TOWN TAINTED BY LEGACY OF CORRUPTION

Arrest of police chief latest Donna scandal

DONNA -- In this small city that calls itself "The Heart of the Valley,"
some stout hearts will be needed to overcome the stigma of recent history.

Two weeks ago -- and for the second time in five years -- Donna's chief of
police was arrested on federal corruption charges.

Chief Marco Abel Partida, nephew of a presiding state district judge, was
arrested by FBI agents who contend he took bribes from a drug trafficker. A
different police chief was arrested on drug conspiracy charges in 1997.

Partida's dramatic arrest Nov. 12 at the tiny police station came as Donna
residents were still on edge from the execution-style slayings of four young
Mexican barmaids, gunned down after leaving work at a local tavern. The
homicides, committed in September just outside the city, remain unsolved.

The events followed what seems like an unending series of gaffes and
missteps in Donna, including the televised spectacle of a city council
meeting that featured the previous mayor head-butting a council member who
questioned his sobriety.

Today, Donna's only municipal swimming pool is sealed up, the many gangs
that plague the town have tagged vacant homes and buildings with satanic
imagery, and the political infighting has become legendary.

Industrial recruitment is lagging, as the city's Chamber of Commerce was
recently closed after it failed to pay federal taxes on employees' income.

Rick Vasquez / Special to the Chronicle Today, a single playset for children
stands where Donna's only municipal swimming was. Officials sealed the pool
because of a lack of funds for upkeep. "To the people around the community,
the city of Donna is just a big joke the way politics go down there," said
farmer Jimmy Steidinger, who lives just north of town.

Abel Ramirez, who with his wife owns Ramirez Tile in downtown Donna, said
the police chief's recent arrest "is wild."

"Come on. Two of them (police chiefs arrested) already? There's got to be
something going on -- maybe everyone is corrupt," said Ramirez.

Many residents say the grinding poverty that pervades the Rio Grande Valley
is at the crux of Donna's problems. There is ample evidence of the extreme
need on the narrow city streets and weedy barrios, where dilapidated homes
and abandoned buildings abound.

Donna, a town of 12,652 residents dependent largely on agricultural
employment, is in Hidalgo County, which grew an astounding 48 percent
between 1990 and 2000, according to the U.S. Census Bureau. But a full 36
percent of the county's 590,000 residents live below the poverty line, and
the per capita income is $9,899 -- compared with a $19,617 state average.

While other cities in the county, including McAllen, Edinburg and Weslaco,
have managed to attract new businesses, Donna has seen only a restaurant or
two open up, residents say.

And since Donna has relatively few private employers, most work is found
among the 90 city jobs or the 1,865 positions at the school district. As a
result, local school board and city hall races are often bitterly contested,
with supporters of one candidate or the other expecting to be rewarded with
public jobs.

"One of the biggest problems we have is we really don't have any industry in
the community, so the public relies on the school district to provide jobs,"
said businessman Albert Sandoval, who stepped down from the Donna school
board earlier this year after nine years as a trustee. "And the providing of
jobs is where you get the political instability."

Sandoval said studies by the state's education agency, the school board
association and the comptroller's office have all shown the Donna school
district has more employees than it needs.

"That was the one thing I was tired of the most -- the state agencies saying
we were heavy on personnel but still the political pressure remained" to
parcel out jobs as a reward for support, Sandoval said.

In August, Texas Comptroller Carole Keeton Rylander completed an exhaustive
study of the Donna school district, and concluded it was "considerably
overstaffed in auxiliary personnel, which includes custodial, maintenance,
transportation, food service and clerical staff."

Despite all the extra help, the percentage of Donna students passing the
Texas Assessment of Academic Skills tests has risen only 3 percent, from
57.7 percent in 1996-97 to the current 61 percent. The figure is lower than
other South Texas schools of comparable size, and below the average for all
schools in the region.

Donna schools are spending $72.6 million this school year to educate 10,451
schoolchildren, 90 percent of whom are economically disadvantaged. The
district is among the poorest 2 percent of Texas school districts, with
$44,789 in property value per student, a fraction of the $236,543 per
student average in the state, the study noted.

The comptroller's study found the district did not have curriculum guides,
or work plans, for 308 of the courses it offered, perhaps helping to explain
why the average SAT score of Donna students is 110 points below the state
average.

"It seems we always were regressing and lost focus on education," said
Sandoval, owner of All-Valley Pools in Donna. "It was who's going to hire
who, and how many, and that goes in line with the poverty level down here."

Despite years of unflattering publicity, many retain their optimism.

"There are so many good people in this town. It's just unfortunate the 10
percent who are bad are really, really bad," observed Ernie Galvan, who
sells property and casualty insurance at his Donna agency.

Mario Rivas, a longtime Donna resident who owns Rivas Supermarket, believes
Donna's problems are a reflection of the erosion of the family.

And Rivas said the vast sums of money associated with the drug trade are a
continual lure.

"Some children have said, `I want to be a drug dealer because I'll have
money.' That's the idol," the grocer said.

Neither Donna's mayor nor city manager returned calls, but City Attorney
Javier Villalobos acknowledged the chief's arrest "is a setback."

However, Villalobos said, Partida is well-respected by his officers and led
efforts to restore integrity in the department. He said Partida resigned his
position effective Nov. 30.

"He's a good man, but if he did something wrong, he's going to have to face
the music," Villalobos said. "Let me tell you, he was doing a very good job,
an exemplary job. That's why this surprised everyone."

In September 1997, a federal grand jury indicted a former Donna police chief
and six other officers on charges they took money to escort loads of
marijuana through town. The latest charges are nearly identical.

Partida and former Donna police officer Gerardo Vigil are each charged with
accepting $3,200 last year to assist a drug trafficker. Both have pleaded
not guilty.

Villalobos said the alleged trafficker is a former Hidalgo County lawman and
Partida's friend. A source close to the Donna Police Department, who asked
not to be identified, speculated that Partida may have become unknowingly
involved by doing a favor for the alleged trafficker, who once worked with
the chief.

"They suckered him somehow. Maybe someone took advantage of a friendship,"
the source said.

Meanwhile, Villalobos said Donna officials will continue working at city
improvements, including a street-paving project and sprucing up of parks.

And a bit of good news came with the results of the mandatory drug testing
of 90 city employees, conducted a week after the chief was arrested. Only
three employees tested positive, and one of those claimed a prescription
drug triggered a false positive, Villalobos said.

"I myself was praying, `Please don't make it a high number,' " the city
attorney said. "I was expecting more, so I was very pleasantly surprised."