If You Want Carlos Marin, Fred Rusteberg, Juliet Garcia and the Cardenas Klan to Continue to Rape Brownsville, Vote for Debbie Portillo

Young Debbie Portillo

While Mayor Tony Martinez is no brainiac, he is not a total idiot.  He would not allow N. Iowa Avenue, bordering the Brownsville/South Padre Island Airport to be a pot-holed mess, reminiscent of Managua, Nicaragua, if his masters were not pulling him in another direction.

Instead of fixing city streets, the mayor was seduced into buying $3,500,000 of downtown real estate to placate one of his overlings, Juliet Garcia, the now-disgraced UTB President.


Anger aimed at  Tony Martinez is misdirected.  As Bob Dylan once said:  He is merely a "pawn in their game."  Tony is a flunky for Carlos Marin, Fred Rusteberg and yes, Juliet Garcia.  That is why he pushes the scam that is United Brownsville, why he does backflips for Juliet Garcia while snoring through city commission meetings.

But, Brownsville's pie shop owner is only useful to the corrupt triumvirate if he can deliver the city commission.  Lacking the charisma to lead, pie maker Tony needs to have the votes before the votes are taken.  He needs, demands puppets on the city commission who will deliver for him just as he delivers for his string-pulling masters.

Martinez prepared for his subservient mayorship by financing and managing the campaign of Commissioner

Tony Martinez, A ""Pawn in Their Game"

Rose Gowen and financing the campaign of Estela Chavez-Vasquez.  The Gods of Harlingen were shining down on him when newly elected John Villarreal's DNA included reticense, timidity and cowardice.  Commissioner Zamora rented a house from Tony but was an unreliable tenant.  She has moved on to a paying position under the strangely mustachioed DA Luis Saenz, leaving Tony with work to do.

Tony had to find another malleable puppet.  United Brownsville had a girl, a special assistant to Executive Director Mike Gonzalez, Deb Portillo.  She had no actual duties in the bogus entity, just as Mike Gonzalez has no actual work to do.  Both were sitting at desks doing a job with no job description.  Perhaps Gonzalez became a video game whiz while Portillo did her nails.  United Brownsville, siphoning hundreds of thousands of taxpayer dollars never built so much as a sidewalk in Brownsville.  Mike Gonzalez' only actual job was to shine his shoes annually and go before BISD, the City of Brownsville, the Port of Brownsville, BEDC, GBIC, UTB/TSC and P.U.B. to hold out his hands for a $25,000 annual contribution.  Gonzalez can't articulate what the city entities are getting for their money, but no one has to courage to ask.

What Debbie Portillo could actually do for Brownsville, according to her handlers, was run for the City Commission and follow the direction, control and mentorship of Tony Martinez.  She agreed, then opted out, then was again "persuaded" to run.  Her contributor's list reads like a United Brownsville directory.

This City Commission election has been portrayed as us against them, United Brownsville vs. the rest of us.  That may not be far off the mark.  At least know that a vote for Portillo is a vote for the puppetmasters who pull Tony Martinez' strings.