𝗕𝗥𝗢𝗪𝗡𝗦𝗩𝗜𝗟𝗟𝗘'𝗦 𝗖𝗜𝗧𝗬 𝗖𝗢𝗠𝗠𝗜𝗦𝗦𝗜𝗢𝗡 𝗦𝗘𝗧 𝗧𝗢 𝗦𝗣𝗘𝗡𝗗 $𝟭,𝟭𝟱𝟵,𝟮𝟵𝟱.𝟬𝟰 𝗕𝗘𝗙𝗢𝗥𝗘 𝗠𝗢𝗦𝗧 𝗧𝗔𝗫𝗣𝗔𝗬𝗘𝗥𝗦 𝗚𝗘𝗧 𝗛𝗢𝗠𝗘 𝗙𝗥𝗢𝗠 𝗪𝗢𝗥𝗞

 

EnGo Planet Bus Shelter

Brownsville's first of two monthly city commission meetings has been set for 2:00 PM Tuesday, August 6, an unexplained new time, several hours before our city's hardworking taxpayers get home from their jobs.

Well before the sun sets, our city commission will have spent a cool million bucks of taxpayer money on studies, gadgets, investment advice, 3 police vehicles and 19 long-needed bus shelters.

Should the items on the city's Consent Agenda be approved as they usually are, $107,500 will be spent with CTM Professional Services for "museum consulting services." 

$153,988.04 will be spent with Atlas Insights from Selection Technologies and $49,080 for an annual contract for traffic signal operation and maintenance.

A $138,240 expenditure will be approved for 3 Chevrolet pickups, most likely Silverados, to be purchased from Caldwell Country Chevrolet for the Brownsville Police Department.(The police in Texas seem to prefer pickups over the old Ford Crown Vics and Explorers, although I've no idea why they need the storage bed.)

City Manager Helen Ramirez needs $93,498 to contract with Jviation, a Woolpert Company, to "create, update and submit to the FAA an Airport Concession Disadvantaged Business Enterprise Plan(ACDBE).  I kid you not!

The Brownsville Police Department will also get an imaging scanner system from ZNET Tech LLC to work crime scenes, recording blood spatter and bullet defects, at a cost of $99,989. (The police department in Lodi, CA got a similar device from the same company for $49,396 in 2022, but maybe the gizmos have doubled in price in two years.

You'll also be happy to know that the City of Brownsville will also be getting some investment advice as to how to maximize the city's banked monies, but advice is not free as the city will pay Deep Blue Investment Advisors $67,000 for the investing tips.

The most important agenda item will be new bus shelters, but only 19 of them at a cost of $450,000 from EnGoPlanet.  These new bus shelters are said to "reduce our carbon footprint, are solar powered with real time updates, functional during power outages and represent a green transit experience." (I've pictured the fanciest of the company's shelters above, hopefully the one we'll get at a cost of $23,654.21 each.)