RUSTEBERG’S PUBLICLY-FUNDED SHADOW GOVERNMENT CLOSER TO REALITY

By Juan Montoya
The local daily’s staff is stretched far too thin for it to cover all important public policy decisions made by every governmental entity.

That's probably why we didn't read that the majority of the members of Brownsville Public Utilities Board voted to accept a Memorandum of Understanding with the so-called Comprehensive Planning and Coordination Board invented by local banker Fred Rusteberg and his cabal of plotters to impose a shadow government on our city.

This "committee's" work does not come cheap. It is the crown diamond of the $900,000 Imagine Brownsville pipe dream that was paid for by the City of Brownsville in the waning days of former Mayor Eddie Treviño's term. It's draft budget calls for $381,000, of which $206,000 would be in in-kind services that participating entities would provide, including $85,000 for an executive director.

The plan also calls for each participating entity to chip in $25,000 each to fund Imagine Brownsville's staff and projects for a yearly total of $175,000.

Additionally, Mayor Pat Ahumada said another $800,000 already spent in city services and staff time should be included in the bill.

The plan purports to be a master plan that is expected to guide the community’s growth for the next 10 to 20 years. However, it carries no authority to force local entities to follow it.

Yesterday, during the PUB meeting, only Ahumada and member Ramon Hinojosa raised any doubts about the scheme to use public money to finance an appointed board of political sycophants and business lackeys.

"I asked them how long we were supposed to continue funding those $25,000," Hinojosa asked. "They couldn't tell me. Will it go on for the next 10 or 20 years?"

Ahumada , a strong critic of the whole Imagine Brownsville scheme, was even more acerbic in his questioning. He asked whether public money should be used to fund a body like the committee that is accountable to no one except its members and those who appointed them.

"There is no transparency and no accountability in this," he agreed.

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.

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 and the PUB haves jumped on board so far.

"Whether it's the GBIC, the BCIC, of the BPUB, the money is coming out of the same pocket," Hinojosa contended. "It's city taxpayers footing the bill."

And, even with a so-called Memorandum of Understanding, the legality of such an entity running roughshod over the entire local governmental landscape is questionable .

"They (members) can only recommend," Hinojosa said. "They can't force anyone to follow what they recommend."

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.

Critics also point out that 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?"

Ahumada 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. "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 "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.