Brownsville Dodges Bullet from Car Salesman Mike Hernandez III

Mike Hernandez III, Surveying El Jardin Hotel
(Photo by Miguel Roberts, Brownsville Herald)

The consultant car salesman Mike Hernandez III engaged to research the viability of buying the historic El Jardin Hotel told him it would not be a profitable venture. Unfortunately, Hernandez used a different, less trustworthy guru while seeking advice about steering Brownsville's political scene.  Mike sought advice from Ambiotec's Carlos Marin, the last fox any responsible chicken farmer would want guarding their hen house.

Marin conned Hernandez into throwing money at the Texas Southmost College and Brownsville Navigational District 2016 elections.  The master plan likely sold by Marin, was that huge, huge greenbacks could be made by controlling development at the Port of Brownsville and the so-called FM 550 corridor as well as influencing the job training programs at the community college.  

Carlos Marin, the Man Who Sucks Brownsville's Blood

United Brownsville, a loose affiliation of elitists, have been salivating about the possibilities in this corridor for several years. Carlos Marin, while guarding Brownsville's hen house as a Brownsville Economic Development Council member, "helped" vet a $454,000 "study" that was approved and rubber stamped by the Greater Brownsville Incentives Corporation.  Later, an additional $180,000 in taxpayer monies were turned over to Jacobs Engineering, who had hired Carlos Marin's favorite little puppet, Oscar Garcia, Jr., as Project Engineer, for phase 1 to "implement" the study.  

No one traced where those hard-earned tax dollars, in the country's poorest city, ended up.  The city has nothing to show for the $634,000 spent on the study and phase 1 of its implementation or the $900,000 originally spent on the Imagine Brownsville plan, penned by Carlos Marin, pushed by Eddie Trevino, now sitting, all dusty, on city shelves, like an out-of-date comic book.  If Carlos Marin told Mike Hernandez III we were suckers, he had the hard evidence.

But, something strange happened in these bought and paid for elections.  Brownsville did not vote as know-it-alls Mike H. and Carlos M. suggested.  

Even beer-bellied Ralph Cowen got his dander up and kicked OP 10.33 ass in the BND elections!  

Citrus Gardens Project survivor Ruben Herrera rolled over Marin/Hernandez pretty boy Daniel Pizana and Laguna Vista resident Ed "Harvard" Rivera lost his BND bid handily to Tito Lopez.

"Money talks, but it can't sing and dance and it can't walk."