Galvan under investigation

Questions center around Pct. 1 County Commissioner payments for riprap
Calhoun County Pct. 1 commissioner Roger Galvan is the subject of an investigation, but there is some confusion as to just who is handling that investigation.

The investigation is focusing on payments made by the county to RBI Contractors for a concrete rubble-type material called riprap. It is often used to help prevent beach erosion.

Earlier this year, The Port Lavaca Wave received documentation of several allegations of questionable practices by Galvan.

In a signed letter, dated Dec. 9, 2014, Calhoun County District Attorney Dan Heard requested the assistance of Texas Rangers in the investigation of “Allegations of Calhoun County employee alleging possible criminal conduct by County Commissioner, Roger Galvan.”

This letter did not meet the Texas Ranger criteria for investigation, and Rangers requested that the scope be narrowed before opening an investigation.

In a follow-up letter dated April 28, 2015, Heard responded, “As per the suggestion of the Ranger Service, I have narrowed the focus of my request for assistance. After further review of the allegations, I ask that those regarding the purchase of riprap be investigated by the Rangers.” This letter, obtained through an open records request, was unsigned, but Heard did confirm that he sent the letter.

“It is an open investigation,” Heard said.

Heard also said the investigation is not at a standstill.

“There have been things done in pursuant of the investigation,” he said. “Like all things, there are some starts and stops. It’s not just sitting there.”

In response to his April 28 letter, the Rangers requested that the district attorney be more specific. Monday Heard responded, “No comment,” when asked if that letter had been sent.

According to the Texas Department of Public Safety Public Information Officer Ruben San Miguel, the Rangers do not have an open investigation into the matter at this time.

“I spoke to Ranger Drew Pilkington and he confirmed that there is not an open investigation on the part of the Rangers at this point, nor has there ever been,” San Miguel said.

While the Rangers have confirmed that they are not currently involved in the investigation, attorneys with DPS requested a ruling by the Texas Attorney General’s Office in response to The Wave’s request for documents.

In her letter to the AG’s Office, DPS Assistant General Counsel Molly Cost stated, “At this time, the release of potential evidence would interfere with investigation and prosecution of this matter.”

“Consequently, the department believes these responsive records are excepted from required public disclosure, at least until the investigation is complete,” she further stated.

The material in question:

In January, The Wave began its own investigation.

According to records obtained from the Calhoun County Treasurer’s Office through an open records request, 26 checks were made out to RBI Contractors since Feb. 2011, with Aron Luna endorsing the majority of those checks. A total amount of $142,495 was paid to RBI Contractors during that time period.

Amounts for riprap ranged from $3,640 to $7,280 each for 24 of those checks. One check in the amount of $2,200 was for topsoil and another check in the amount of $1,200 was for water system repairs.

Luna said he acts as a “broker” through RBI Contractors. According to Luna, RBI Contractors was formed in the late 1980s or early 1990s as a partnership between Israel “Rocky” Gonzales, his son Ben Gonzales and Aron Luna. The company, Luna said, disbanded in 1990 after an accident left one of its employees dead.

Ben Gonzales said he and his father, Rocky, did some work for RBI for about a year in the late 1980s, but did not have any ownership in the company.

“It was Aron’s company from day one,” Ben Gonzales said.

Luna continues to do business as RBI Contractors. However, neither the Calhoun County Clerk’s office nor the Texas Secretary of State show a name filing recorded for RBI Contractors. Most of the payments made by the county to RBI Contractors were endorsed and cashed by Aron Luna. The signature on the copies is consistent with other official documents signed by Luna.

Luna said he facilitates numerous types of jobs, including hauling sand and riprap.

“I’ll call somebody, and then what they do, they go ahead and deliver it. I’m just the broker,” Luna said.

Melissa Lester with Lester Contracting, Inc., Felipe Gonzales with Gonzales Contracting and Rudy Rivera with Rivera Trucking have all hauled riprap, which was delivered near the Calhoun County Fairgrounds in Port Lavaca or the beach area, both of which are in Precinct 1. However, all said that they have never hauled for Luna. None have charged the county or received payment from the county for delivering riprap, they said, which county records also confirm.

“I would say we delivered quite a bit of concrete through the years to the location that’s probably in question, and that’s behind the fairgrounds,” Gonzales said. “It’s always been more of a courtesy and really a place for us to be able to get rid of concrete rubble. You can’t just get rid of it anywhere. That’s been a location for us, but we have never, ever received one cent or charged for a load.”

