ODESSA, Texas — Paul Garza has been CEO of the Odessa Hispanic Chamber of Commerce for one month, yet he's facing backlash on social media for past allegations. Those include several traffic violations and being accused of stealing from a non-profit, an accusation that was dropped.
Garza said he wants to earn the trust of his community, and the first step is talking about those allegations.
"With a little bit of research, people can find out they're just minor traffic violations that a less experienced, young 20-something failed to take care of when they were supposed to. And then the final one was an accusation of stealing money from a non-profit organization, that, after hitting the D.A.'s office, was rejected," Garza said.
However, Garza is asking for a second chance. He hopes to gain the trust of the Odessa community and is willing to be transparent about his situation.
"For those people that have a distrust in me because of these very silly accusations, I’ve been inviting everybody to come meet me in person. I have no problem with sitting down with someone and just having a conversation about you know if they want to ask me questions about those allegations I’d be glad to do that," Garza said.
He said that making mistakes is important, and that he's learned from his past mistakes and moved forward.
He's now using his experiences to teach young adults on how to deal with adversity that they may face later in life.
"I think the biggest piece of advice I can give people on this is you know we cannot control the hand we are dealt. All we can really do is control how we handle this, how we play the game. If something negative happens in our life, it’s not going to last forever. You know the pain that comes from something like this will last for however long," Garza said.