LIKE MAMA, LIKE SON: BUZZWORDS, HYPERBOLE HALLMARK OF GARCIA THE LESSER'S PITCHES FOR PUBLIC CASH

By Juan Montoya
For the better part of 20 years (since 1991) UTB President Julieta Garcia was able to convince the residents in the Texas Southmost College District that in subsidizing the UT System they were supporting a "community university," an "innovative educational concept," and "partnering" as "stakeholders" for an unique educational concept in the Americas.
By use of buzzwords, hyperbole, and verbal smoke and mirrors, she was able to make TSC boards "transfer" millions – some estimate more than $1 billion over 20 years – to the megawealthy UT System and garner a hefty $300,000-plus salary in poverty-wracked South Texas.
The results, alas, left much to be desired. We had the highest tuition and fees of all community colleges in the state, some of the lowest freshman retention rates, and a dismal 17 percent graduation rate after six years of study.
The fruit, it is said, does not fall far from the tree.
Her son Oscar Jr, has flowered into a facsimile of his mother. We won't go into the way that the powers that be (the Calos Marins, the Fred Rustebergs, the Tony Martinezes, etc.) have placed him under their wing and thrust him in positions where he obviously lacks the skills to perform. He is, after all, Julieta's son.
Just recently, Oscar Jr.'s plan to get $407,000 for Phase II of a Small Areas Plan from the Greater Brownsville Incentives Corporation (GBIC) was tabled by the full board of the Brownsville Economic Development Council citing a lack of the need, a lack of urgency, and the sheer folly of throwing nearly $500,000 of good money after bad into a second study to study a study.
This was not the first time that Oscar Jr, had gone to the GBIC well.
In February, as Project manager for Jacobs Management, he had convinced the Port of Brownsville, the Public Utilities Board and the GBIC to hand over $185,000 for Phase 1 of the so-called Small Area Plan recommended by the $454,000 Brownsville Strategic Infrastructure and Land Management Plan drafted by Robin McCaffrey of Needham, McCaffrey and Associates, the same firm that worked on the City of Kyle Comprehensive Master Plan, under the name of Mesa.
McCaffrey was hired when Mayor Mike/Miguel Gonzalez was still in office in Kyle. Gonzalez is now the executive director of United Brownsville.
Garcia Jr. was the chairman of the Brownsville Public Utility Board when he signed off on the McCaffrey plan.
That plan identified 32 small-area sites and called for the development of commercial corridors and recommended that the development of the plan be split into three phases at a total cost of $750,000.
Garcia Jr. saw his opportunities and took them and, like a Tammany Hall operative, jumped ship at the PUB and latched on to Jacobs to milk the cow.
His proposal to the port, the PUB, and the GBIC for Phase I landed him $185,000 voted on by GBIC chairman David Betancourt, city commissioner Jessica Tetreau, and Al Villarreal.
We looked long and hand for the work product that Oscar Jr. had developed and no one could find it for a few days. When we finally got it, we understood why it had taken so long.
At first blush, the 90-page report seeks to dazzle the reader. But as you become jaded to Brownsville being "poised," "positioned," etc., to maximize its potential, to allow it to expand economic growth, to etc., etc., etc.,
You know the mantra.
At its core is an embellishment of the McCaffrey plan, with small parts of it polished up, repackaged, wrapped in tinsel, and thrust at the reader as new. In fact, it is nothing more than la misma gata, pero revolcada.
That is just the first 50 pages.
As you leaf through it several projects listed in the McCaffrey study keep reappearing in the text. They are: The deepening of the Port's channel (Port-centric), the extension of the Brownville airport runway, the Coming of Spacex (of course), the Brownville Industrial Corridor, the Tenaska plant (power corridors), the coming of UTRGV, the East Loop, FM 550, and, of course, the commercial clusters. There is the perfunctory bone thrown to Marin's Bi-Ned scheme to make the "metroplex" of Matamoros, Brownsville the hub of secondary manufacturing to service the maquiladoras in Matamoros.
They are adorned with individual flow charts showing how it will all come together and take us into economic nirvana if you just follow the plan.
The last 40 pages consist of (we're not joking) of the index cards that were used to "prioritize" these projects. Why the index cards were included we can only hazard to guess.
He probably figured that 50 pages for $185,000 may have seemed to scant a work product for the funding "stakeholders." An additional padding of 40 pages of photocopied note index cards with hand-drawn arrows and notes. We include some for your enjoyment.

Garcia Jr. frankly tells his funding "stakeholders" that his team was unable to set up a conference call with port officials during all the time the study was being done. However, he was able to use the material from the "Interactive Planning Session" where the index cards were used (Interactive Planning Session Analysis Cards, sorry) to determine the port's future plans to take its rightful place in the International Itermodal Transportation System.
That planning session was attended by representatives of the "stakeholders," namely three members of PUB, one from the Port of Brownsville, one from the BEDC, one from the City of Brownsville, one from United Brownsville (stakeholder?), and four (including Oscar Jr.) from Jacobs.
Among the main recommendations is that the "stakeholders" get on with it and fund Phase II (through Oscar Jr., of course).
As an afterthought, since finding funding for these "clusters" was part of the deal, Jacobs suggestions are for the establishment of special (taxing) districts, the implementation of fees, and the reaping of the growth in ad valorem taxes as the expected expansion comes to be. Coupled with "private-pubic" partnerships, it should be a cinch.
At the end of all of this is the recommendation that (Aw you were looking!) Jacobs be hired for another study of the study of the study to further study the McCaffrey study.
Well, the Port and the PUB "stakeholders" respectfully declined to participate to fund the new and improved $407,000 Phase II study proposed by Oscar Jr. and he was set to present it to the GBIC, even after the full BEDC board gave it a thumbs down. We understand that Oscar Jr, is leaning on GBIC chairman (and county judge wannabe) David Betancourt to place it on the GBIC agenda anyway at their next meeting.
They would do well to remember that before this Phase I debacle, in 2007, Garcia Jr. also talked the GBIC into giving him $180,000 for something called Gentnet Inc,. which was supposed to "address computer ownership and Internet access through community labs and K-20 system as well as cooperative telecommunications infrastructure projects to recruit commercial investments."
That – according to Gilbert Salinas of the BEDC, was supposed to "create at least 20 jobs, pay a minimum of $9 per hour per employee, and create primary jobs which are those that infuse new dollars into a local economy."
Where are they? We know for sure that at least one job – Oscar Jr.'s – was all that was created and that it benefited his private economy.   
Will David give in as he did last time? Will Tetreau, Villarreal, Sikes and the rest?
If they don't Juliet might get mad.