WILL BACKBITING AND GUTTERSNIPES STOP NEW AIRLINE FROM COMING TO BROWNSVILLE?

By Juan Montoya

Like a rerun of a bad movie, it appears that a new airline planning to open for business to establish a regional aviation hub in Brownsville for northern Mexico might fall victim to opponents whose only objections have been based on vicious personal attacks on its representatives.

Fly Frontera, whose proposal for funding to establish regional air service between Brownsville, Monterrey and Tampico has been unanimously approved by the Brownsville-South Padre Island Airport Advisory Board and the Greater Brownsville Incentives Corporation, is now facing vociferous opposition from an ad hoc group who wants to delay a decision from city commission on whether they provide incentives as they did for American Airlines.

The item in one of the issues contained on the the agenda for the City Commission regular meeting at 6 p.m. at City Hall, 1001 E. Elizabeth St.

In vicious attacks upon its representative Carlos Quintanilla in local blogs, critics who are against the funding for the establishment of the airline to begin operations as early as June 1 now want a decision on the item delayed and the granting of the passenger incentives to go out for bids.

The principal objections came from Bob Hendrick, owner of Pan Am Airlines, which specializes in cargo and not on passenger service. Hendrick says he was not told that incentives totalling $2 million was available for applicants when he set up shop two years ago.

Now, as it appears that a majority of the commission may give those some of those incentives to Fly Frontera, he says he wants in on the game and get some of the cash for his company. But he cannot deny that after two years he has not been able to record either a takeoff or landing at the Brownsville airport.

However, he wants the commissioners to give him a shot at setting up the air service even though he knows he must start from scratch.

In local blogs, critics have derided Fly Frontera's president Jim Gallagher and called him a "con," accused Quintanilla of owing child support and saying his kids don't have enough to eat and that Fly Frontera is fighting bankruptcy.

All this without a scintilla of credible evidence.

What Quintanilla's alleged domestic situation has to do with a legitimate airline operation setting up what everyone acknowledges has been a sorely-needed air service between northern Mexico cities and Brownsville has not been explained.

And the fact that he was convicted of a felony years ago in Chicago, served his time and emerged from that episode to build an effective grassroots organization with a formidable track record of helping the Hispanic community apparently means nothing to the critics of the proposal.

Fueled by a vindictiveness unparalleled in recent history, they would have the city commission reject the Fly Frontera proposal and go back to square one. Hendrick went as far as registering the name Fly Frontera with the Texas Secretary of State to intervene in the city incentive process.

One of the shrillest critics the daughter of a former losing candidate for mayor. It is through her comments on the internet that the meanest comments on Quintanilla's alleged personal domestic difficulties have emanated. We all remember what she went through as a child watching her dad and her mother as they endured the break up of their marriage.

The stuff could fill books, if not divorce case files. Yet, in deference to the children in the case and the privacy of the marriage, the community kept its silence and let them handle the difficult matter on their own.

Unfortunately, she is not as charitable toward others as they were to her as a child.

Whatever the motivation may be for the decline in civility for the Fly Frontera proposal, it has become increasingly clear that this ad hoc group of self-appointed keepers of the morals intend to do their utmost to kill the proposal or at least to sidetrack it to the point where Air Frontera officials will decide to pack their bags and take their airline somewhere else where they will be made welcome.

If Fly Frontera was to gain approval for its incentives proposals, Brownsville would be the only city between here and Laredo to have direct air service to Monterrey and Tampico. This has been a long-sought goal for city commissions and economic development specialists for as long as anyone can remember.

The economic offshoots from such a service are undeniable. Now the ad hoc group wants the city to bid the passenger service to give Hendrick a shot at the incentive money.

This sounds very much like the minority on the Texas Southmost College board of trustees who, after losing the vote when they tried to give away the assets of the district to the UT System, cried for the majority to hold an election (a referendum) so they could have another chance to alter the outcome.

Now, after Hendrick made noises about possibly filing a lawsuit against the city if it grants the incentives to the new airline, there are indications that city contract lawyer Mark Sossi might recommend the commission to table the item because of the threat of that litigation.

You know Sossi. Even though he sat in when the GBIC approved granting Fly Frontera $250,000 in seed money contingent on the city approving a same amount he said nothing. He is no stranger to litigation. In fact, his stated fear of potential litigation led him to silence city critics when the commission followed his advice to not blackout the broadcast of the public-comment section of the city meetings.

Later, when Moses Sorola and a handful of other city residents filed a lawsuit to stop the city commission from issuing millions in debt without going to the citizens for a vote, he hired his former law firm who convinced the commissioners to file a lawsuit in Travis County against all the citizens of Brownsville.

And he says he's afraid of litigation?

But what does Hendrick, or anyone else for that matter, have to litigate? He has no passenger service. He has been unable to have one takeoff or landing in the last two years there. And if the proponents of Fly Frontera have touched all the bases, crossed all the Ts, dotted all the Is, and followed the process laid out by the city for doing business here, can Hendrick's an the critics interfere in the process simply by making more noise than the proponents?

Brownsville's will find itself in a fine kettle of fish if the regular business of the city can be overturned and perverted by a loud mob and the opportunity to make a positive step for the aviation industry to open itself to attract economic development here is lost for that reason.