Tony Martinez, Reverse Robin Hood, Stealing from the Poor to Give to the Rich

Tony Martinez,
Brownsville's Worst Mayor 

Texas Secretary of State Carlos Cascos recoils when he hears Cameron County described as the "poorest county in the United States."  The late Enrique Escobedo, in his last run for office, told a Cobbleheads audience how much he hated that same phrase.  Yet the numbers are the numbers and no soft-soaping or manipulation changes the fact that, per capita, this is the nation's poorest county.

This reality places a high premium on protecting, preserving, even growing the assets hardworking Brownsville and Cameron County workers continue to pay for, as well as keeping their tax and utility burden as low as possible.

Seemingly oblivious to Brownsville's poverty and the imperative of protecting assets is Mayor Tony Martinez, who, from the get-go, has tried to gift or transfer millions of dollars in taxpayer assets to the ultra-rich University of Texas system, offer free rent to influential politicos at city expense, buy millions of dollars of old buildings for no good reason, with no plan in place, further burdening the taxpayers with Certificates of Obligation and the need to replace the lost taxes of buildings taken off the tax rolls. 

During 2012-13, Tony and the City Commission purchased at least a dozen old buildings, adding $3.5 million to taxpayer obligations without one word of explanation for the need of those buildings. All, including La Casa del Nylon, purchased for $2.3 million, sit idle, decaying, off the tax rolls, unneeded, unused. 

Ary Sheffer's The Temptation
of the Christ

Reportedly, Brownsville's neatly landscaped and suitable City Plaza was offered, first, in part, to Congressman Filemon Vela for near-free office space, then, in whole, to UT.  Martinez' heyboy, Ramiro Gonzalez, was observed in 2012 giving UT officials a guided tour of the city hall, well before anything was placed before the City Commission.  What gall for Tony Martinez to so readily offer precious city assets and so reminiscent of Satan the Devil offering Jesus "all the kingdoms of the world" for "one act of worship."

Even the proposed tripling, but eventual doubling of downtown parking rates was NEVER about downtown parking, but about creating a slush fund for UT over and above the previous collection threshold.  The idea that the previous lower rate created insufficient parking downtown was a lie, just as the claim that doubling the rate alleviated the congestion, was a lie.  Soon, when the city closes down one side of E. Adams Street for a bike lane and eliminates parking at Market Square, it will be obvious that the concern was NEVER about parking.


Properties at 609 and 615 E. 11 Street were bought and subsequently renovated with tax dollars, then shared "rent-free" with BC Workshops and UTB's Stargate.  Make it a point to walk by those two refurbished offices, now taken off the tax rolls.  You will see no activity, just as we saw no actual use of the office space Mayor Tony just HAD to have at 1101-A E. Washington Street, leased for one year at taxpayer expense, but NEVER used by the mayor.

We've not even mentioned Lincoln Park, a precious city asset with irreplaceable amenities, used primarily by residents of Southmost, District 1.  The UT Board of Regents got a big laugh at their El Paso meeting, giddily describing their apparent acquisition of the 50 acre tract at a "bargain price."  Actually, under the proposed plan, they would be getting the acreage, appraised at $21 million, for free, just paying $6.5 million to transfer the amenities to another location.

At the most recent City Commission meeting, Mayor Martinez claimed to have reached out to a contact at UT to explore alternative options to Lincoln Park.  When Commissioner Ricardo Longoria, Jr. asked for the name of that contact, Martinez refused. Many now feel that Martinez' claimed contact with UT has been none other than former UTB President Juliet Garcia, not one of the regents or UT-RGV President Guy Bailey.

Tony Martinez' biggest backstab is yet to be felt, the purchase of 25% interest in an 800 megawatt power plant to be built at the FM 511 industrial corridor by the Tenaska Corporation.  Tenaska, in the business of convincing local politicians to invest tax dollars in huge power plants across the country, is an enormous company with nearly $4 billion in assets.  They've actually, at times, paid cash for a power plant, as they did in Ohio, paying $368,000,000 in cash for the Rolling Hills Power Generation Facility in Wilkesville.  Other times, Tenaska used a composite of high level investors to finance such plants.

For Brownsville and Cameron County, Tenaska, along with Tony Martinez and his cronies, chose another form of financing, simply increasing the utility rates on local ratepayers to repay $327,000,000 in city-issued revenue bonds.

Fitch Bond Ratings, an internationally recognized firm, is on record as saying this is a bad, bad deal for the City of Brownsville, predicting that the debt incurred will sink the city's bond rating from A+ to "negative."  Tony Martinez could not care less as long as he's in a position to continue to steal assets from the poor and give to the rich.  It will be interesting to observe May 9, in the city's mayoral and city commissioner elections, how closely Brownsville taxpayers have been paying attention to this willful squandering of their hard-earned assets.