When I first heard of Tony Martinez's $50.00 per ticket "State of the City" Event at the Brownsville Event Center, I imagined each of the 500+ attendees forking over half a hundred. Let's see 500 X $50.00=$25,000. Yes, I'm a bit naive about how these things work.
Actually, just a handful of individual tickets were sold, purchased by local high rollers. Alejandro Coronado, a realtor, bought two tickets for $100.00 as did Bruny Saucedo, the owner of the Zocalo Bar and Grill. Outgoing District Clerk, Aurora De La Garza bought a ticket for herself for $50,00 as did County Treasurer Joe Rivera and County Sheriff Omar Lucio, Larry Putegnat and Peter Ellis. The individual singly purchasing the most tickets was Alexander Stillman, who bought 10 tickets for $500.00. Oh, also. Rose Timmer bought a $50.00 ticket and William PC Hudson bought 5 for $250.00.
What this means is that if you're a city commissioner, judge, TSC trustee, BISD school board member, city employee or even Fire Chief Lenny Perez, if you attended the event, it was through a complimentary ticket purchased by a taxpayer entity or a business. As we mentioned in our last article, entities totally supported by taxpayer, ratepayer or tuition payer accounted for $18,650 of revenue. Strangely, the United Way of Southern Cameron County added $4,000. That's $22,650 NOT funded by individual or corporate contributions. I almost overlooked the Brownsville Convention and Visitors Bureau expenditure of $500.00 for ten tickets.
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| Carlos Marin |
Let's get to the corporate contributions to the event: N.O. Simmons Homes, LTD, $1,500.00, Gomez, Mendez, Saenz, Inc., $1,500.00, Falcon International Bank, $500.00, Brownsville Chamber of Commerce, $500.00, LNV, Inc., $500.00, Carlos Marin's Ambiotec, $1,500.00, Terracon, $500.00, Well's Fargo, $500.00, Capital One Bank, $100.00, Frost Bank, $500.00, Nexus Real Estate, $500.00, Portage Plastic, $500.00, La Carcel, LTD, $3,000.00, Lone Star National Bank, $1,500.00, Tenaska, Inc., $500.00, I.B.C. Bank, $3,000, Gonzalez Engineering, $500.00. H.E.B., $3,000.00, Republic Services, $500.00.
Some entities seemed to have made simply a token contribution. B.I.S.D. bought one ticket for $50.00. Did that go to Superintendent Carlos Montoya, Board President Enrique Escobedo or Sylvia Atkinson in whatever position she currently holds? Livingway Family Church, Inc. bought two tickets, possibly for the pastor and his wife. KRGV-TV News bought 4 tickets for $200.00. The Consulado de Mexico spent $100.00 for two tickets as did Capital One Bank.
As noted in the previous article, one of the skill sets highlighted in the web site of M.A.P.(Message, Audience, Presentation, Inc.) is "communicating with the Hispanic and African-American electorates." M.A.P. CEO James Aldrete explains the approach on the company's website: "The biggest challenge in communicating with Hispanics is not one of language only, but one of tone and approach. We have to recognize that those we most need to turnout are more apolitical and at an economic level that can often make politics and voting seem like a luxury."
I've already admitted my naivete on throwing bashes like this event, but I question whether an exclusive $50.00 per head event is an effective way to reach out to lower income voters. To paraphrase the M.A.P. website phrasing, it makes participation "seem more like a luxury."
The Project Transaction Report we received for the City of Brownsville show total revenue for the event to have been $48,986.98. After paying M.A.P. $23,342.58, Keko's Bistro & Catering $9,411.60, Perrennial Favorites $988.80 for centerpieces and $734.52 to American Express for charges incurred in Jerry Hedgecock's card, the event was left with a net profit of $11,246.00. According to the Brownsville Herald article of July 29,2013 City Manager Charlie Cabler was asked what would be done with the remaining balance. He initially stated that the money would be used toward next years event, but later said it would be given to a charity.
Here is Mayor Tony Martinez comment on the potential use of the profits from the Brownsville Herald article: “It’s going to stay there, for right now,” he said, suggesting it might be used for sustainability efforts, but noting that it ultimately will go where it will make the greatest impact. “We’ll need to prioritize a little bit. It doesn’t go a long way if you spread it out.”
Addendum: In the above article I mentioned that the Brownsville Convention and Visitors
Bureau purchased 10 tickets for $500.00. It was mentioned as sort of an afterthought since I hadn't included that figure in the $18,650 worth of taxpayer, ratepayer, tuition generated funds.
At 10:40 AM I received a call from Mariano "Bean" Ayala, the Director of the Convention and Visitors Bureau. He wanted to clarify the source of the funds used to financially support Mayor Martinez' "State of the City" Event. "We have a hot fund, that is generated by the hotel and restaurant taxes that support our department," Ayala explained. "Monies from that fund were not used for this purpose. In fact, I was worried that someone might assume or report that. The $500 we spent on the event were generated from another fund, monies generated from the sale of ads in our travel magazine."
