The City Commission Continues to Strain the Gnat While Swallowing the Camel As Mayor Tony Dilly-dallies

John Villarreal

At the August 27 City, after City Finance Director/Deputy City Manager Pete Gonzalez finished his Fiscal Year 2014 Budget Report, Commissioner John Villarreal questioned him about the city's $37,000 annual subsidy to the Brownsville Country Club golf course.  It was not a bad question, although there was no followup. Pete Gonzalez sort of shrugged his shoulders and mumbled something about raising green fees. John sat back in his chair, satisfied he had said something.

What I'm trying to illustrate is that, while the City Commission grows into their individual roles of questioning the bids and bidding process, questioning whether or not certain real estate purchases are in the best interests of the city, approving or not zoning adjustments, appointing replacements to city boards, they continue to miss the scope and magnitude of much larger issues that are costing the city hundreds of thousands of dollars.

Juan Montoya shared today in his blog, El Rrun Rrun, information gleaned from an Open Records request with the City of Brownsville:  In other words, Navarro and company have raked in $276,621 (more than a quarter of a million dollars) defending Lenny's loony decisions of command. If this year's totals seem out of whack, not to worry, there's still a few months left and some invoices still out there, we're sure.

Attorney Ricardo Navarro

The "Navarro" referred to is Ricardo Navarro, a labor attorney the city uses to work labor arbitration cases.  At one point(several recent cases are pending) Navarro, and thus, the city had lost 24 out of 26 cases.  One case was lost twice, once on appeal.  In previous articles we've attributed this to a very foolish, but extremely costly hard line taken by Fire Chief Lenny Perez and City Manager Charlie Cabler, who could resolve these arbitration cases for zero legal fees. Instead, they follow the urging of the greedy Navarro, who pushes that each case go into arbitration to his self-interest and enrichment.

This is called "straining the gnat but swallowing the camel," a phrase used by Jesus in addressing the hypocritical Sadducees and Pharisees, hypocritical religious leaders who made a big thing over tiny infractions while ignoring justice and mercy.  It's not wrong for John and the other commissioners to question golf course subsidies, but damn, guys, we have hundreds of thousands of dollars going out the back door here. I'm convinced that those serving on the City Commission simply do not understand the scope and magnitude of these mishandled labor issues.

I don't believe even Rick Longoria would stand for this squandering of city assets, if he understood it. His only preoccupation is politics.  The firefighters, who supported him in his initial run for the commission, went with another candidate the last time.  Screw them!  But, come on Rick.  Forget the pettiness!  Your city, the taxpayers you claim to represent are losing money by the wheelbarrow load as you settle political grudges.

City Attorney Mark Sossi

Why get upset with three hundred grand in legal fees?  Well, that's just the tip of the iceberg. Navarro is hired on the side. The city already has a legal staff with Mark Sossi retained part-time at $120,000 per annum, John Chosy earning $84,872 and Allison Bastain $58,704.  That adds $790,722 to the legal fees since 2010 for a total of $1,067,343.

The absolute ticking time bomb is the interest accrued on the lawsuit lost by the city relative to the "me-too" provision of the firefighters, paramedics contract with the city.  Let me cover this again, carefully as I can.  A visiting judge ruled in the 445th court on October 24, 2011 in favor of their lawsuit against the City of Brownsville.  The judge ruled that the 15% "average" raise received by the police department in 2009 constituted an "across the board" raise that met the language of the contract between the BFA and the City of Brownsville.  The original settlement was in the neighborhood of 2.7 million, but the judge added 6% interest retroactive to the signing of the BPD contract with the city(2009) and 5% going forward.  My guesswork put the current added interest at approximately $800,000 and growing expeditiously daily.  That is merely a guesstimate since I did not know the exact day the police contract went into effect or whether the interest was compound or simple, but it certainly works out to far more than a golf course subsidy.

Mayor Tony Martinez

Notice, I did not mention Mayor Tony Martinez in all of this.  He is a lawyer and MUST be aware of all of the above.  He cannot be excused by naivete'.  He absolutely is aware of the monies wasted on legal fees with Ricardo Navarro.  He is totally aware that interest is accruing daily as long as the city ignores the 445th Court's ruling in favor of the BFA.  Has Navarro convinced him that somehow the city will win on appeal or does Tony Martinez simply not care that the city's financial future is being jeopardized by his administration's ineptitude and inaction?

This is what makes Tony's statement to the media seem so odd on the night the BFA presented their petition of "No Confidence" in Fire Chief Lenny Perez.  Here is the Brownsville Herald quote:  "Mayor Tony Martinez said following the meeting that while he respected the union’s decision to bring the issue to the public’s attention, he felt the formal procedure for registering issues, both concerning collective bargaining and personnel, was being overlooked."  Well, Mayor Tony.  The BFA has been waiting for two years for you to come to the table.  Why have you ignored "formal procedure"?