Tony Wants to Give Away 77 Acres of Brownsville Land to the University of Texas

Tony Martinez

The University of Texas is an extremely wealthy university by any measure despite what their fundraising appeal literature implies.  The Permanent University Fund or P.U.F., which includes the oil and mineral rights generated on over 2,000,000 acres of Texas land came in at 8.8 billion in 2008 and is now certainly higher, yet that is only 8% of UT's total funding.

During the entire UTB/TSC relationship, UT acted as if their hands were tied with respect to financial support for that combined institution, citing a rule that P.U.F. funds were only available for pure UT branches, not those affiliated with another entity, like TSC.(No mention was ever made that UT easily had enough funds to alleviate some of the burden of one of the poorest cities in the United States.)  So Brownsville, as always, was allowed to suck it up and assume the tremendous financial burden of perhaps as much as 1 billion dollars by 2034 to pay for the infamous Juliet Garcia's extravagant ways.  Please don't forget that when Garcia's request for a 105 million dollar bond issue was rejected by the taxpayers in favor of a more modest 65 million, she went ahead and spent 105 million anyway.   Yes, arrogance beyond belief!

Juliet Garcia

Tony Martinez left us no clue as to why he ran for mayor until recently.  He seemed totally disinterested in the city and city business.  He took obvious pride in short, no-participation commission meetings.  All of that changed when Juliet Garcia called.  Could Tony help with the transition into a new campus?

One prompting by Juliet Garcia and Tony was like a bat out of hell;  purchasing a lackluster assortment of downtown properties for possible transitional use by UTB or whatever university it becomes.  Tony used taxpayer dollars to purchase an armory, a warehouse, two restaurant or club-sized buildings and an old retail store still selling, as new, goods from the 80's, that had been for sale for forever.  It is doubtful if any of these hastily purchased properties would be of interest to the University of Texas for even interim accommodations given the pristine standards already set by UTB and UT.

So desperate is Tony to placate Juliet Garcia and impress the University of Texas system, that now he is offering 77 acres of taxpayer owned land to the rich school absolutely free.(Yes, this is on the agenda for the 2/5/2012 City Commission meeting; a donation of two tracts of land totaling 77 acres to UT.)  Surely, UT officials laugh privately at the sheer desperation,  the clumsy negotiation by Martinez.(Horacio Barrera must have handled all the negotiations for Tony's law firm.  Do you remember when Tony and the City Commission showed up at a public hearing about SpaceX ALREADY wearing SpaceX insignias BEFORE any contract was signed or even dollars talked?) Very amateurish.

So far the City Commission has been unable or unwilling to stifle Mayor Martinez spendthrift ways.  It will not be easy at the 2/5/12 meeting with two commissioners an absolute lock to vote Tony's way.  It's time the City Commission stood up for the Brownsville taxpayer.

Addendum:  Do we see a pattern with Tony?  He contributes mightily to the 2008 Obama campaign, hoping for at least an ambassadorship.  He initially offers Filemon Vela free office space in City Plaza, possibly hoping to curry favor with Vela.  Now, he goes totally berserk, trying to prove his devotion to Juliet Garcia and UT.  Tony is all about Tony.  He does not care one wit about Brownsville.  He is using his unfortunate election as mayor to try to further himself.