 |
| Assistant City Attorney Allison Bastain |
My experience thus far seeking information from the City of Brownsville via a Public Information Request has been good. One can't help but notice that the date and time on the email record indicates that City Secretary Estela Von Hatten forwarded the request to the appropriate city department within an hour of receiving it.
Actually, what I thought was my simplest request, was received just 29 minutes short of the "10 working days" time limit imposed by the State of Texas. I had simply asked what litigation City Attorney Mark Sossi had worked for the city during the previous fiscal year.
The answer we received from Ms. Bastain is included at the bottom of this article, followed by a letter from the Office of Attorney General.
 |
| Bobby Wightman-Cervantes, Publisher of BROWNSVILLE VOICE |
Bobby Wightman-Cervantes, the publisher of the BROWNSVILLE VOICE, posted an article, dated 3/30/14, detailing his struggles receiving responses from the city on his Public Information Act requests, also a copy of a followup letter to Assistant City Attorney from the Attorney General, giving the city options in responding to Wightman-Cervantes' request.
As I read the letter from the Office of Attorney General, the office retains the right to enforce penalties for non-compliance, but prefers to "work with the parties" to find resolution.
The City of Brownsville is given these options, all of which include contacting an enforcement attorney within the Attorney General's Office within 5 business days to discuss the complaint:
1. Release the information requested by Mr. Wightman-Cervantes and so indicate on an attached form.
2. State that city has no information to satisfy the request and so indicate on the attached form.
3. State the city's belief that the information sought is excluded from disclosure and so indicate on the attached form. (This will require the Attorney General to rule on the matter.)
 |
| Dianne Dillard |
Neither the mayor nor the city commission has consulted or informed the public as to the exact purpose or
intent for at least 11, possibly 12 speculative real estate purchases during 2012-2013.
Also, there was no disclosure of Diane Dillard's hiring by the city.
Assistant City Attorney Allison Bastain is between a rock and a hard place. Likely, her conversation with Mayor Martinez would have been instructive. Did she advise him to simply release the information requested to Wightman-Cervantes or is she, at this very moment, establishing legally that the Martinez-Dillard communications are confidential, not subject to the Public Information Act?
There are penalties for erring in either direction.
From: Jim Barton [mailto:rvpark645@hotmail.com]
Sent: Thursday, September 12, 2013 3:06 PM
To: public request
Subject: City Attorney Case Load Fiscal 2013
Sent: Thursday, September 12, 2013 3:06 PM
To: public request
Subject: City Attorney Case Load Fiscal 2013
Please share the cases worked by City Attorney Mark Sossi during fiscal 2013 and the amount of payouts by the city, if any, in settling those cases.
Thanks,
Jim Barton
 |
| City Attorney Mark Sossi |
Ms. Bastion's succinct answer to our question about Sossi's workload is that City Attorney Mark Sossi does not actually represent the city in litigation, being far too busy for that as he serves as sort of a shop foreman, a legal overseer for the city's legal department and two secretaries. Prompting our question was the extraordinary amount of legal fees extended to Attorney Ricardo Navarro in stonewalling arbitration cases involving the Brownsville Fire Fighters and Paramedics(purported to be at least $790,722 since 2010), and the recent revelation that Judge Andrew S. Hanen's wife, Attorney Diane Dillard was utilized in some undisclosed legal way by the City of Brownsville for fees totaling $32,124.50. I guess it was naive of me to assume that Sossi under contract with the city for $120,000 plus $60,000 more from taxpayer funds siphoned to the Greater Brownsville Incentives Corporation and Assistant City Attorneys John Chosy and Allison Bastain, paid $84,872 and $58,704 respectively could actually represent the city in litigation, real estate transactions or labor arbitration. Why, even Tony Martinez' law partner, Horacio Barrera, had to be called into service to negotiate the purchase of the Casa del Nylon building. Below is Ms. Bastain's cover letter for the documents sent:
To: 'Jim Barton'
Hi again--
This is in response to your public information request of September 12, 2013, which you subsequently clarified for me a couple of days ago.
In regards to any litigation Mr. Sossi has handled, the city (through insurance) employs outside counsel to handle most litigation matters. Therefore, the payout for any litigation he has handled is zero. Our department is simply not large enough nor sufficiently equipped or funded to practice litigation. This is the case with most cities in Texas—only the larger cities, such as Houston or Dallas, have their own in-house litigation departments. The rest farm theirs out to outside counsel, like we do.
As for the bulk of Mr. Sossi’s work, which involves transactional matters, there is no one document or list that exists containing all of the matters Mark Sossi works on. One item I can provide for you which is responsive to your request are copies of our most recent contract logs--these constitute our inter-office tracking of certain contracts, ordinances, resolutions, and agreements our department evaluates for various city departments. These documents (attached) represent a portion of what Mr. Sossi does as city attorney.
Since there really are not any comprehensive documents which outline what Mr. Sossi does as city attorney, I wanted to at least expand a little and give you an idea of what he does, as I think it is sometimes misunderstood by some in the community.
