TONY MARTINEZ' BELATED EXPLANATION FOR BUYING ALL THOSE BUILDINGS IN 2012 WITH TAXPAYER MONEY

From the editor:  Our continuing series, dealing with answers politicians could have given to questions still nagging the electorate, now focuses on Mayor Tony Martinez.

In 2012, Martinez pushed through the city commission the purchase of 14 older downtown buildings at a price to the taxpayer of $3,500,000, the flagship being La Casa del Nylon for $2,300,000.  

While uses were eventually found for a couple of the buildings, at least 12 remain, decaying, off the tax rolls, a total waste of taxpayer money.

For six years, Tony Martinez, who considers himself, not an elitist, but simply elite, has not offered one word of explanation to his bosses, the voters of Brownsville.

Now, we will do what Tony should have done six years ago, offer an explanation in his stead:

Tony Martinez

"Six years ago Brownsville was faced with the loss of our fine university, the University of Texas at Brownsville, UTB.

Based on information I was given at the time, UT desired a somewhat larger campus than UTB to serve the entire Rio Grande Valley.  As we now know, it was eventually decided to go to a split campus, with Brownsville and Edinburg sharing the university.

But, back in 2012, that was not entirely clear.

To maximize Brownsille's position as the ultimate location for the expanded university, I urged the city commission to quickly acquire suitable downtown buildings that could easily be pressed into service for the proposed university expansion.

My efforts had the blessing of then President of the University of Texas at Brownsville, Dr. Juliet V. Garcia.   In hindsight, I may have overestimated Dr. Garcia's influence with the Board of Regents.

In any event, the regents opted to go in another direction.(I later learned that I was mocked by some of the regents for thinking that 2nd or 3rd tier buildings scattered across town would be a suitable campus for UT.)

I want the citizens of Brownsville to know that I understand their anger.  They've had to make up for the lost property tax revenue for all of these properties removed from the tax rolls.

Can we recover the $3,500,000 that I and the city commission spent of your tax money?  

I don't think we can recover dollar for dollar, but there is some interest in La Casa del Nylon, for example, at possibly a third of what the city paid.  Other buildings may come closer to recovering the 2012 purchase price if we can find buyers.

In 2011 I asked all of you to Believe in Brownsville.

I'm asking all of you now to believe my belated explanation for what I did in 2012 and my motivation at the time..

It is the truth."