would not be able to fund and then explained that that's the reason why he's trying to withdraw the Prop A. Up to the citizens is that essentially, that the crime control district is the one that supports all the police salaries and if that wasn't in case or that was not intact, then the city would fail. It was miscommunicated and it was corrected by one of your counterparts, your colleagues. Can you go into detail on that?
Speaker 1:My understanding of the crime control fund is designed and for funds to be allocated for crime prevention crime control. The city of Balcones Heights uses some of that funding to support our police officers. That is part of crime control and crime prevention. The whole concept of it being mismanaged and misrun is, in my opinion, another tactic to highlight that the police department or the budgets are not being done appropriately. In my opinion, it's just another method to deter the attention and make it seem like there is no funding to protect our citizens. And how do you feel about that? I think it's false. I think it's false information. We have a budget. Do we have a deficit? Yes, we do. But is collecting is doing away with collective bargaining? The answer Is doing away with public safety. The answer, In my opinion, no, it is not, as the leadership from the city, in my opinion, has not done enough to even get close to looking at doing away with collective bargaining.
Speaker 3:You know, you see this and we've seen this in other cities in the past, where some city leaders think that it is a lot easier and financially puts them in a better position if they just do away with the police department and let the sheriff's office take calls and pay the sheriff's office because they get rid of their liability, their equipment and everything else. But at the end of the day, that's not what the citizens want. They want to know the officer that comes to their house in the middle of the night. When they call them your local businessman, when his alarm goes off at two or three o'clock in the morning, he responds out there and there's an officer waiting for him. He doesn't want to meet a different officer every time he goes out, correct, you're? What's about coney heights?
Speaker 1:I believe one square mile right, a little bit less than one square mile it.
Speaker 3:It's a tight-knit community and you can tell that. I've attended lots of national night out that used to be held in a park and then it moved to City Hall, which is fantastic. That's where it should be and at one point it was just the police officers funding this I know that because TMPA was helping fund the other half Right. And then, as a city, saw what was going on and just the way the community was responding. Then you saw the city starting to put money into it because they knew how important it was and how it impacted the entire community. It was like a day of just everyone has just come together. It is very discouraging and disappointing that someone like this has landed to lead that city, just seeing what was there before and what is there now, that mayor's got to go before and what is there now.
Speaker 1:You know that mayor's got to go. We're working to get the best results we can for our community. We have our challenges but, my colleagues, we're all in it for the betterment of the city and we're going to keep fighting and doing whatever we can to keep our safety, our security, with our officers, and just march, march forward, march forward, march forward, and we're going to get over this hurdle because in my opinion, it is a hurdle that we just need to navigate through it and get us to where we need to be, where we have effective leadership and just be able to move forward and have the city prosper. There's so many things that we as a city need to be doing other than the climate that we're at right now. I know you mentioned the meeting from Monday night. We've got to do something.
Speaker 2:You've mentioned. Obviously, can you explain to the listener, for whatever reason let's say, that some of the citizens in back on the sides listening to this are watching this episode.
Speaker 1:Explain to them why it's important not to support prop a and how you feel um why it was even proposed to begin with and and I'll repeat it again, it is my opinion Proposition A was put on the ballot by Johnny A Rodriguez as an act of retaliation. From day one, he has criticized and insulted our police department. I haven't found the reason, the base of why he dislikes our police department so much. He's made several attempts to terminate officers, terminate the police chief, made false accusations of the officers doing inappropriate things. Officers doing inappropriate things. All this materialized after the officers submitted their letter of no confidence and filed formal grievances for the way they were being treated. As far as taking away the collective bargaining from our officers, that would be a bad thing for us for retention and recruitment. Right now we have top-notch officers. They're doing what they can with what they have. They're providing the services that we need. Taking away collective bargaining, we will not be able to keep our officers, the top-notch officers that we have.
Speaker 2:There on one of the city council meetings several weeks ago I think it was back in March he had mentioned and this is probably one of the things that he's platforming or speaking on when he's in public about the reason my Prop A needs to be removed is that it costs attorney fees. Well, you guys probably just have a retention for attorney for y'all's a city attorney. Is that correct, correct? So if he works 10 hours or 20 hours, y'all probably get billed the same, I would assume, or is he on an hourly?
Speaker 1:basis. It's a contract basis.
Speaker 2:So it's a contract, so it doesn't matter if he works 10 or 20 hours a week. For by-going sites it's still going to pay the same and to my knowledge, yeah. So it wouldn't make any sense.
