IMPORTANT STORIES THE BROWNSVILLE HERALD CHOSE NOT TO COVER

 

Yesterday's(5/02/2023) Brownsville Herald gave us an odd assessment of the city's mayoral race and the current candidates: 

"Mayor Trey Mendez’s decision not to run for reelection triggered four challengers throwing their hats in the political ring, including self-proclaimed wedding officiant Erasmo Castro, City Commissioner At-Large and Greater Brownsville Incentives Corporation Chair John Cowen Jr., business owner Jennifer Stanton and District 2 City Commissioner Jessica Tetreau."

Mayor Trey Mendez

What our city's much-maligned newspaper left out is the likely reason Trey Mendez decided not to seek re-election; that he was caught with his hand in the proverbial cookie jar, seeking $280,000 of BCIC funding to refurbish the downtown Coca-Cola Building he'd purchased from a local citizen for a very nominal fee, coupled with a sizeable delinquent tax bill.

What made the whole process so unethical is that Mayor Mendez had been involved in setting guidelines and qualifications for the very program he was now accessing as mayor!

Ramiro Gonzalez

The mayor's partner in the project, City Administrator Ramiro Gonzalez, was terminated from his $82,500 job for his role in the fiasco, while the mayor, as an elected official, not a city employee, kept his position.

Quite possibly, the mayor had 280,000 additional reasons for not seeking re-election and will be back at the BCIC money counter as soon as he's a private citizen.

A couple other oddities about the Herald's reporting:

Why is Erasmo Castro labeled a "self-proclaimed wedding officiant?" Does he actually make his living by conducting weddings or did he simply make that claim?

Also, why is Jennifer Stanton included in the list of candidates when Juan Montoya's El Rrun Rrun reported her disqualification for office because she does not live within the city limits of Brownsville?

Stanton's current residence on Tallowood Drive is indeed outside the city limits and perhaps explains why she's never voted in city elections.

While some have countered with the fact that former City Commissioner Ben Neece owns a home on Sally Lane, also outside the city, the fact is that Neece maintained an apartment downtown, living there during his run for office and tenure as commissioner. 

It's also interesting that the local paper chose to identify Ms. Stanton as a "business owner," not disparaging her as a "house cleaner," an honorable profession, to be sure, but one they chose not to identify.

Perhaps, the largest ommission and oversight by the Brownsville Herald is to simply describe mayoral candidate John Cowen as the Chairman of the Brownsville Community Improvement Corporation, not mentioning that Cowen's membership, let alone chairmanship of the BCIC, the city's 4B entity for dispersing "quality of life" monies in the interest of economic development, violates the very spirit of the 4B.

Why do 4A boards like the GBIC and 4B boards like the BCIC exist?  Their reason for existence is to SEPARATE such allocation of monies from the control of elected officials, in this case the mayor and city commission. 

So, to have a city commissioner, in this case, John Cowen, to sit in oversight of such funding, violates the very reason 4A and 4B boards were created in Texas! 

Very simply put; elected political officials should not control tax dollars to be used for economic development.  It's totally unethical.

That's the story our local newspaper should have been writing about!

John Cowen(on the right) with Uncle Ralph Cowen