Life After the BiNED Economic Development Summit 2013~Proposed New Ethics Pledge for United Brownsville Coordinating Board

It's Monday morning, December 9, 2013.  The epic BiNational Economic Development Summit 2013 is history.  The last remaining guest at Matamoros Mayor Leticia Salazar's cocktail afterparty has been carried to his car.  Conference attendees from Sweden, Denmark and beyond are sleeping in chairs at DFW.  Fred Rusteberg is back to banking.  Chief Carlos Garcia is protecting the Port of Brownsville from intruders.  Mayor Tony Martinez is calling City Finance Director Pete Gonzalez to see why the invoice on the $8,000 interactive TV for his downtown office has not been paid.  In other words, it's back to business as usual for Brownsville, a city that just had its next half century planned out without its knowledge.

No entity shows less respect for the typical Brownsville citizen, taxpayer, teacher, student, parent or veteran than the horribly misnamed United Brownsville.  A poor city resident would have a better chance at membership in the notoriously exclusive Augusta National Golf Club than an invite to a United Brownsville seminar even though the venue used is part of a $200,000,000 tax burden being paid over the next two decades by those same residents.  The BiNED Summit 2013 was not advertised in the Brownsville Herald or promoted to the populace.  It's a game for insiders, elitists, opportunists, not a bringing of the community together in any sense.

Carlos Marin, Author of
BiNED 2013 "Fact Sheet"

OK.  We get it.  United Brownsville is a private organization like the CDG, Cartel del Golfo. We're not of your sort, your caliber. That's fine.  We've not been invited to clubs better than yours. All we ask is an ethics commitment that will prevent your elitist group from profiteering on the economic development of Brownsville and Cameron County without citizen involvement or representation.  That's only fair, don't you think?  Your motives are pure, aren't they?  You're not trying to orchestrate the economic growth of our region for your own profit, are you?

So, we simply need your signature to the document below.  We can't force you to sign and compliance is on the honor system, but you will know you refused to sign or signed and didn't comply.

United Brownsville Coordinating Board Ethics Agreement

1.  As a UB board member, I will promise my company, bank, engineering, legal or construction firm will not profit from plans formulated by the Greater Brownsville Industrial and Infrastructure Plan.  

2.  As a UB board member, I promise not to profit from the sale of land parcels eventually included in the Industrial Corridor of the Greater Brownsville Industrial and Infrastructure Plan.  

3.  As a UB board member, I promise to have no financial interest in manufacturing, transportation or sidestream businesses associated with the Industrial Corridor of the Greater Brownsville Industrial and Infrastructure Plan.  

4.  As a UB board member, I promise that members of my family, proxies, business associates or others with whom I have a history of financial cooperation will not benefit from my participation in the Greater Brownsville Industrial and Infrastructure Plan.  

Signed: United Brownsville Board Member