Juan Montoya of "El Rrun Rrun" Blog Shames Tony Martinez, City Commission and City Attorney Mark Sossi

From the editor:  We submit the editorial below from Juan Montoya of El Rrun Rrun blog, detailing the incredible arrogance and lack of concern for the REAL needs of Brownsville citizens displayed by city government.  Mayor Martinez has demonstrated from the get-go of his administration that his primary function is to appease, satisfy and placate outgoing UTB President Juliet Garcia and the shadow governance of United Brownsville, namely Carlos Marin and Fred Rusteberg.  Please take notice of how Martinez gives, gives and gives to the ultra-rich UT system while playing consistent hardball with Texas Southmost College, the historic local educational entity.  

City Attorney Mark Sossi?  No city in the United States besides Brownsville likely would have hired him, given his history of stealing from his previous employer and the Texas Workforce.  Locals who guessed that hiring the City Attorney for private legal needs would be prudent,  have been bitterly disappointed and subsequently filed malpractice lawsuits against Sossi.  

As for the City Commission, they are young, inexperienced and have needed to grow up on the job, but it is way past time for them to get informed, involved and display the necessary intestinal fortitude to curb Martinez.

FRIDAY, JANUARY 31, 2014

WHAT DO WINTER VISITORS SEE WHEN THEY VISIT B-TOWN?

By Juan Montoya
While we continue to spend thousands of dollars to build Brownsville Mayor at least three new offices, pay his buddies millions for downtown buildings and real estate with future debt, continue to give away valuable properties to the oil-and-gas rich UT System, our poorest people who use mass transit have to wait for the bus like this.
We are even racking up a bill at $39,000 (and climbing) to move a shack someone said belonged to Charles Stillman, the biggest Robber Baron of them all.
We have paid tens of thousands to outside consultants and "experts" to tell us that we need better streets, better sidewalks, and other common sense things that the average municipality needs. And we continue to pay an ethics-challenged city contract attorney hundreds of thousands of dollars to tell the city commission how to get away with not following the law when it comes to freedom of speech at city meetings, how to dole out lucrative contracts without going out for proposals to politically-aligned cronies, and give away the people's hard-earned money ($25,000 a year) to a shadow organization known as United Brownsville that is accountable to no one.
They bring in technocrats who talk about making Brownsville another Austin, San Antonio or Houston.
I once read a book called "The Shame of Cities." They could have used the photo above for its cover.