IBC'S RUSTEBERG CREATES UNACCOUNTABLE SHADOW GOVERNMENT

By Juan Montoya

Nearly everything's in place for the coup d'etat planned for the takeover of democratically-elected government in the greater Brownsville area engineered by local banker Fred Rusteburg and his handpicked cadre of political lackeys, businessmen and developers.

The plan – at a cost of $900,000 – was paid for by the City of Brownsville in the waning days of former Mayor Eddie Treviño's term. Called Imagine Brownsville, it purports to be a master plan that is expected to guide the community’s growth for the next 10 years.

However, except for the 300 community residents who were shepherded through its compilation by its paid contractors, it carries no authority to force local entities to follow it.

In fact, City Attorney Mark Sossi said that the so-called Comprehensive Planning and Coordination Board is an "informal" entity and is not subject to the Texas Open Meetings Act.

However, plans by this board are already on the boards to guide the social, economical and educational development of this area without public accountability.

In other words, local residents or elected governmental bodies cannot hold this shadow group accountable to anyone except for the members of the board itself.

Furthermore, since the Imagine Brownsville "master plan" was not really a planning instrument such as the one in place by the City of Brownsville, it is hard to see how future city commissions can be forced to comply with the goals set forth by this ad-hoc entity.

"A real plan includes changes in the codes of the different departments and ordinance changes that must go through the public-hearing process," said a former city planner. "In either of those cases, this Imagine Brownsville master plan doesn't meet those criteria. And aren't we forgetting that the city already has a master plan required by the state and federal governments?"

Mayor Pat Ahumada, a critic of his predecessor's lame-duck move contends that the "plan" amounted to an accumulation of existing plans and U.S. Census information. Further, he said that no other entity such as the University of Texas at Brownsville and Texas Southmost College or the Brownsville Public Utilities Board contributed to its $900,000 cost.
Additionally, Ahumada said another $800,000 in city services and staff time should be included in the bill.
"The residents of the city are picking up the whole tab and this unelected committee is going to use public funds to operate it," said Ahumada. "Who are they accountable to?"

The mayor said he had to dissent from the plan on principle. The rest of the city commission approved the plan in July. The commission has not approved the proclamation accepting the Memorandum of Understanding.
The "plan" is 470-pages long and is a compilation of suggestions held in forums held across the city by its organizers.

However, as Emma Perez-Treviño points out in a recent Brownsville Herald article, the CPCB has met to organize its future "coordination" with no public oversight or participation. This is intriguing in that this group's stated aim is to guide the direction of the city's future.

As outlined in Perez-Treviño's article, the COMITERN of Imagine Brownsville will be made up of the executive director of each entity (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.

The first three (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.

Rusteberg noted that the plan is "really a beginning" and a "call to action for all of us to work together."

In other words, what Rusteberg and his cadre will be able to do is to direct the economic development of the city and its entities toward a future of their own liking. A recent critic of the plan noted that there is no component in this "plan" for services to veterans.

"How can it be called comprehensive plan if they left out veterans?" he asked. "We are over 24,000 in the county, most of them in the Brownsville area."

Will the entities in the Imagine Brownsville takeover plan willingly abdicate their responsibilities to the residents who elected them through the democratic process to a group hand-picked by the likes of Rusteberg and his fellow bankers and businessmen, some of who are directly responsible for financing politicians' elections?

Unless this Juggernaut is stopped in its tracks by the citizens of Brownsville, democratically-elected representation in the city will be an illusion.