Abuse of our firefighters - Cleaning up the Guadalupe Rebar

Back in April and May I wrote about the City Manager, David Huseman, dumping the old St. George Street into the Guadalupe River. I wrote that he had authorized the dumping of concrete with the rebar still in it and lead pipe into our river. He was quoted as saying, "I didn't think I needed permission to dump into the Guadalupe." Pictures were put into the Gonzales Cannon showing the rebar and pipe.

Official complaints were filed with the TCEQ and the Corp of Engineers by the water authority and private citizens (myself included).

So now that the Corp of Engineers is coming to town to look at the dumping in the Guadalupe River, the city manager, David Huseman ordered the fire department to use it's resources to go clean up his mess this last Monday.

Our firemen were down on the river removing rebar using the equipment that is suppose to be used to pull people out of cars and fallen buildings. What an abuse of power and resources!

How would you like to of been in the car accident and be told, "Oh, I'm sorry but our fire department is busy cleaning up the cities mess, please call back in a few hours and we'll be glad to help."

Now Mr. Huseman has told us time and again that there was nothing wrong with dumping in the Guadalupe river. That the lead and rebar that was in concrete he dumped was for shoring up the shoreline and he was allowed to do all that. So why now is he using city resources to remove it? Why not just wait till the Corp of Engineers gets here and show them he's done nothing wrong? Why is he scrambling?

Second, why would you put anyone in jeopardy by taking our fire department and put them down by the river with all their equipment in use? I know for a fact that the firemen are not happy at all that they were abused for this purpose. This wasn't an emergency, this was David Huseman covering his rear!!!

I would love to of heard that conversation between the city manager and the fire chief.

"Chief I need your guys to run down to the river, pull out those expensive saws of your and get that stuff out of here before the Corp of Engineers gets her next week."

"But we're not road workers, we're firemen. Call City Parks or Road Department."

"Chief, I'm not asking, I'm telling you, get those guys out of there now! They're not union, so I can have them digging ditches if I want."

I would love to know what the chief thinks about all this, but I can't imagine he's at all happy that his firemen were being used not to save lives, but to save the city managers butt.

So 1) were we lied to before and there IS something wrong with dumping in the Guadalupe? (*DUH*) 2) Was the fire department resources misused and misappropriated to clean up what didn't need to be cleaned up? 3) Were we praying that we wouldn't have another major accident while the fire department were pulled away from the fire department to do this task? I know I wouldn't of wanted that lawsuit if someone wasn't rescued because they were busy doing another departments job.

So what is it Mr. Huseman? Is the rebar OK or not? You admitted you put it there in taped interviews, so are you going back on your word now? Oh wait, that's just status quo for you isn't it? Wouldn't it have been nice if Mr. Huseman would of originally said, "Wow, sorry I messed up, we'll get that right out of the river" instead of all these games we have been playing?

Gonzales, when are you going to get pissed about the lies, the spending of your money to clean up the messes, the abuse of power, the ...deep breath...do I get my point across? Call your councilman, let him know you're pissed and we're not going to take it anymore!

I guess the one good thing in this is the rebar is gone. It should NEVER have been put into the river in the first place. It's a safety hazard, and against the law.

God Bless,
Dennis Nesser