How Carlos Marin Leeches Brownsville's $8.4 Million Annual 4A, 4B Funds

From the editor: In 1992 the City of Brownsville decided to take advantage of a 1989 Texas law allowing the establishment a 4A entity to receive 1/2 cent of the 8-1/4 cent sales tax collected to use for economic development. The Greater Brownsville Incentives Corporation, the beneficiary of such monies, has, according to their website, spent $49,000,000 from that taxpayer fund, $12,000,000 on "operating expenditures" and $37,000,000 on "project expenditures."

In 2002 Brownsville decided to split the 4A funds into a 4A and 4B, with a 4B entity getting 1/4 cent from each taxable dollar for "quality of life" projects. Since that time the Brownsville Community Improvement Corporation declares $10,300,000 spent on such projects.

Vetting and recommending projects for the GBIC is its symbiotic sister board, the Brownsville Economic Development Corporation. The GBIC actually holds its meetings in the BEDC Board Room and BEDC Director Jason Hilts is the most vocal, active participant in those meetings.

Carlos Marin, Ambiotec Engineering, United
Brownsville Coordinating Board.  Marin has
inordinate control of both the 4A and 4B Boards,
sucking taxpayer dollars from the nation's
poorest city.

Carlos Marin, Brownsville's adroit little shyster, overrides the built-in protections within the Brownsville Economic Development Council and the Greater Brownsville Incentives Corporation by controlling both boards.

In theory, the BEDC qualifies programs, vetting companies, while the GBIC gives final approval to the so-called economic development projects, writing the checks.

In reality, Carlos Marin, who happens also to be a BEDC board member, initiates projects, studies at BEDC that are merely rubber stamped at GBIC, without discussion.  Any project initiated by Marin, whether it be the V.I.D.A. scam, where he serves as board member, or the recent hiring of Jacobs Engineering to "implement"  the $454,000 Brownsville Strategic Infrastructure and Land Management Plan, passes through GBIC without a word of discussion.

Only two items were on the agenda at last month's GBIC Board Meeting:  

V.I.D.A.

Jacobs' Engineering

The monthy $25,000 stipend to V.I.D.A., a Carlos Marin-controlled non-profit, was approved without a whimper.

Next came the bid of $180,000 by Jacobs' Engineering to "implement" Needham, McCaffrey & Associates' $454,000 infrastructure plan for the industrial corridor and the Port of Brownsville.  Not only is Robin McCaffrey, who authored the infrastructure plan a crony of Carlos Marin, he participated in the production of the Imagine Brownsville Comprehensive Plan, for which the city paid a whopping $900,000 and never implemented.

Oscar Garcia, Jr., employed by Carlos
Marin, named "Project Manager" to
implement industrial corridor and Port
of Brownsville Plan

Phase 1 of the implementation plan passed the GBIC without one word of discussion among the board members.  Jason Hilts introduced Oscar Garcia, Jr. as the new "Project Manager" for the plan.  Incredibly, Garcia is an employee of Carlos Marin.

Actually, the plan the GBIC paid half a million for and another $180,000 to "implement" is nothing more than a regurgitation of studies done by the U.S. Corp of Engineeers.  As El Rrun Rrun blog noted recently"

"The main recommendation for the port in the management plan is that the channel be dredged and deepened to its authorized 42-foot depth. The study also recommends that a turning basin be enlarged to accommodate cargo ships turning without having to hinder other ships from coming into the channel.

Well, wouldn't you know that the United States Army Corps of Engineers had been studying the issue for the past seven years and that the government and the port had spent $9 million to put together the “Brazos Island Harbor Channel Improvement Project Final Integrated Feasibility Report and Environmental Assessment.”

In other words Brownsville and Cameron County is paying big bucks for information and implementation already available.  That's what scams do.

Carlos Marin's stranglehold on local tax dollars is not limited to his incestuous participation and molestation of the GBIC and BEDC, he also has a representative at the BCIC, the dispenser of funds for "quality of life" projects.  

Commissioner Rose Gowen
Controls Fund Dispersal at BCIC

City Commissioner Rose Gowen, who rules the BCIC with an iron fist, like Oscar Garcia, is also an employee of Carlos Marin.  Carlos Marin, along with current Mayor Tony Martinez, were instrumental in Gowen's first election as City Commissioner At Large B.  With that influence, Marin has his unscrupulous tentacles in both boards dispensing 4A and 4B funds.  As one local attorney told me:  "Carlos has succeeded in infiltrating every major revenue source."