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| City Attorney Mark Sossi |
On Nov. 5, the "Comprehensive Planning Coordination Board (CPCB) Executive Committee" met to consider and take action on a United Brownsville Memorandum of Understanding, a proclamation, and a press conference, public records show and "Imagine Brownsville" former project spokesman Brian Godinez confirmed. The public was not notified of the meeting.
Furthermore, participating entities have not yet all voted to establish a CPCB as the organizational entity responsible for coordinating the implementation of the city’s master plan.
City Attorney Mark Sossi’s position is that the committee is "informal" and is not subject to the Texas Open Meetings Act or to the Texas Public Information Act, which are state statutes aimed at providing transparency, accountability and safeguarding the public’s right to know.
"It is not a governing board. It has no governmental power," Sossi said Monday of the CPCB and its components, which also include a task force and a technical support group. The board’s leadership makes up the executive committee, public records further show.
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| Fred Rusteberg, IBC Bank President and a Tri-Chair of United Brownsville |
My how things have changed. The original comprehensive "plan" sits on city shelves gathering dust like a vintage $900,000 comic book. Nothing from the plan was ever implemented. Now, the clever drawings of "paradisaic' Brownsville appear as outdated as the 50's Mechanics Illustrated hovercraft.
What HAS changed is that the unelected, non-governmental, "informal" board now WANTS to be recognized as a "governing board." In a 180 degree turn from the Sossi pontifications of several years ago, the United Brownsville Coordinating Board now wants compliance with the Public Information Act. Monthly, its meetings are posted on the windows of the City Commission building, actually signed by the City Secretary. Cleverly, the board has accepted the membership of the mayor and two commissioners on the board. City Manager Charlie Cabler, also a board member, usually sits in a chair along the wall as if he were an off-duty policeman providing security.
In the years since Sossi declared United Brownsville an innocuous, informal board, not bound by rules affecting actual governing entities, UB has acted like an insidious computer virus, infecting city government, becoming the City Commission in a weird parallel universe. Remember the Mayor's report on the resaca project or the presentation on curbside recycling? The last United Brownsville Board meetings discussed those projects as if their own. I kid you not!
Fast forward to March 4, 2014. City Attorney Mark "It's Legal" Sossi struts to the podium to present an agenda item: 17. Consideration and ACTION on Resolution Number 2014-034, in support of the creation of a Bioned Coordinating Board to be made up by Equal Representation from United Brownsville, Imagina Matamoros, and the City of Harlingen in order to promote and plan the development of the Bi-Ned Zone. (Commissioners D. Portillo/R. Gowen)
Here, United Brownsville is positioning itself as a player in the development of an area with HUGE financial potential, the industrial corridor along FM 550 including the Port of Brownsville.(So-called Public Hearing items 7,8 and 9 at the 3/4/14 CC meeting were presented by City Planner Ramiro Gonzalez to protect those plots in the corridor.) The main players in United Brownsville want to control the development of this corridor for personal enrichment. Tony Martinez is their willing pawn. Carlos Marin, the CEO of Ambiotec and mastermind of the Imagine Brownsville Plan, is said to own a good deal of property in the designated "corridor."
Actually, without fanfare, the Greater Brownsville Incentives Corporation paid nearly a half million dollars($454,592.08) for a plan for the industrial corridor, including the Port of Brownsville. Here is an excerpt from our October 31, 2013 article:
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| Mean Mister Brownsville with Robin McCaffrey |
"The plan organizes the Port of Brownsville and the surrounding area south of the port and east of the Brownsville/South Padre Island Airport. Specific areas are segmented for heavy industry, light industry and organized according to power and water usage. Simply lining up industry along the ship channel is discouraged, but companies with similar energy and/or infrastructure needs are organized perpendicular to the channel.
McCaffrey preached to the choir as he stated that extending the airport runway to 12,000 feet and dredging out the ship channel were prerequisites to the plan's implementation."
