Tony Ignores Real Needs of the City to Pursue Undeclared Agenda

Homeless Couple Finds Shelter Under Decaying
Awning of Casa del Nylon Building

In consecrating a battlefield Lincoln spoke of government as "of the people, by the people, FOR the people."

Brownsville's mayor-driven City Commission has struck out on all three of those principles.  

Almost symbolic of our undemocratic city government is the never-explained purchase for $2,500,000 of La Casa del Nylon Building at 14th and Adams Street.(We are now dissecting the 71 page commercial appraisal of that building, although the fiscal prudence of that speculative real estate purchase with taxpayer dollars is not the principle issue.)

The old commercial building, once owned by Abraham Galonsky, sits just inside City Commissioner Ricardo Longoria's District 1, although the commissioner has never explained why the purchase was made, while the city annex at El Tapiz, with offices for the Planning Department, Fire Administration and MPO, remains out of A.D.A. compliance with the elevator broken for the better part of a year.  

Building the Mayor Had to Have Now Open to the
Elements on 14th Street Side

This is not Monopoly money the mayor is spending.  The $3,500,000 for 11 non-transparent real estate purchases will be on the backs of taxpayers and their children in Certificates of Obligation paid out over the next two decades.

Does it make sense to be purchasing downtown
properties, while not making critical repairs on
the City Annex at El Tapiz?

So out of control, with total disrespect for taxpayer assets he swore to protect, the mayor was tapping into the AEP Texas Settlement of $3,060,000 to build a totally unnecessary office for himself downtown.(At a turbulent City Commission meeting 1/21/14, an agenda item sponsored by Commissioners Villarreal and Portillo, effectively told the mayor to "cease and desist" using the AEP Texas Settlement as his personal ATM.) Tony may spin that differently, but it's doubtful that City Manager Charlie Cabler was the one hellbent on a mayoral office at 1101-A E. Washington. Now, that office space, leased by the city since October 8, 2013, refurbished at taxpayer expense, sits idle while the elevator at El Tapiz remains broken.(In a strange, ass-covering move, the mayor's intended office has morphed into the Brownsville Downtown Revitalization Information Office.  That office, paid for with taxpayer dollars, remains essentially unused, while remodeling has started on yet another mayoral office across the street.)

City Finance Director Pete Gonzalez did state at a recent City Commission meeting that the city is looking into replacing the elevator at a cost of $288,000.  To make that repair, Gonzalez stated, the city hopes to use part of the remaining balance in the AEP Texas Settlement fund. 

Southern Side of La Casa del Nylon Visible from the Alley