YES, VIRGINIA, BUT DO THE BROWNTOWN 8 PAY TAXES?

By Juan Montoya
The City of Brownsville's response to the lawsuit by the so-called Brownsville 8 to stop the city from issuing millions in certificates of obligations without going to the voters has been filed in the 138th District Court.
Guess what?
The attorneys for the city - Willette and Guerra - in their petition for a summary judgment, say the eight residents who filed the lawsuit don't have standing as taxpayers.
William De la O, Robert H. Carey, Roberto Uresti, Dagoberto Barrea, Argelia Miller, Tere Flores, Moses Sorola, and Robert Sanchez - all homeowners and businesspeople - filed the lawsuit to force the city to call an election to ask the voters whether they wanted to shoulder the additional debt.
Now the attorneys for the city say that since they didn't state in their original petition "what type of taxes" the plaintiffs claim to have paid, they don't have any standing to sue to stop the issuance.
The lawyers for the city go on to cite cases where the courts require the plaintiffs to show that "the public funds are expended on the alleged illegal activity" as proof they have standing to file the lawsuit.
The logic of the city's argument set off a round of guffaws from Moses Sorola, one of the plaintiffs in the lawsuit.
"We're not even there yet," he said. "We want them to hold an election to see if the people want to incur more debt. We're not saying whether the way the money will be spent is legal or illegal. That's putting the cart before the horse. We say it's illegal to issue tyhe certificates without going to the voters. What they're talking about is what happens after that."
Sorola and his fellow plaintiffs say Texas law required the city to consult with the voters to see whether they approve of the issuance. They rely on the case in Friendswood, where five citizens cited a 1997 city charter amendment that prohibits the city from issuing debt without voter approval that it could not finance from its own revenue streams, except in cases of “emergency or public need.”
The city had planned to issue $11 million in certificates of obligation to fund streets, drainage improvements, sports parks expansion, an animal shelter and a records building, but some residents said the city charter prohibited the city from accruing the new debt. While bonds require voter approval, certificates of obligation do not.
Like in Friendswood, the Brownsville city commission was considering authorizing the issuance of $11.3 million in certificates of obligation.
The city administration said the funds would be used for relocating rail lines; improving the land-fill site; buying patrol vehicles and ambulances; purchasing traffic control equipment; repairing the roof at the library; making street, sidewalk and drainage improvements; and purchasing rights-of-way for highway construction projects.
"(The) plaintiffs' original petition does not allege that public expenditures on these types of projects is illegal, as opposed to the purchase of Bibles for public school children, for instance," the city's attorneys wrote in asking for the summary judgement in their favor.
Sorola said the logic of the city's response is convoluted since the Brownsville 8 are not saying that the expenditures will be illegal, merely - like in Friendswood - that the city's charter calls for any proposed new debt to be approved by the voters.
In the Friendswood case, a district judge ruled in July 2009 in favor of the residents, possibly setting a precedent in which the city charter supersedes the Texas Certificate of Obligation Act.
"Either they city's lawyers are missing the whole point of our lawsuit, or they are deliberately trying to muddy the waters and confuse the court," he said. "We're not saying the expenditures are illegal. We're just asking them to follow the city charter."