At tonight's meeting of the Greater Brownsville Incentives Corporation, the five-member board will be asked to provide the Kepel-Amfels which has been employing local workers for the last 26 years with incentives of $4,000 per new job that would total $2.8 million for the hiring of 7000 workers to be hired in its expansion shipbuilding business.Although that should be a no-brainer in giving Cameron County's fifth largest employer incentives to create 700 new jobs with an average salary of $18.48 per hour, there is some talk in city circles that some of the members of the GBIC will attempt to deny the company the job-creation incentives.
The meeting will be held today (Thursday) at 5:30 p.m. in the city commission chambers at the old federal building at 1001 E. Elizabeth Street in downtown Brownsville.
The GBIC members, chair and city commissioner Jessica Tetreau-Kalifa, city commissioner Deborah Portillo, city commission Cesar De Leon, John Cowen, Jr., and Cameron County Treasurer and board member David Betancourt are said to be considering denying the oil-platform builder the incentives because they feel that it is an established company and that GBIC money should be spent somewhere else.
If GBIC denies Kepel Amfels the incentives, there is a real danger that the company might move its operations out of the area and build them somewhere else.
Sources close to GBIC say that there are other suitors waiting in the wings to take over should the incentives be denied and the company chooses to relocate its operations elsewhere.
Sources say that chairman Tetreau has indicated she may be unwilling to dispense with $2.8 million for the 700 new jobs in the hope that Kepel Amfels will clear the way for other investors who may be willing to take over the property at the Brownsville Navigation District. Prominent among those named as potential suitors is none other than Ambiotec's Carlos Marin, an engineering-company director who has made a fortune being GBIC's exclusive engineering company over the years.
The decision on whether the grant the $2.8 million will be made today after the proposal was considered at GBIC's last monthly meeting when the five members were present but three did not vote citing conflict of interest issues.
At least 83 percent of the workers at Kepel Amfels are from Brownsville. Retooling of the Keppel Amfels facility will cost the company $34.3 million, and the company argues that its diversification into the shipbuilding business will allow it to stay here for another 20 years.
Will the company – which has been one of the leading private employers in Cameron County be denied the incentives by the five-member board and be driven out to be replaced by someone of Marin's choosing?
The economic future of the local economy may well rest in the hands of Tetreau, Portillo, Cowen, De Leon, and Betancourt. Will they be up to the task? Or will they heed Marin's siren call to let him and his friends wet their beaks?
No comments:
Post a Comment