YEARS LATER, PAT AHUMADA STILL FOOLED BY FAKE AIRLINE

 

The argument about a phony airline, Fly Frontera, still simmers in Brownsville twelve years after it was finally proven to be a scam.

The truth is that many in Brownsville were convinced that this deal was right for the city.

I can still remember when my friend Ben Neece, in a conversation at his downtown club, The Crescent Moon, tried to convince Nena and I that Carlos Quintanilla, who was promoting the airline was an OK guy.

Hell, Juan Montoya, administrator of Brownsville's most popular blog, El Rrun Rrun, wrote numerous articles supportive of the con artist, even allowing Quintanilla to pen a couple himself.

Zeke Silva

Still, in the last couple days, Zeke Silva and disqualified mayoral candidate Pat Ahumada have engaged in a Facebook debate about the merits of the fake airline, Fly Frontera, being promoted by the con man, Carlos Quintanilla.

Here's one of Ahumada's responses to Silva:

"I did not care about Quintanilla at all, I cared about the proposal which in my opinion was viable with good safe guards, we would have had a positive economic impact by having international flights.

Now, we will never know if this proposal would have made a difference or not. I believe it would have, unfortunately the negative naysayers killed it with no good alternative. Just killed it. 

This proposal was much less of a risk than the Tenaska project I opposed while I was mayor."

It was twelve years ago when Carlos Quintanilla, a con artist with a RICO felony conviction under his belt for bilking G. Heileman Brewing Company of $800,000, came slithering into town.

At the time, the notorious flim flam man had significant other baggage; an alleged arrearance of $85,000 in child support, $12,000 worth of hot checks and liens for "theft of property" attached to his residence at 421 S. Dwight in Dallas.

Quintanilla, the charismatic Hispanic flim flammer, representing a rich anglo with a 4 day old airline to sell, Fly Frontera.  

The City Commission almost couldn't accept the deal fast enough, with then Mayor Pat Ahumada acting like a giddy school girl trying to convince her parents the bad boy was really "nice."  

The proposed deal was so upside down for the city as to be almost laughable:  first 23 tickets NOT sold guaranteed by the city at $135 per ticket.  That would incentivize the fledgling airline to fly empty planes as they would use less fuel and Brownsville would pay anyway.

Fly Frontera also asked for $1,500,000 up front for licensing, fuel, spare parts, etc.  

The quickly thrown together company didn't even have any planes, but Ahumada kept repeating himself when some citizens became aware of Quintanilla's multi-paged criminal record:  "Don't blame the messenger!  Carlos Quintanilla has nothing to do with the deal.  He's just the messenger!"  

Photo from Quintanilla's YouTube Video Entitled "Jim Barton Tells Lies"

Yeah, right.  Is that why the company's business address is 421 S. Dwight Ave., Dallas, TX, the address of Quintanilla's home?(Quintanilla is still fuming about the breakdown of this con, threatening  to finalize his lawsuit against me for my tiny part in snuffing out the scam.  He describes himself as "putting the finishing touches on a lawsuit agains(sic) Mr. Barton for his killing of Fly Frontera")

Actually, it was a number of Brownsville citizens who stood tall at the City Commission meeting against this dumbass proposal:  Craig Grove, Dino Chavez, Teresa Saldivar, Zeke Silva, and Laura Miniel among others.

Quintanilla returned in 2012 as front man for Ted Parker of Healthsmart, who was being sued by BISD for $14.2 million for insurance overbilling.  

Quintanilla started a Political Action Committee to fund candidates for the school board who would vote to retract the suit; Cata Presas-Garcia and Lucy Longoria, Enrique Escobedo and Christina Saavedra.

Eventually, the foursome Quintanilla recruited agreed to settle the law suit for a mere pittance.

The con man had done his job.