David Arevelo and NFA Fall Out

There has been a flood of accusations that local politico David Arevelo is threatening to sue the Neighborhoods Alliance (NFA) and TC Calvert over the Redifuel zoning flap and an accusation that he owns the name of NFA. Aside from the name issue Redifuel lost a bid to gain a zoning change that NFA says would have been beneficial to the community, and the ROSE organization that claimed it would be further evidence of environmental racism. According to sources close to the NFA, former community activist David Arevelo, now turned politician, is angry about charges that he was secretly trying to get close associates and relatives financial contracts with the Redifuel Corporation. This was supposedly the deal that Arevelo was trying to broker between Redifuel and himself. Redifuel was proposing to construct the building of a business office that would be built if the zoning case were approved by City Council. Allegedly, in exchange for these contracts Arevelo was supposed to support Redifuel in a zoning case that went before city council. These allegations surfaced after a NFA community meeting between the Police Chief William McManus at the Claude Black Center a few months back.

At that meeting it was alleged that the owner of Redifuel supposedly refused the deal and Arevelo changed his position from one of support for the Redifuel zoning case to actively campaigning against it. Arevelo represents an environmental group known as Residents Organized for a Safe Environment (ROSE) organization. ROSE is suppose to be a member of the Neighborhoods First Alliance, but reports indicate that the ROSE organization may have left the NFA because of the Redifuel flap and these accusations. Allegedly, after Arevelo could not get construction contracts for relatives and associates he went before the City Council to oppose the zoning. This is may be an old pimping the movement ploy that has existed in our community for some time. According to community sources Arevelo is angry and is threatening to sue the NFA because they acted on this zoning case without ROSE approval. But members of the NFA claim that is was Arevelo that set up his own private approach with Redifuel and a secret deal for construction contracts. Arevelo has denied the charges at a community meeting a few months back, but the issue has not gone away. True or false it certainly threatens to derail Arevelo’s chance of running any credible campaigns in District 2, and may raise questions about ethics and using community-based organizations to get personal wealth.

Though all of this appears to be political at this point this is not something new in San Antonio. There have been allegations in the past that several well known individuals have used community-based organizations, or fake ones, which are just vehicles to siphon off money from businesses while claiming to represent community concerns. One individual was actually going around and threatening business owners with code compliance complaints if they did not fork over money to some cause. This under federal law is extortion, which does not necessarily involve the use of a weapon. Anyone threatening to pressure an individual with legal action or something that would be legal under any other circumstance is involved in blackmail and could be prosecuted for it under the blackmail statues at the federal level or state level. If the intent is to force money or favor out of an individual a crime has been committed. This activity is illegal and could result in criminal charges against individuals that may be black mailing business owners, Mafia style, into giving over money or financial favor in exchange for not carrying out some legal activity.

Here are some examples. If an individual threatens you with a code-compliance compliant because you support some political effort or asks you to hand over money for some project and you don’t, then the law is being used for an illegal activity. If a news reporter threatens to release some story unless you “pay up” this may be extortion or blackmail depending on if money exchanged hands or not. I actually know of a business owner that was threatened because he would not buy a business add from another business owner.

Right now all of this is just political posturing it appears, but it could turn into something worse if more facts begin to surface. No one knows for sure if any law suits or criminal charges are in the works, but according to well informed sources there may further revelations. It may all blow over if it is just politics, but there is now some interesting speculation going on.