Apathy, Low Voter Turnout, Weak News Coverage All Benefit Tony Martinez

Caricature by Nena Barton

The 10% or fewer of registered voters who will likely vote in the June 13 runoff mayoral election include Tony's cronies at United Brownsville, who have positioned themselves, despite being an "informal," unelected entity into the primary force, along with Imagina Matamoros and the City of Harlingen, into controlling development of the industrial corridor along FM 511/550.  Our braindead City Commission excluded themselves in a resolution yielding control of such highly profitable development in a resolution passed March 4, 2014, sponsored by Debbie Portillo and Rose Gowen:  

"Consideration and ACTION on Resolution Number 2014-034, in support of the creation of a Bioned(sic) 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)"

La Casa del Nylon, purchased in 2012 for triple  its value,
$2,300,000, now sits idle, decaying, off the tax rolls

If the Tony Martinez victory party is assured, credit not only low voter participation, but also an uninformed electorate.  The voters should be livid about the resolution published above, the $3.5 million in downtown property, including La Casa del Nylon, foolishly purchased by the mayor and city commission for no good reason, the Lincoln Park con job, the 1/4 interest in an 800 megawatt power plant contracted in secret negotiations, that burden the P.U.B. ratepayers with $350,000,000 in increased rates to provide power for up to 5 liquefied natural gas plants stretching from the Port of Brownsville to Port Isabel, but they are not.  The majority of voters are simply unaware.

While voters have a personal responsibility to get informed on the issues, two Brownsville institutions have failed miserably in providing such information, the Brownsville Herald and the University of Texas at Brownsville.

Notice former Attorney General Herbert Brunell, Jr's description of the responsibilities of the free press guaranteed by the First Amendment:

"Our free press brings to light corruption, injustice, dishonesty, wrongs of every kind and description in all corners of the world. It is a bar to Star Chamber proceedings. It enables the people to know whether our system of justice is being administered honorably and impartially"

With respect to bringing "to light corruption, injustice, dishonesty, wrongs of every kind," the Brownsville Herald's performance falls well north of chickenshit, but not far south of morally reprehensible. The Herald has chosen again and again for decades to protect the corrupt politicos, the advertisers, ignoring the corruption and injustice crippling our town.  

Illustrative of the Brownsville Herald's utter failure is a letter to the editor just two days ago asking about La Casa del Nylon's sale to the City of Brownsville for triple its appraised value.  My God! The local blogs have been talking about this for THREE YEARS!  If the Brownsville Herald had done its job, the reader would have known the answer to his questions. Instead of fulfilling its First Amendment responsibilities, the Brownsville Herald has been functioning as an informal Public Information Officer for Tony Martinez, Juliet Garcia and United Brownsville.  Our local newspaper couldn't have been more quiet on official corruption had it been under control of the Soviet Glavlit.  All of Martinez' back door deals would have been so much more difficult to slip past the community with an active, diligent local newspaper.

Students taught at the former University of Texas at Brownsville have a history of zero participation or interest in local government. Candidate forums held at UTB draw zilch from the student body. Whatever the late Father Armand Matthew did to earn his salary at the so-called UTB Center for Civic Engagement did not result in any awareness on campus of local politics.  Walking through the campus to the Gran Salon or another venue for candidate forums, students never seemed to even know about the event despite the university having their email addresses.  When UTB's Mary Rose Cardenas Hall was used as a polling place among for 13,000 students it processed 151 voters during 61 hours of operation, 2.47 per hour.

While voter ignorance and apathy has given Martinez room to operate, a weak City Commission has acted as an enabler. Everything Martinez has done was with support, acquiescence or tolerance from the City Commission.  No one on the commission has successfully articulated a counterpoint to any of Tony's wasteful and foolish agenda.  Some have said that the release of the City Commission agenda on the Friday before Tuesday's meeting does not give the commissioner's time to prepare themselves.  They come to the meeting flat-footed, unprepared, unorganized, with nothing to say with only one week day to confer with city staff and learn the specifics of proposals.