Speaker 1:That's not a valid reason it is not a valid approach. Being in management, as I was where I retired from Bexar County, we have progressive disciplinary action. We knew we couldn't attempt to terminate anybody without having all our progressive disciplinary paperwork everything in place before we turn it over to the attorney or wherever it had to go. So it's not a matter that it has to go to the attorney before you can do anything. We have done and continue to do all our footwork to make sure that we have the best officers we have and has the city disciplined and dismissed officers without having to go to the attorney just for the basic services.
Speaker 2:So it's not a matter that you cannot terminate anybody because of the collective bargaining okay, just this week the uh, I don't mean to keep staying on top of america's, we're gonna get this. We're gonna get something else here in a minute, but just this week san antonio express headlined uh, bullies with badge says back on the sites. Mayor johnny rodriguez, sadly and I'm sure that there's many there's been many times where you're embarrassed to even say this, but y'all are colleagues to an extent by serving on that city council. What does it say or mean to you when you open up and read those headlines on the Sunday paper, that one of your colleagues that's supposed to be serving and representing the city of Bicona sites in a positive manner? What does it mean to you to serve alongside somebody who would make that kind of comment?
Speaker 1:somebody who would make that kind of comment. It's difficult to move forward and recognizing that there is such a disparity in the approach and taking care of our community, it's troubling, it's disheartening that these comments are being put out without the consensus of the council, without the consensus of the community. Again, I'm going to go back and say this is the approach of one person, not the community and not the council.
Speaker 3:So I'm going to jump forward a little bit. Am I to understand that one of our field reps was down there and was asked to leave at some point during a session?
Speaker 1:If we're referring to the Monday's meeting, several residents were for lack of better words, cut off because of the interpretation that Johnny Rodriguez has on the rules of a public comment.
Speaker 3:Okay, and I've seen some of those videos, the footage it's, if you were to, if anyone in their right mind were to take a look at any of that stuff. This guy's nuts, yeah.
Speaker 2:He's nuts.
Speaker 3:Yeah, there's definitely ego there how does he stay in office is my question yeah.
Speaker 2:Well, hopefully we can change it soon. For sure, I do want to highlight on something very, very, very important for the listener out there that's running, or that is in leadership across as a local association. You right now serving on the council, talk about what you, not only as a citizen, but you as a council member, have appreciated with working with local law enforcement association to make the community safer, make the community better, because if you got, you got to keep in mind our, our service base, our members across the state and so, like I said earlier, we might have somebody in abilene or might have somebody in marshall, texas, that running an association trying to strengthen those relationships with their city council. So it's really cool to get the perspective of a city council person to say, well, this is kind of what I'm looking for and these are positives and these are these are negatives, and this is kind of what I'm looking for in order to strengthen those. What does it look like for you with Balcones Heights?
Speaker 1:With Balcones Heights, with our previous president that we had. He did a phenomenal job of building the relationship with with the community that that is still a work in progress moving forward. Because of that relationship he was able to build, I was able to come in and freely and openly speak and comfortably speak to the association and find out how can we as a city help you and in turn, we are able to ask them. You know how are we going to reciprocate. It's been very easy to communicate with the association, knowing that we have a common goal and we all know our boundaries, but we're able to move forward and communicate our expectations and just continue to grow and make it better for all the way around. It's been phenomenal being able to have that communication, yeah.
Speaker 3:Communication is huge. I want to tell you from doing this job for a little while and working with lots of associations, council members, mayors, county commissioners, judges and even at the state capitol, the relationship is very important. Not making it personal is even more important. If you have an understanding at the beginning that, hey, I will support you, but there will be things that I just can't get on board with, and when that happens, we're still on the same page, we still respect each other and let's move forward. You just you're not going to support me on this one agenda. Okay, I get it, we're going to move on and do something else. But it sounds like this mayor is not like that and everything that is not his way is he's going to take advantage of it and be vindictive on the officers? I mean, he hasn't sat down for one collective bargaining session, correct?
Speaker 1:That I know of no.
Speaker 3:No. So how does he know it doesn't work?
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 3:You know, that contract is used to retain your officers, so that you don't have a constant flow of new officers coming in over and over and over again. If it's a one, two, you know, even a three year contract, an officer likes to see three years down the road where he what he's going to be making. It's it's light at the end of the tunnel sometimes. And without that contract, I will tell you, the city of Balconia Heights will struggle to keep officers, no doubt, and I think the citizens, at the end of the day, the citizens are the ones that are going to suffer, that they're going to feel it.
