Say It Isn't So Tony, Please Say It Isn't So!

King Tony

It is said that England's Buckingham Palace has 775 rooms including 19 State rooms, 52 Royal and guest bedrooms, 188 staff rooms, 92 offices and 78 bathrooms.  Such accommodations would not satisfy Brownsville's King, Tony Martinez.

This past year King Tony, with property lust in his squinting brown eyes, used taxpayer monies to purchase 11 downtown properties for $3,500,000.  Footloose and fancy free with taxpayer assets. Tony offered the city's governmental hub, City Plaza to incoming millionaire Congressman Filemon Vela for one measly dollar per year.  Evil bloggers stifled that kingly giveaway.

Keeping in tune with the 50's pop hit "What Lola Wants, Lola Gets," Tony Martinez, the owner of Lola's Bake Shop is accustomed to getting what he wants, fair or foul.  What he has longed for, what he has wanted since Day 1 is an office suitable for his royal highness. Charlie Cabler has an office.  Carlos Cascos has an office.  Where oh where is King Tony's office?

For $90,000 the City of Brownsville leased the residential home adjacent to the Cueto Building for three years with the thinking that the scam, phony United Brownsville could share that square footage with the Mayor and City Commission.  But, that wasn't good enough for King Tony.

Some speculated that the top floor of the massive Market Square building, once the city's headquarters would be more than ample for the Majestic One.  But King Tony hesitated.  Peter Gillman and other mere commoners occupy the bottom floor.  There would be guilt by association.

Why even the Casa del Nylon, sharply negotiated for purchase by King Tony's law partner, Horacio Barrera for the mere pittance of $2,300,000, about 3 times the market value, proved unsuitable for the Browntown monarch.

King Tony longed for something more, a property that would scream "royalty."

Work in Progress on Tony's New Office

One day, breathing in second hand smoke from Peter Goodman's Heritage office, Tony saw it.  A downtown property for lease not connected to the mere mortals of city government.  The property stood directly across from Goodman's cigarette-fouled office on the corner of E. 11th and Elizabeth with a back entrance across from Market Square. Despite the squandering of millions of taxpayer dollars on downtown properties,  the ample office space already existing in City Plaza AND Market Square, despite the purchase of the San Fernando Buildings, Casa del Nylon, the leasing of Cueto property, Tony needed THIS leased building for his mayoral office.

Say it isn't so, Tony.  Say it isn't so.

Tony's New Office Across from Goodman's Heritage Office
Leased without Taxpayer Approval