Correction: Nurith Galonsky, Not Lourdes Galonsky, Is the New P.U.B. Board Appointee

Nurith Galonsky

I received a call today from a "friend of the family" of Brownsville resident, Lourdes Galonsky, stating that she was NOT a recent appointee to the P.U.B. Board as I had reported in an August 29,2013 Mean Mister Brownsville article.  The "friend," a male, indicated not only had Lourdes not been appointed to a board, she was not politically-oriented, a stay-at-home mom and did not know Deborah Portillo, the City Commissioner making the swing vote in the appointment.  In a friendly way, the caller asked if I was familiar with a lawsuit filed by the wife of BISD School Board trustee Otis Powers, where he claimed she recovered $75,000 for being wrongly identified in a published article.  I apologize to Lourdes and family for any stress created by my error.

La Casa del Nylon

The actual appointee, as it turns out, is not Lourdes Galonsky, but Nurith Galonsky, 38, the daughter of Abraham Galonsky, the former owner of Casa del Nylon.  This makes more sense in connecting the dots as Nurith's father, Abraham Galonsky, is closely tied to Mayor Tony Martinez, who also happens to be a P.U.B. Board member.  You may recall that the sale of Galonsky's Casa del Nylon building on Adams St. to the City of Brownsville for $2,300,000 was unethically and inappropriately negotiated by Tony Martinez' law partner Horacio Barrera.  Later, during a City Commission workshop held January 15, 2013 to find property for the new Brownsville satellite campus of the UT system, Tony Martinez mentioned more than once the availability of a 25 acre tract along 77/83 owned by Galonsky..

Whatever Tony's agenda is for Brownsville public utilities, newly elected City Commissioner Deborah Portillo is already paying dividends on the $41,000 contributed to her campaign with her strategic vote for the appointment of Abraham Galonsky's daughter, Nurith, not his more distant relative by marriage, Lourdes Galonsky.

PRESENT MEMBERS & RESIDING DISTRICT:	TERM:	APPOINTED DATE:	TERM EXPIRES:	APPOINTED BY:
Oscar Garcia, Jr.2	1st 4 yr. term	06/01/2010	06/30/2014	Comm. Camarillo (4)
Arturo Farias3	2nd 4 yr. term	07/12/2011	07/12/2015	Comm. Gowen (B)
Nurith Galonsky7	1st 4 yr. term	08/27/2013	08/27/2017	Comm. Portillo (3)
Emmanuel Vasquez4	2nd 4 yr. term	07/12/2011	07/12/2015	Comm. Gowen (B)
Noemi Garcia5	1st 4 yr. term	11/06/2012	11/06/2016	Comm. Vasquez (A)
Edna Oceguera6	1st 4 yr. term	06/04/2013	06/04/2017	Comm. Gowen (B)