Gonzales further stated it is his company’s practice to use trucking tickets for material hauled.

Through the years, Lester Contracting has also disposed of riprap for county use, but has not charged for the material.

“We have hauled concrete for the county,” Lester said. “I couldn’t even tell you how many times or when. On jobs that we’ve had concrete and we need a place to dispose of it, so either they have said, ‘Hey, if you ever have any, let us know,’ or we call them and say, ‘We have some, can you use it?’”

“We haul it,” Lester added. “Either our trucks haul it, or if we don’t have trucks available we would have to hire trucks, that could be hired like Gonzales or Rudy Rivera or Bronco Trucking, anybody that we use, but we paid those truckers because that’s our job. And the county’s not paying for that concrete. That’s a way for us to dispose of it. We have to get rid of it, and if we can put it down on the beach somewhere for the county or whoever for erosion prevention instead of them having to buy stuff, we have to get rid of it.”

Lester also said that it is the practice of Lester Contracting to use delivery tickets as documentation.

“If somebody hauls for us, we have those haul tickets,” Lester said. “ We have a way to show it, because they’re going to bill me.”

While Rudy Rivera is not currently driving, he previously delivered concrete for county use and explained how a typical transaction worked.

“The only money I get is from the customer,” Rivera said. “Say I do a job and I quote that job $1,000. That’s included with disposal, but that comes from the customer. Now, if I need disposal, I’ll call Roger or the beach, or I’ve even delivered some at Six Mile. I say, ‘Hey look, do you have room so I could dump some concrete,’ because they always wanted concrete, and they say, ‘Yeah, yeah we’ll open the gate for you,’ and I’ll go back to the back and dump it or I’ll go to the beach and dump it, but there never was no invoices for me. There was no money exchanged or anything like that.”

In the course of three interviews with Luna, he said that those who continue to haul material for him are Rivera, along with Israel “Rocky” Gonzales of Rocky’s Excavating.

“Rocky delivers, and then I’ll get it from Rudy Rivera Trucking or whoever has the stuff. He is the only one that handles riprap,” Luna said.

Rivera, however, said he has not driven a vehicle since early 2013 when he had a medical condition requiring surgery. Rivera returned to work last year in October, but not as a driver, he said.

“I’m a supervisor right now. I’m not able to drive. It’s still my company,” he said.

In addition to Rivera being unable to drive, Rocky Gonzales died March 13, 2014 at age 76. He was incapacitated for six-toeight months prior to his death according to Ben Gonzales.

Luna said the last transaction he had with Rocky Gonzales was in December 2014. He also stated that he paid Rocky Gonzales in cash, and no trip tickets or invoices were issued.

“It’s all cash-based,” Luna said, about how he handled his business as part of RBI Contractors.

When asked how payment was calculated, Luna fumbled a bit for words before stating, “It was contract. It was all percentage.”

According to Luna, he did not receive paperwork stating how much was owed to the drivers.

“They just..they just..they would just..they dropped off. It would have been dropped off. They would call me. Like say you’re over here and you drop off six loads, five loads, three loads. I really don’t know until they tell me,” Luna said.

In response to the question, “That would be Rocky, then, that told you that?”

Luna again confirmed that it was Rocky who delivered and received the cash payments.

“How many loads, yeah,” he said. “ Well, Rocky, that’s who I used, and Rocky has to find it somewhere else. He’s a broker, too.

“Yes, three loads here five loads. When…when…when… they request it you just have to, you just can’t get it. You just have to wait for what’s available. You might get so much here, so much here, so much here, so much here. It’s not just…it’s not a set, what do you call it?”

When asked “Does Roger get any kickback from using you?” Luna responded “Nah.”

Galvan’s involvement:

When questioned, Galvan initially referred questions to the district attorney’s office:

“The best thing you can do is visit with them (the DA’s office) first because they’re the ones that check everything out, whatever it is that you’re talking about. Is it that riprap?” Galvan said.

“We have a bad tendency of always making decision and ordering, you know, for certain things.” Galvan said. “I guess the biggest problem we’ve had in the past, really, is never documenting things as long as the things get done, and this is one of the biggest problems that I have and everybody’s had, so all that’s being rectified, but it’s just one of them situations that, I don’t know, it just, uh, the work got done.”

