The People Versus Tony Martinez~The Tangible Undercurrent in this City Commissioner Election

Tony Martinez

The City of Brownsville has several boards that control millions of dollars of taxpayer or ratepayer generated dollars.  For the corrupt, the unscrupulous, the greedy, this is all they see when they see Brownsville.(The $500,000,000 annual Brownsville Independent School District budget is another pot of honey drawing considerable attention)

Astute observers noticed that, in his first City Commission meeting as mayor, Tony Martinez quickly moved to snatch the appointments for two of these boards right out of the youthful laps of two newly-elected commissioners, John Villarreal and Estela Chavez-Vasquez, vaguely mentioning the need to vet the applicants through an unnamed board, assumed to be United Brownsville.  What's so wrong with that, you ask?  Well, it puts these critical appointments controlling millions of dollars outside public scrutiny.

Carlos Marin

Actually, United Brownsville has no reason to exist.  It sprung from a giant comic book plan for the city, created by con artist Carlos Marin, a Matamoros native, President and CEO of Ambiotec Group, Inc.  The book, filled with drawings of enhancements for the City of Brownsville, now appearing very dated and fanciful, was created to solicit government grants for the city.  The book would not sell for a dollar at a garage sale, but was purchased by the city for $1,000,000.  That's taxpayer money guys.

No part of the plan has ever been implemented. United Brownsville has not built a single sidewalk or planted one tree in the city.  It is a total scam, now siphoning off annual contribution os $25,000 from a number of local taxpayer supported entities: P.U.B., BEDC, GBIC, the Port of Brownsville, BISD, the City of Brownsville and UTB/TSC.

The scam is now clearly two-fold: taxpayer dollars without accountability and control of the city behind closed doors.  Tony Martinez twisted the arms of city commissioners to agree to office space for United Brownsville on the Cueto Building grounds, further legitimizing a do-nothing entity.  Mike Gonzalez was named Executive Director of United Brownsville, although no one can explain what his actual daily duties might be, likely nothing.  Current City Commissioner candidate, Debbie Portillo was the given the title of Special Assistant to the Executive Director at $3,000 per month, again with no known duties.  She relinquished that job to run for City Commissioner at Mayor Martinez' direction.

Fred Rusteberg

Although Mayor Martinez ran on the campaign theme "Believe in Brownsville," he actually meant "Believe in United Brownsville."   Martinez in his first two years as mayor has done zero for the city, but he has worked relentlessly behind the scenes to placate his cronies, all directors of United Brownsville, Carlos Marin, Juliet Garcia and Fred Rusteberg.  Not only do they have new office digs, but Tony is working on a gated parking lot for his wealthy patrons.

The vehicle for Tony to gradually slide control of the city to this scam entity is control of the city commission.  Martinez began laying groundwork for this in 2009 by financing and managing the campaign of Rose Gowen, two years before he ran for mayor.  Estela Chavez-Vasquez was also partially financed by Tony in 2011, giving him another certain vote.  Not coincidentally, Rose Gowen, Estela Chavez-Vasquea and John Villarreal were named to the United Brownsville board.  Tony Martinez is also a member, along with his cronies Marin, Rusteberg and Garcia mentioned above.

Admittedly, the support for the three candidates pictured on the left is based on taking back control of our city from Tony Martinez and his minions.  All three candidates have flaws.  None are accent free.  What they share is independence from the puppetmasters controlling Brownsville behind the scenes.  All three favor defunding United Brownsville, nipping its control in the bud.

This campaign has not been without drama.  The candidates wanting to rip absolute control back from Martinez and his lackies have been visited by the police, fire marshals and even the city manager at their fundraising and campaigning events.  Over $30,000 has been pumped into the campaign of Debbie Portillo, a youthful party girl, who has never even voted in a City Commission contest.

It may be time to decide who should control Brownsville; the people or Tony Martinez.