Committee of 5 Recommends Linebarger to City Commission for Rubber Stamp

Pete Gonzalez, Brownsville's Director of Finance/Assistant City Manager resubmitted his recommendation of the Linebarger firm as the collector of delinquent property taxes for the city of Brownsville at the 6/19/12 City Commission meeting.  At the previous commission meeting 6/5/12, some of the commissioners questioned why the commission was being asked to approve such a valuable contract without any sales presentations to compare the relative merits of the three companies bidding on the contract.

Tuesday afternoon a workshop was scheduled by Gonzalez to help the commissioners "understand the process."  Later in the evening at the actual commission meeting, Gonzalez announced that a committee of 5 had listened to presentations from all three law firms on behalf of the City Commission.  Surprise!  Surprise!  Their recommendation was Linebarger!

The huge legal firm of Linebarger, Goggan, Blair and Sampson has a stranglehold on delinquent tax collection in the state of Texas, thanks in large measure to generous annual political contributions totaling millions of dollars.(BISD trustees recently received $5,250 in political contributions from Linebarger before agreeing it was the best collection firm for them.)  In recent times Linebarger officials have been charged with making such contributions illegally.

Mario X. Perez, a former partner with the law firm of Linebarger, Goggan, Blair & Sampson has been indicted on six counts of felony tampering with a government record in connection with false entries on campaign reports for an Arlington ISD school trustee.  Appearing before the Katy, TX school board, attorney Cormac Craven said the firm’s ethical violations were not isolated, and there had been “allegations of corruption in just about every county in Texas. . . . . We need to stop rewarding bad acts.”

Sometimes, it's not simply a matter of political contributions, but of hiring politicial officials outright to gain influence.  That is the case with State Representative Rene Oliveira, who is actually employed by the Linebarger firm, while "representing" our district.    This has paid off bigtime for the Linebarger firm as reported in Mean Mister Brownsville: 

"In 2001 Oliveira spearheaded a committee to remove a line in section 3308 of the tax code limiting the delinquent tax collection fee to 15%, subsequently including language allowing a tax collection fee rate of 20%. That bill sailed through the Ways & Means Committee of which Rene was chairman and was passed by the entire house. Considering Linebarger's near statewide presence in tax collection, how many millions of dollars did this sleight of hand add to the agency's coffers?"

Brownsville taxpayers simply have to assume that the secret, unelected committee Gonzalez said exists, operated in good faith.  Unfortunately, this has been the trend in the Tony Martinez mayoral administration, to move the city farther and farther away from representative democracy.  

Almost symbolic of this city administration , the public comment section had no takers tonight for the second straight meeting.  Remember, Mayor Martinez in tandem with City Attorney Mark Sossi, pushed through the blockage of the broadcast of such public comment last year.  Sossi even presented us with a pie chart giving evidence that blocking the broadcast increased the 'diversity" of the participation.  Yeah, right!  And a committee, operating behind closed doors knows what's best for our city.