Galvan confirmed that he purchased riprap through Luna.

“I set up Aron Luna because he owned RBI Contractors,” Galvan said. “At the time I didn’t know he owned it. I talked to Rocky Gonzales in the past. I told him, ‘Rocky, you’ve got all the connections in the world. Send me the truck drivers and I’ll pay them this much. If you guys got a little contract and y’all want to charge them a percentage, that’s up to you. I don’t care. I just want one contract. I don’t want to have 200.’ That’s what I was trying to avoid, and that’s what we did. He got all the paperwork, and we handled it. I never saw anything wrong with what we did.”

“They came to Aron. Aron would pay them, and I would just give Aron one check because he owned that RBI Contractors,” Galvan said.

Galvan contends, later in the conversation, that everything was documented.

“Everything was documented. It was documented, he said. “All that you have to report to the IRS. It was nothing illegal.”

When asked where the documentation was, Galvan referred to Luna.

“Yep. Well, you would call them. Joe (Galvan) would count them and Aron wrote them all down, so Aron, whenever I needed them, he would just give them to me. That was it,” Galvan said. Joe Galvan is not related to Roger Galvan.

“We were only doing about 60, 50, 60 trucks, maybe 30 trucks a month sometimes,” he added.

“There’s a lot of people that want to give you free riprap. But when they give you free riprap, they give you what they don’t want and it’s junk, and I can’t use that,” Galvan said.

The Wave has been unable substantiate Luna’s claims that Rocky delivered riprap to the county in the months and years prior to his death. In the six months prior to Rocky Gonzales’s death, during the time that he was incapacitated, there were four invoices submitted and paid for 176 loads of riprap.

Luna’s claims that Rocky delivered 135 loads after his death have also not been substantiated, though three more invoices were submitted by Luna, and approved by Galvan, since that time.

The only riprap that The Wave has found that was delivered to the county was through other sources, which gave the riprap for free.

Galvan is the only commissioner that has paid for riprap. Commissioners Vern Lyssy, Kenneth Finster, and Neil Fritsch, all of which have shoreline in their precincts stated that they do not pay for riprap.

Invoices from RBI stopped after the investigation was opened and there have been not been invoices from RBI to the county in 2015. The last invoice submitted to county by RBI was in the amount of $1,200 dated Dec. 31, 2014, and paid Jan. 22, 2015. That invoice was for water line repairs. The most recent invoice for riprap was dated Dec. 11, 2014, for $6,885. It was paid Dec. 22, 2014.

While Heard said the investigation is “not just sitting there,” The Wave has been unable to locate any source, with the exception of Luna and Galvan, that has been questioned by the District Attorney’s office or law enforcement officials in regards to the allegations.

Officials with both the Port Lavaca Police Department and the Calhoun County Sheriff’s Office have confirmed that they are not involved in the investigation.

A final note:

Through the course of The Wave’s investigation, it was discovered that on at least one occasion, Galvan had travel expenses for which he received advance payment, but also used his county vehicle and gas.

Galvan traveled in his company vehicle to attend the South Texas Judges and Commissioners Conference held at South Padre Island June 8-12, 2014. In May 2014, in an Advance Travel Expense report signed by him, Galvan requested $498.44. Upon returning from the conference, Galvan submitted the required out of county travel expense form, also signed by him. On that form, Galvan certified he had spent $205 for meals and had driven his personal vehicle 524 miles at 56 cents per mile for total transportation costs of $293.44. That report was dated June 19, 2014.

When questioned by a Wave reporter, Galvan stated that it only happened one time.

“One time. That happened one time,” Galvan said. “I was going to take my personal vehicle to go up there. I’m entitled to take either one. Now, it happened one time. Out of the whole 16 years, it only happened one time. That was for one weekend.”

Galvan did confirm that he was aware that he owed the money, but never paid it back.

“I never did, and that was my fault. I was going to, and then I just got busy running around and I didn’t. I think that trip was probably $100 or $200, I don’t remember.” Galvan said. “Returning the $100, $200, isn’t going to kill me. “It was just a mistake on my part.”

Galvan did not offer an explanation as to why he certified after the fact that he had driven his personal vehicle when in fact he had traveled in his county truck.

Wave reporters questioned Galvan about the advance payment the morning of Friday, May 22. Later that afternoon Galvan reimbursed the county in the amount of $498.44, almost a year after the documents were falsified.