McAllen school board trustees heard a novel update last Tuesday: their administration told them that not only do they have surplus money on hand, but they have an awful lot of surplus money on hand.   Texas requires school districts to keep 75 days worth of operating expenses available in their fund balances, basically their…

Six siblings claimed in a lawsuit this summer that an Edinburg funeral home mixed up their mother’s ashes with a stranger’s.   The 75-year-old woman — called Maria F. Garcia in the suit but Maria F. Davila in other court documents and a death notice — died at her home in Edinburg this February of…

A federal lawsuit filed in August claims that the city of Mission violated the rights of a man with mental disabilities after the city’s jail released him with such bad injuries he had to be intubated and admitted into a hospital’s intensive care unit.   At about 10:30 in the morning one December day in…

The Agua Special Utility District is planning on swearing in three board directors this fall, two of whom are new to the board and one who isn’t.   All of those changes are slightly nuanced.   The familiar face on the board is Adriana Villarreal.     Villarreal filed to run for a seat on…

The family of a woman killed earlier this month in a suspected hit-and-run collision in Peñitas is offering a $3,000 reward for information leading to an arrest in the investigation.   At about 8:25 p.m. on Sept. 4, the Peñitas Police Department responded to the 3400 block of Tom Gill Road, a little north of…

In an agreement signed earlier this month, Harlingen school board trustees agreed to pay Superintendent J.A. Gonzalez $264,262.88 to resign and promised to use school district money to hide whatever led to that resignation from the public.     Gonzalez resigned suddenly early this month after a year at the district’s helm.   He signed…

Hidalgo County hired recently retired McAllen City Manager Roel “Roy” Rodriguez as a consultant Tuesday.     Rodriguez, whose long tenure at the helm in McAllen was lauded everywhere from McAllen City Hall to the halls of Congress last week, lasted less than four days in retirement before returning to public service.   “I hadn’t…

The Mission Police Department suspended one of its sergeants for two days without pay this June after an internal investigation sustained complaints from subordinates who said he’d behaved inappropriately.   The department did so after Police Chief Cesar Torres criticized the manner in which those complaints were submitted and after the police department initially responded…

The Peñitas Police Department is asking for the public’s help in identifying the driver in a suspected hit-and-run crash that left one woman dead last week.   According to a release from the department, officers responded to the scene of a collision in the 3400 block of Tom Gill Road, a little north of 3…

Last year a deputy United States marshal from Harlingen who’d previously been lauded for his courage in a shootout found himself in a much less decorous position.   According to an incident report from the Hidalgo County Sheriff’s Office, Deputy United States Marshal Mario Antonio Loya spent the better part of two hours detained by…