Speaker 2:To the Balconia Heights police officer listening to this podcast that are going to suffer, that they're going to feel it To the Buckeye Heights Police Officer listening to this podcast for watching this episode message from you, ladies and gentlemen, officers of the city of Buckeye Heights, on my behalf and that my colleagues, that we all support you.
Speaker 1:We want you to stay with us. Keep providing the service you're doing. Allow us to work for you in the backside. Your jobs are stressful enough without having to deal with this stuff. Let us work for you to help us continue to take care of us. That is what I am willing to commit and have committed from the beginning, and at the very beginning, I told everybody that public safety was going to be one of my priorities and I'm sticking to it because that is paramount. That is what's going to Make us, that's what's going to help us grow. Without proper security, without the proper safety, pretty much we're at a loss. Yeah, yeah. So, officers of the City of Balcones Heights and officers everywhere, thank you for what you do. We appreciate you.
Speaker 2:There you go, there you go. I'm not sure if we can top that one. No, perfect, best day and worst day serving on the city council with buccaneer sites best day and worst day.
Speaker 1:Serving the city of buccaneer heights as council, being recognized as a pillar, as a one of moving forward, one that listens to the community, have citizens come up and ask how can we help you? Negative days, not so good days being asked to leave a meeting, being police escorted out of a meeting For wanting to bring right to the employees of the city of Balcones Heights. Going back to another positive of the rewarding things and doing my block walking and talking to the citizens. Having the citizens come back and say we appreciate what you're doing. We know it's difficult, we know it's tough. Thank you for working for us. Those are the highlights why I enjoy doing this.
Speaker 2:That's awesome well, we typically like to end each show. Mike, you got anything else? No, I'm good. Okay, we typically like to end the show, if you do have a little bit of law enforcement background with three rapid fire questions. I hope you didn't study.
Speaker 1:No.
Speaker 2:All right, no. What's your favorite cop car? What's your favorite line from a law enforcement movie, if you can even recall one, and what's your favorite drink of choice?
Speaker 1:Okay, you're going to have to repeat them again. What's?
Speaker 2:your favorite cop car.
Speaker 1:Favorite cop car. We're going to go with Tahoe, I guess.
Speaker 2:Okay, and what's your favorite line from a cop movie? It could be any cop movie out there.
Speaker 3:It's okay to say Buckham Donald.
Speaker 2:And what's your favorite drink of choice when you're relaxing with your lovely wife there at your house? Adult beverage.
Speaker 1:We're going to have to say the mango margarita From, am I allowed to say where Tequila Jalisco on Fredericksburg Road In the beautiful city of Balcones Heights.
Speaker 2:I'll have to try that out. One day I'll have to come in there and visit you guys. Was it mango? Mango margarita? Oh yeah, Me and Mike may have to make a trip on that one.
Speaker 3:Yeah, is that a big glass?
Speaker 1:Yeah, it's a big glass and you get the choice of tahini or oh yeah.
Speaker 2:Well, I can't thank you enough for coming on. It really speaks volumes for your dedication to law enforcement, for public safety and honestly I'll just go ahead and say it there should be a lot more elected officials out there that should follow in your footsteps and link arms with us, because the reality is that public safety should be supported by all, and that includes our elected officials. So I greatly appreciate it. Yes, sir Mike, you got anything else bud?
Speaker 3:No, I will leave you with a barbecue tip. Okay, all right. Last time we talked about fire, yes, you know so I had this question last time was how do I get my ribs nice and shiny like I see on tv or on facebook? Uh, if you're doing a method where you wrap your ribs, if you're going to add a little bit of butter to that wrap when you put those ribs back into that foil, put the ribs upside down, meat down, bone up, okay, and let them cook for another hour or two in there. When you flip that side over, that glaze will be on there. Just rub some barbecue sauce for the next 30 minutes there you go, can't lose with that. The next 30 minutes there you go. Can't lose with that.
Speaker 2:Can't lose. There you go. Well, there's your barbecue tip from Mike Gomez man. Again, thank you so much for coming on, mike. It was good having you in. Man, you have to get more often. Do this more often, we'll see. We'll see you guys. Take care, stay safe. It's getting hot outside, so you know what that means. Calls for service are fixed to go through the roof and we don't want you guys getting hurt. National Peace Office Memorial Week is coming up next month and we'll provide updates of those here in a couple weeks. Take care, stay safe. God bless you and, as always, may God bless Texas. We're out the. The name Zafira means ''Pure'' Religion, ''major'' Religion, ''muslim''. The name Zafira means ''Clean'' in Arabic.
Speaker 3:Religion ''Pure'' Religion ''Major'' Religion ''Muslim'' the Thank you.