As I pointed out in my e-mail to you from a couple of days ago, Mr. Sossi oversees and administers the legal department containing three other attorneys besides himself, and also two legal secretaries. Besides evaluating contracts, he represents the city in economic development negotiations and the drafting of any related contracts, agreements, or other documentation--examples from the past year include negotiations related to the Tenaska power plant, economic issues between the city and the University of Texas at Brownsville and Texas Southmost College, issues with Cameron County and other entities in the attempt to land SpaceX in our community, and the recent departure of T-Mobile--he was responsible for the recoup of over two million dollars from T-Mobile when they removed their call center from the city of Brownsville.
Also, he of course acts as parliamentarian at commission meetings and also advises the mayor and commission on legal issues and conducts much research and related drafting for them on a regular basis--pretty much weekly.
Also during the past year (as well as in 2009), he took the lead in developing and implementing strategies behind protecting Brownsville from certain proposed state legislation, which would have been adverse to city interests, regarding municipal territory and annexation--in both 2009 and 2013 he represented the city in negotiating with neighboring cities regarding the size of the Brownsville extra-territorial jurisdiction, which resulted in the failure of the legislation and enabling the city to keep all its existing territory and annexation powers.
These are just examples and are not exhaustive—I haven’t included the day-to-day questions, meetings, and other things inherent in the day-to-day operations of the legal department. As I said, since no comprehensive document or documents exists outlining his workload, I wanted to at least provide you a more thorough response and give you an idea as to his tasks and responsibilities as city attorney.
Hope that helps; have a great day.
Sincerely,
ab
.jpg)
Hey, is Juan Montoya back in jail? No posts on his blog since last thursday. Que pasa with Juan?
ReplyDeleteHow much is Navarro paid to defend the city for contract violations to the police officer union?
ReplyDeleteBS! They fired Goza for not being at his post during the day, which is no different from Sossi who is never around and does really zilch. The PUB settlement was most assuredly handled by PUB lawyers, the city just raped PUB from the rate payers proceeds. As far as parlimentarian, the rules are made up by Sossi as politically fit for the powers that be. Obviously, he has proven that he cannot even handle a real estate transaction and the purchase was a scam. Nowhere will you find real estate valued or sold at the price of $2.3 million similar to the Nylon Building, because downtown is a depressed market. At a price of $2.3 million, you can buy a new building in a better location with parking. The old Greyhound Terminal, wh ich is a better constructed building on a city block of land with plent of parking sold for $450K, the Chinito Building with 50,000 square feet of leasable space on a city block of land with plenty of parking sold for $650K, the Baja Duty Free building one block from the Nylon sold for $205K, and the El Jardin hotel which the city could have purchased for $750K on a city block with parking and a building that qualified for historical grants to restore would have been a better buy and put to better use. The El Jardin could easily lease commercial retail space on the 1st floor and utilize the rest of the floors for public offices, i.e., city offices or customs, DEA, FBI, Parks and Wildlife, Border Patrol, etc. Restoring the El Jardin would have gone with the downtown revitalization, which is what I wanted to do, but Troiani, Atkinson, and Longoria blocked the purchase, which we had a possible grant to buy it with. Brownsville has a double standard and it is obvious. There are many different ways of scaming and stealing from taxpayers, but they tell you to smell the roses.
ReplyDeleteThe sophisticated scammers know how to get manure to smell like sweet fragrance. Let's start with the Imagine/United Brownsville, which I exposed to be a for profit organization that benefitted Carlos Marin to the tune of $850,000 with no accountability to anyone and used all the taxpayers resources to put together all of our strategic plans, which they took credit for and have yet to accomplish anything tangible. The continue to benefit through inside deals and pocketing taxpayers monies to operate their dog and pony show that has no substance. Then look at the Port Bridge scam than netted over $21 million to everyone that stuck their hands in the port's cookie jar and no one was held accountable. Then, do not forget how PUB was in dire straits until I exposed the developer's subsidies for infrastructure to the tune of over $91 million dollars, which led to the highest utility rates in the state of Texas for the owners/Brownsville citizens. Then you have the close to 100 acres of the R.E. Smith property that belonged to the city and against my objections the weak commission gave them the land at a price of $700,000, but first the city had to relocate the Levee, which cost the city ironically $700,000 to relocate. Then you have the Jacob Brown scam with parking only that generated over $200,000 in annual revenue that was taken over by the scammers, forcing our city to replace a perfect good building that they depreciated by 70% to purchase it for almost nothing from the city and the cost to accomodate them was over $19 million to replace what we had. Don't forget they almost got the City Plaza Building, they sold us the Cueto Building, then rented back to the university at no cost to them and at a loss to the city, if they built parking they needed. Now, I ask, why should we buy a building, lease it back to them at zero cost and give them credit for building parking they need and is at no benefit to the taxpayers. Amazing! Amazing! Amazing! And, they called me a thief when the bank teller filled out a deposit slip and wrongfully deposited a check into my account that was immediately returned upon discovery. Jesus! I am a saint compared to the scammers you all put into office. LOL!
ReplyDeleteIT'S NOT THAT FUNNY PAT OUCH
Delete