SHOULD BROWNSVILLE RE-ELECT A MAYOR WHO WILL NOT COME CLEAN ON THE TENASKA DEAL?

Graphic by Diego Lee Rot

It was a very straightforward request.  We asked Mayor Tony Martinez and P.U.B. General Manager John Bruciak to appear on the April 14 Whine & Cheez podcast to explain how monies raised with a utility rate increase to build the Tenaska Power Plant had actually been used.

Brownsville's P.U.B. rate payers had been assessed incremental raises since 2013 resulting in a 36% upcharge in the electric rate, 20% increase to the water rate with 6% increase in water treatment charges.(Speculation about how much has been raised by the increase in rates ranges from $25 to $120 million.)  

The rate increase was designed to raise $325 million to pay for 200 megawatts of an 800 megawatt power plant that was never built.(The plan was to "sell" the remaining 600 megawatts to other entities. With no market for the power, the plant was never built.)

The $325 million Brownsville rate payers were asked to pay for the $500 million plant meant they would be paying 65% of the cost, but only getting 25% of the power, not a particularly good deal negotiated by Martinez, who was both mayor and P.U.B. Board member at the time the City Commission passed ordinances calling for the plant to be built and the utility raises.

John Bruciak, who Pat Ahumada told me today should NOT be asked anything about Tenaska because he's "just a P.U.B. employee," received an incredible 60% salary raise during the first 4 years of the rate increase, getting his salary bumped up from a mere $184,000 to $294,000.

On March 19, 2019 I emailed both Mayor Martinez and GM Bruciak, inviting them to appear on the April 14 Whine & Cheez podcast with the following questions provided in advance:

1. What is the current status of the Tenaska Power Plant?
2. How much money has been generated by the utility rate increases?
3. Has any of the funding generated been spent, and, if so, how?
4. How much is left of the money generated by the rate increases?
5. Proof of what exactly was told the rate-paying public at the time of the rate raises.

Today, six days after our request, neither man has responded, even so much as to decline to appear.  That is not the kind of transparency we expect of our public servants or utility officials.

"What happened to the money raised for the Tenaska Power Plant?" is the pre-emminent question among Brownsville citizens today, closely followed by "When do we get our refund for the monies raised, but not used for the plant?"

An effective, skilled politician or utility official would literally jump at the chance to explain what happened to the monies raised with the utility increases, even if only to lie to the rate-paying public.

But our mayor, running for re-election in a city, totally frustrated, wanting answers about how their utility increases have been used, who refuses to share that information, does not deserve re-election.

Brownsville doesn't need four more years of this shit!