Rio Grande City suspends police chief — again

McALLEN, Texas (ValleyCentral) — The Rio Grande City Commission suspended police Chief Noe Castillo on Tuesday for the second time in less than a month.

The City Commission originally suspended Castillo in November, when an internal investigation revealed faulty water meters had cost Rio Grande City more than $1 million.

Castillo responded with a lawsuit, which claimed Rio Grande City had violated the Texas Open Meetings Act. He demanded the City Commission discuss his suspension in public.

So the City Commission did.

During a meeting on Tuesday afternoon, the City Commission spent more than 40 minutes discussing the internal investigation — and suspended Castillo again.

“Mr. Noe Castillo has been asked to be present here today. He has been summoned to be here,” said Mayor Gilberto Falcon. “And he has refused to be here today to address the Commission.”

Castillo is well-known in Starr County, where he serves on the Rio Grande City Grulla school board and supervises the Rio Grande City Police Department.

From November 2020 to June 2024, he also doubled as the de facto city manager. During that period, Rio Grande City couldn’t account for millions of gallons of water.

In 2023, the city pumped more than 1 billion gallons of water from the Rio Grande.

The city, however, couldn’t account for about half the water, according to a report filed with the Texas Water Development Board. It had been pumped from the river and treated by Rio Grande City but never showed up on customer water bills.

In 2024, when Falcon joined the City Commission, he demanded answers.

An internal investigation discovered that major water customers, including the Starr County jail, South Texas College and the El Sauz Water Supply Corporation, had faulty meters.

Finance Director Leonel Cantu summarized the investigation during the meeting on Tuesday afternoon.

Cantu said Rio Grande City charged the county jail about $12,000 per month for approximately 2 million gallons of water.

“And then, all of the sudden, the next billing cycle it came out with a zero consumption,” Cantu said. “And nobody said anything about that.”

The meter showed zero consumption for about 29 months, Cantu said. As a result, Rio Grande City only charged the minimum amount.

“The minimum — I want to say, I don’t remember — it was $250 or $800,” Cantu said.

South Texas College also had abnormally low water usage for about 40 months.

“It wasn’t at zero consumption, but it was at, like, the bare minimum,” Cantu said. “They were using like 20,000 gallons.”

Rio Grande City suspected the meter was faulty, Cantu said, and installed a replacement.

The new water meter showed South Texas College used 1.8 million to 2 million gallons per month. Cantu estimated the faulty meter had cost the city about $15,000 per month during that 40-month period.

Rio Grande City discovered another faulty water meter at the El Sauz Water Supply Corporation.

The city sells water to El Sauz, which serves customers in rural parts of Starr County.

Cantu said Rio Grande City sold about 60 million gallons of water to El Sauz one year and just 6 million another year.

That didn’t make sense, Cantu said, so he asked El Sauz for customer billing information.

The information showed El Sauz had sold more water to customers than it had actually received from Rio Grande City.

“For example, one month we would bill them 800,000 gallons and they would bill 4 million,” Cantu said.

Cantu estimated the faulty meter for El Sauz cost Rio Grande City about $250,000.

Rio Grande City also replaced six other water meters that had irregular readings.

“I don’t have the exact figures as far as to how much we’ve lost on those,” Cantu said. “But just on quick calculations that we did earlier this morning, I think it was close to $200,000.”

CBS 4 News could not independently verify the information Cantu provided to members of the City Commission.

In mid-November, a reporter submitted a public information request to Rio Grande City for water bills sent to South Texas College and the Starr County Sheriff’s Office.

Rio Grande City responded on Tuesday afternoon, asking for more time to produce the documents.

City Commissioner Rogerio Olivarez Jr. said he didn’t know Rio Grande City couldn’t account for so much water.

“What we’re doing right now is we’re looking at the facts that have been obtained,” Olivarez said. “And trying to apply them retroactively to something that was happening when Mr. Castillo was in charge.”

Olivarez said the City Commission had occasionally discussed the issue but didn’t make it a priority. He seemed apprehensive about holding Castillo accountable for the lost water.

“And, as a matter of fact, the one person that I remember mentioning the possibility of faulty meters was Mr. Castillo,” Olivarez said. “But we kind of dismissed it because we figured that it couldn’t be that all the meters were going faulty at the same time.”

The City Commission thought it was more likely that Rio Grande City had a leak or people had tampered with the meters, Olivarez said.

“I wish that he would have been here. Perhaps he could have given us a reasonable explanation as to why he didn’t go and check out the meters. But he’s not here.”

Falcon said.

The city never told Castillo he needed to attend the meeting, said his attorney, Jay Peña of Rio Grande City.

Peña said he wanted to read a statement during the meeting, but the mayor didn’t let him speak.

“I don’t understand. This is unprecedented,” Peña said. “I’ve never seen it in my life.”

Castillo is being targeted for political reasons, Peña said, not because of faulty water meters.

“It’s just a pretext,” Peña said.