UT/TSC Reach Building/Land Agreement as Mayor Tony Martinez Told by Regents to "Butt Out," Stop "Meddling"

University of Texas Regents

The University of Texas Regents and the Texas Southmost College Board of Trustees just completed a multi-layered land/building swap to facilitate the interests of both institutions despite the annoying "meddling" of Brownsville Mayor Tony Martinez.  Like the Biblical Uzzah, who presumptuously tried to "steady the Ark of God" when it appeared the oxen cart carrying it was going to capsize, Mayor Tony arrogantly assumed that the University of Texas Regents needed his expertise to get the job done.  While the God of the Bible "smote Uzzah,"  Mayor Tony was simply told to "butt out" by the regents.

For the last several months, we've witnessed the normally sedentary mayor, functioning like a bat out of hell behind the scenes to purchase with taxpayer money 11 properties for $3,500,000 to accommodate  the needs of a future satellite campus of the proposed University of the Americas.  Not only was all of this speculative real estate activity by the Mayor and the rubber stamp City Commissioners ill-advised, it was unnecessary.  The University of Texas Regents had this one covered, thank-you-very-much, without the Mayor steadying the ark as it were.

Mayor Tony Martinez

"The mayor was envisioning UTB to be something like New York University, using numerous buildings in the city to complete its campus, but land is cheap in Brownsville compared to NYC, where a single linear foot of store front can be prohibitive.  In Texas, we just find 60 or 70 acres of land and build a campus to suit," suggested one local political operative.

We're told that what unnerved the regents was the proposed gifting or leasing of the idyllic City Plaza to the University of Texas.  Something needed even less by UT than a handout from Brownsville is the wrath of citizens and city officials inconvenienced by a rich university system.  The proposal was not just a dumb idea, but potentially disastrous public relations.

Perhaps stung by the rebuff from the regents, Mayor Tony, in his Mayor's Report at the last City Commission meeting, lauded the agreement between the University of Texas Systems and Texas Southmost College.  He name-dropped UT Chancellor Francisco G. Cigarroa and outgoing UTB President Juliet Garcia, as if he was a player in the negotiations as part of city business.

It's not as if the City of Brownsville is so well maintained and promoted that this impoverished community can afford to see its city government turn its attention away from city needs to placate the interests of one of the world's richest university systems.  Our downtown continues in decay.  While local businessmen have

Sign(Now Removed) Promising
Downtown Parking Garage

invested in the so-called Downtown Entertainment District with a dozen or so clubs due to open soon, the downtown parking garage promised to provide safe parking for patrons, originally scheduled for completion in the fall of 2013, has not even had a groundbreaking.  With the time lag, the estimated 18 month project finds itself underfunded and must go back through the BEDC, GBIC regimen for additional monies.

Brownsville is stuck with Martinez for two more years.  Could someone please explain to the Harlingen native what it means to actually "Believe in Brownsville?"