When I asked Ayala how the magazine itself was funded, he said that it was funded also by ad monies, not from their "hot fund" from the hotel and restaurant taxes. "Our intention, of course, is not to make a profit on the magazine, but, in some cases we have some funds left over and it was these funds that were used to support the event."
Of course, of the funds Ayala chose to commit to the "State of the City" event, 47.7% of those funds went to M.A.P., an Austin advertising agency. That percentage could go higher as Mayor Martinez is still mulling over how to spend the $11,296 profit from the event. If his first inclination becomes reality, and those funds are used to jumpstart next years event, and if the same agency is hired to run the event, then as much as 70.7% of the funds contributed by the Brownsville Convention and Tourism Bureau and others will end up in the pockets of James Andretes' Austin company.
It could be argued that the $500 contributed by the tourism bureau to Tony's event, could have been used more directly to generate tourism, but this was a discretionary decision by Director Ayala, just as P.U.B. decided to use $8,500 of ratepayer funds, UTB used tuition-generated funds, BCIC used 4B sales tax funds, etc. It does not seem that any visitors from outside Brownsville stayed in our hotels or used our restaurants during a trip to attend the "State of the City" event, since it is not reflected in individual ticket sales. Actually, the typical Brownsville citizen may have felt shut out of the event by the $50.00 per head cost to attend. Some might even have considered the event "elitist" since it was primarily attended by the movers and shakers of the city, not the common citizen. This is all so ironic since M.A.P.(Message, Audience, Presentation, Inc.) presents its skill set as specializing in "communicating with the Hispanic and African-American electorates" adding this comment on its website: "The biggest challenge in communicating with Hispanics is not one of language only, but one of tone and approach. We have to recognize that those we most need to turnout are more apolitical and at an economic level that can often make politics and voting seem like a luxury." The opposite reaction seems to have occurred with this event. Ordinary Brownsville citizens felt it was a luxury they could not afford.
Mr. Ayala's clarification gives me an opportunity to address another issue. In the past Bean has made comments to this blog to respond to an article. Since I've disabled anonymous comments, requiring one to register or be signed up to Google to comment, comments have been nearly totally stifled. This blog can still be contacted by email: rvpark645@hotmail.com
Addendum: In the above article I mentioned that the Brownsville Convention and Visitors
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| Mariano "Bean" Ayala |
At 10:40 AM I received a call from Mariano "Bean" Ayala, the Director of the Convention and Visitors Bureau. He wanted to clarify the source of the funds used to financially support Mayor Martinez' "State of the City" Event. "We have a hot fund, that is generated by the hotel and restaurant taxes that support our department," Ayala explained. "Monies from that fund were not used for this purpose. In fact, I was worried that someone might assume or report that. The $500 we spent on the event were generated from another fund, monies generated from the sale of ads in our travel magazine."
When I asked Ayala how the magazine itself was funded, he said that it was funded also by ad monies, not from their "hot fund" from the hotel and restaurant taxes. "Our intention, of course, is not to make a profit on the magazine, but, in some cases we have some funds left over and it was these funds that were used to support the event."
Of course, of the funds Ayala chose to commit to the "State of the City" event, 47.7% of those funds went to M.A.P., an Austin advertising agency. That percentage could go higher as Mayor Martinez is still mulling over how to spend the $11,296 profit from the event. If his first inclination becomes reality, and those funds are used to jumpstart next years event, and if the same agency is hired to run the event, then as much as 70.7% of the funds contributed by the Brownsville Convention and Tourism Bureau and others will end up in the pockets of James Andretes' Austin company.
It could be argued that the $500 contributed by the tourism bureau to Tony's event, could have been used more directly to generate tourism, but this was a discretionary decision by Director Ayala, just as P.U.B. decided to use $8,500 of ratepayer funds, UTB used tuition-generated funds, BCIC used 4B sales tax funds, etc. It does not seem that any visitors from outside Brownsville stayed in our hotels or used our restaurants during a trip to attend the "State of the City" event, since it is not reflected in individual ticket sales. Actually, the typical Brownsville citizen may have felt shut out of the event by the $50.00 per head cost to attend. Some might even have considered the event "elitist" since it was primarily attended by the movers and shakers of the city, not the common citizen. This is all so ironic since M.A.P.(Message, Audience, Presentation, Inc.) presents its skill set as specializing in "communicating with the Hispanic and African-American electorates" adding this comment on its website: "The biggest challenge in communicating with Hispanics is not one of language only, but one of tone and approach. We have to recognize that those we most need to turnout are more apolitical and at an economic level that can often make politics and voting seem like a luxury." The opposite reaction seems to have occurred with this event. Ordinary Brownsville citizens felt it was a luxury they could not afford.
Mr. Ayala's clarification gives me an opportunity to address another issue. In the past Bean has made comments to this blog to respond to an article. Since I've disabled anonymous comments, requiring one to register or be signed up to Google to comment, comments have been nearly totally stifled. This blog can still be contacted by email: rvpark645@hotmail.com
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