Monday, November 4, 2013

Outgoing UTB President Juliet Garcia Knows She Needs $98,000,000, Just Not for What

Juliet V. Garcia
In a cryptic Brownsville Herald article by Melissa Montoya published November 2, 2013, outgoing UTB President Juliet Garcia reportedly has requested $98 million from the University of Texas Permanent University Fund for buildings to occupy what is now the city's Lincoln Park.

Interestingly, according to the Herald, Garcia "said she can’t say for certain what the land where Lincoln Park is would be used for, but only that it’s needed because of its proximity."

$98 million is a nice round number for not knowing how the money would be used.  Many recall that a decade ago, Brownsville voters rejected a $100 million bond issue requested by Garcia for construction, but eventually approved $68 million for that purpose.  This is how Juan Montoya's El Rrun Rrun blog reported the issue:
"The voters of the district eventually approved $68 million in November 2004.
As of November 2009 – a final report has not been turned in by UTB so it could be worse – the bond projects were over budget by a total of $41,855,122.  
And despite the anguished lamentation of trustees David Oliveira and Robert Robles that the Garcia administration "leveraged" funds to increase the cost of the projects from $68 million to $109,855,122, the sad reality behind the smoke and mirrors worthy of the Wizard of Oz is that in the end, all that UTB contributed to that final sum was a paltry $4,426,000. The rest, in one way or another, will come from higher costs to students and the residents of the district in the form of one sort of bond (read debt) or another."

The P.U.F.(Permanent University Fund) originates in an agreement included in the 1876 Constitution of the State of Texas giving the University of Texas monies, originally from grazing rights, but later mineral and oil rights to 2,000,000 acres of land adjacent to railroads thought at the time to be "too worthless to survey."  That fund now adds several billion dollars annually to UT coffers.  

As long as the University of Texas at Brownsville was linked to Texas Southmost College, UT officials claimed by-laws associated with the use of the P.U.F. Fund prohibited them from financial support to UTB/TSC, necessitating Cameron County taxpayers going it alone.

The article stated that $6,000,000 will be needed to "move" the park to another location "within walking distance" of current users of Lincoln Park.

4 comments:

  1. The Kardenas Klan subversion at UTB continues and Julieta is playing her same old "Mo Money, Mo Money" game with P.U.F. that she played with the local tax payers.....difference, she didn't hand pick the P.U.F. policy makers like she did TSC Trustees. If the request is $98 mil, we can surely expect the bill to be higher. We really should take a look at the plan that would take a park and then pay $6 mil to relocate part of the park. We can bet that our Mayor Tony "The Realtor" Martinez will find a way to GIVE his friend Julieta some free property.....owned by the taxpayers...who won't be consulted. Time to get rid of both Julieta (and her family in government) and Tony Martinez.

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  2. La Reyna is going to retire, lucky her. Those that follow and have to deal with University of Texas Permanent University Fund will find that they are not pendejos. No more easy bond money, la raza is really not important to the Republicans now. It will be another 30 years before we take over.

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    1. La "raza" pendeja fu@k themselves up by having the most CORRUPT represent them!

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  3. How many more MILLIONS this democRATA WITCH wants to STEEL from hard working tax payers.

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