With respect to the development of this industrial corridor, I received two emails:
AnonymousNovember 19, 2013 at 7:47 AM"If you look at this Jim, this plan is directly tied with Imagine Brownsville. Carlos Marin is the one that brought this firm to Brownsville and he was the one that worked hand in hand to get this study done. It accomplishes nothing but gives credence to the imagine Brownsville document. It is another pipe dream that in all costs over two billion dollars. When is the community going to wake up and stop giving money to Marin? They are going after commissioners for giving a family member a job, but a guy that steals millions from the community is free to roam and keep stealing.
AnonymousNovember 1, 2013 at 8:27 AM
"Marin is behind this corridor also Jim. He owns interest all around the corridor. He is the biggest thief in Brownsville. He is pushing now to make Oscar Garcia Jr. the director at GIBIC,..his trusted puppet. The item was tabled in yesterday."
Those emails alerted me to the Bined 2013 Summit at UTB's Gran Salon December 6, 2013. This forum brought speakers from Eastern Europe, Central America and the U.S. government, but largely overlooked locals. The mayors of Brownsville, Harlingen and Matamoros were present, but merely to introduce the program. Congressman Filemon Vela was sort of a chairman, introducing speakers.(Someone close to Filemon told me he doubted Vela understood how presumptuous it was for United Brownsville to represent the region.)
Almost no city or county officials were at the BiNed Summit except those already on the United Brownsville Board. County Judge Carlos Cascos was not present. I saw no city or county commissioners. One bank(IBC) and one engineering firm(Ambiotec) were represented. Francisco Rendon of TSC, a United Brownsville Board member, was present. The summit discussed the economic future of the region.
Development of the Port of Brownsville and whatever industrial corridor is designated will benefit Brownsville. It will particularly benefit those who have orchestrated, controlled and steered that development for personal enrichment, presumptuously and opportunistically using the United Brownsville scam as a guise for their greed.
And we continue to vote in thieves with a small fraction of willing voters.
ReplyDeleteWho cares? Write "news!"
ReplyDeleteJim, thanks for your continued hard work in exposing United Brownsville, GBIC, our Mayor and his Puppet Commissioners. It is amazing how all these shenenigans come into play and how these same group of individuals continue to milk humongous chunks of money from the taxpayers in our areas. I have seen some of these slick videos and power point presentations and I can see how some of our young commissioners can be easily convinced and swayed on how to vote. It is amazing how much time, money and energy they spend to make sure their message gets them what they want. My concern is why no one has even tried to put a stop to this. Can't we get someone in the legal field to check out all this and file charges against this kind of theft. If we don't have attorneys in our area who have the savvy or courage to look into this, let's look outside of our area for someone that can file necessary charges and watch out for our community. While I admire your work in going to all these meetings and passing out all this important information to help us, it seems to me that this has now gone beyond blogging and is something that should be seriously investigated from a legal standpoint and if necessary file lawsuit against these individuals and entities. This has been going on for too long and the majority of the people who's money is being stolen from either don't know, don't understand or simply don't care.
ReplyDeleteTony "Da Mayor" Martinez has pushed for and allowed United Brownsville to become a "Shadow Government" to bypass the Democratic processes and and continue his authoritarian regime in Brownsville. Because United Brownsville is funded (at least in part) by tax dollars....there should be oversight from the public. Martinez does not want "transparency" and refuses to accept public input to any policies. With Tony, Julieta Garcia, Carlos Marin and their "followers" in United Brownsville....they have adopted a Kardenas Klan management style that is akin to dictatorship. These folks see themselves as above the rest of us....superior beings....whose actions should not be questioned. They are the reason that this city is swirling around the toilet, while other Valley communities grow and progress. We are a welfare city just waiting to be bailed out......
ReplyDeleteAgree 1000%
DeleteAnd let's not forget the evil stepchildren of this Klan ever at the ready with their hands out for 'funding'; you know...like those pseudo-nonprofits that promise $35,000 a year jobs for illiterates??
ReplyDelete