Oscar Santamaría Torres: a lawyer with a troubled record

At the company Law Max PSC, from Oscar Santamaria, reviewed the contracts between the Office for Public School Improvement (OMEP) and the Municipality of Cataño for the maintenance of facilities, at the same time that the lawyer had contracts with both entities under different corporations.

Law Max obtained four contracts with OMEP for legal consulting last four years, from May 16, 2017 to June 30, 2020, signed by Santamaría. Three days after starting these tasks, the firm reviewed Cataño’s first maintenance services agreement with OMEP, effective as of May 19, 2017.

These agreements detailed the maintenance services that Cataño would offer OMEP, which included the removal and disposal of rubble and solid waste. For the city council, Santamaría offered services under the category of solid waste through his company Waste Collection Corp, which obtained its first contract with the municipal government on May 1, 2017.

Both Santamaría and the now former mayor of Cataño Felix “el Cano” Delgado are in the public eye for alleged illegalities in the granting of millionaire contracts for the management of solid waste that are being investigated by the federal prosecutor’s office.

Only in Cataño, Waste Collection accumulates $ 13,254,136 in contracts. The first agreement went into effect on May 1, 2017, for $ 2,050,307, but its validity was extended until 2029, through six amendments that have raised the figure to $ 10,084,241 under the category of waste collection and recycling.

The president of the House of Representatives, Rafael “Tatito” Hernández, criticized the practice of making amendments to contracts that extend the term and increase amounts, skipping the auction process in municipalities. In statements to this medium, he said that he will promote amendments to the Municipal Code so that solid waste management contracts cannot be carried out without an auction.

“If the same law provides that they can do this arbitrarily, then of course it lends itself to the scheme. We must attend to this with haste, “said the chamber leader. “The companies that are doing this scheme acquire the service for a minimal amount, and then modify (the costs) arbitrarily,” he said.

Lawsuit in San Germán

On the other hand, last August, the solid waste collection company Consolidated Waste Services LLC (ConWaste) sued the Municipality of San Germán, its new-progressive mayor, Virgilio Olivera Olivera; to the president of the Municipal Legislature, Adalberto Villa Flores, already Waste Collection Corp. for breach of contract, collection of money, tortious interference with contractual relationships and impairment of contractual obligations.

On June 28 of this year, the Municipality of San Germán had canceled the ConWaste contract, which would be in force until June 2023. On July 1, Mayor Olivera Olivera, who was sworn in for the first time this year, signed a contract for $ 1,059,907 with Waste Collection and, that same day, began to provide the service.

ConWaste requests, in its claim, that the Court of First Instance declare the cancellation illegal because there was no just cause, pay it $ 750,000 invested by the company for the City Council’s Active Recyclable Material Program, plus the payment of $ 1.3 million owed for services rendered. .

In addition, ConWaste awards its competitor Waste Collection Corp. that, “in order to benefit financially from a contract with the Municipality of San Germán, it tortuously interfered with the contractual relationship between said municipality and Consolidated Waste Services LLC.”

According to ConWaste’s allegations, since June 2021, Santamaría began approaching the Municipality of San Germán to offer garbage collection services. ConWaste, through a written communication dated that same month, asked Santamaría to cease and desist from these alleged interferences in the contractual relationships of the Municipality and ConWaste.

For the damages caused by this alleged torture intervention, ConWaste claims a payment of $ 4.5 million to Waste Collection Corp. and the Municipal Legislature of San Germán, which authorized the mayor to cancel the current contract.

Those who stay in Cataño

After the resignation of the mayor of Cataño, the city council was left in the hands of the lawyer Gabriel J. Sicardó Ocasio, who for decades has worked in different positions, both in the Municipality and in the Municipal Legislature of that town.

The interim office of Sicardó Ocasio was possible because the Deputy Mayor Honoris Machado Márquez resigned from her position so that she could occupy it, and thus remain at the head of the city council by virtue of the municipal order of succession.

The City manager, Alex Mojica Paz, was the second in the order of succession, but was left out before the appointment of Sicardó Ocasio to the vice-presidency.

The three mayor officials have been very close collaborators with Delgado and are also active donors to his campaign.

Machado Márquez, with a salary of $ 5,359, is listed as the top donor to Delgado’s political committee. Meanwhile, Mojica Paz’s family is also among the main donors.

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