A CALL TO ARMS

By Juan Montoya

Shall we sit idly by as a shadow government is imposed upon us?

Is indifference the mark of a sunshine patriot?

These are not idle statements made by someone who has nothing else to do but twiddle his thumbs.

This is a warning that what is happening in Brownsville now is the wresting of self governance and handing the right to control your own destiny to an economic and political elite that seeks to shape a future in its own image, not ours.

I speak of the pustch being engineered by IBC president Fred Rusteberg. Let's call a spade a spade. For years, Rusteberg and his bunch have virtually run the city. They have unilaterally decided which way our future has run.

As private businessmen,that's par for the course. But now that the he wants us to fund his pogrom, it's time to tell him (and them) we're not playing, or paying.

As outlined in Perez-Treviño's article in the Brownsville Herald, Rusteberg and his cronies have constructed a COMINTERN of Imagine Brownsville to be be made up of the executive directors of governmental entities (or a nominee by the majority of each) which in turn will appoint a private sector counterpart to form the whole committee.The entities include the Greater Brownsville Incentives Corporation, the Brownsville Community Improvement Committee, the Brownsville Public Utility Board, the Brownsville Navigation District, the Brownsville Independent School District, the University of Texas at Brownsville-Texas Southmost College, and the city.
They have as their aim control of the city's future. No more, no less.

Given the current political situation, a majority of the city commission will probably ignore the wishes of the majority of the city voters and appoint someone else than the mayor to represent the people on that "committee."

The first three entities (GBIC, BCIC, and BPUB) are made up of members appointed by the city commission.That group will then oversee the activities of an executive director, a facilitator, a grant coordinator, a legal services staff member, and an administrator assistant.There is only one catch, however. Not all of these entities have agreed to sign a Memorandum of Understanding with Imagine Brownsville to come under its umbrella and fork out $25,000 a year for its operating budget.

Only the BCIC has jumped on board so far. It figures, Charley Atkinson is the chairman of that bunch, and we all know he's not the sharpest tool in the shed.

But what about us?

Revolutions have started for less causes than this. This bunch wants public money to operate without ever having gone to the public for its approval, much less election.

Remember what the U.S. revolution was about? Remember taxation without representation?

This is what, at its crux, this is all about. How can we allow these economic powers to manipulate a democratically elected government and stand silently by? Have the sacrifices of our veterans and dead soldiers been in vain?

You make up your mind. I shudder to think that my destiny and that of my children will be decided by a megalomaniac and his sycophants. Either we're real Americans or we live in a time and space that mocks the real meaning of a democratically elected government.