MARTINEZ CROWNED MAYOR OF BROWNSVILLE

By Juan Montoya

To the strains of a cherubic choir and the benediction of the local clergy, millionaire personal injury lawyer Tony Martinez was anointed mayor of the City of Brownsville as were residency impostor Jessica Tetreau-Kalifa and absentee barrio resident Ricardo Longoria.
Waiting in the wings to see who will fill their positions were commissioners Anthony Troiani and Eduard Camarillo. Troiani's at-large A seat will be contested this June 18 between Estella Chavezand and Robert Lopez. The District 4 seat held by Camarillo will be up for grabs between Tony Zavaleta and John Villarreal.
Brownsville Catholic Diocese Bishop Daniel E. Flores, Martinez's son T.J., a priest, and other priests and men of the cloth were on hand as well to give the affair a spiritual send off for the next four years.
The Our Lady of Guadalupe Parochial School Choir, a school that Martinez founded, sang the national anthem, and his son performed the invocation. It is not mentioned if Martinez, who was pictured in the local daily receiving communion from his son after winning the election handily over four other candidates, had holy water available at the entrance of the city chambers.
"We can't thank God enough," Martinez is quoted as saying.
Campaign reports indicate that Martinez spent at least $150,000 in getting the 5,308 votes that catapulted him into the mayorship of our fair city. At $28.25 per vote, he easily acquired the 54 percent that prevented him from being in a runoff with his nearest competitor, Camarillo, who netted 24 percent of the vote and spent less than a fifth of what Martinez did.
In taking the oath of office, Tetreau-Kalifa also called her supporters her "inspiration," and pledged that her "heart and love" were in District 2, if not her home and husband. At a hearing earlier in the day, losing incumbent Charlie Atkinson had asked a visiting judge to stop the city from swearing her in claiming she didn't meet the residency requirements that she live in the district at least six months before the election May 14.
Hapless Charlie, who's never been accused of being the sharpest tool in the shed, said he did not question her residency formally because he did not want to disrupt the elections(?). Now it appears that, as usual, he's a day late and a dollar short.
Tetreau has said she lives with her mother in Heather Lane inside District 2 because of the lady's illness. However, no sign of the alleged illness was visible during her swearing in which both her parents attended. Judge Elia Lopez-Cornejo swore in Tetreau-Kalifa and said she had married her and her husband a few months earlier. So where does she and her husband live, after all?
Police reports indicate a stormy relationship exists between the happy couple and in her previous complaints of domestic abuse against him she lists his address on San Marcelo as her home.
Recently divorced Ricardo Longoria, who beat Roman Perez for the Southmost area district, advised those present to not neglect their families in their public life, a kind of ex post facto "do as I say and not as I do" sermon.
Longoria is one to speak.
At a public forum during the last go-round of elections, Longoria promised the Herald's Emma Perez-Treviño that he would not continue taking benefits from the city that were not authorized by the city charter. Then, a day later, he reneged and said he would continue to take the health insurance, the $300 monthly car allowance and other perks "on the advice of legal counsel."
We later learned that legal counsel Mark Sossi may have donated $400 worth of meat to his campaign for a pachanga.
It wasn't until a group of citizens took Longoria and the other commissioners to court and District Judge Janet Leal read them riot act to stop taking the freebies contrary to the city charter that they finally ceased and desisted. Of course, that little intransigence on their part cost the city taxpayer a pretty penny for legal counsel (Sossi), about $40,000 we hear.
Sossi, of course, went on to rake in the city cash as contract attorney at $120,000 a year part-time thanks in part to Longoria's vote.
Both Longoria and Martinez have pledged to "work through our United Brownsville" plan. That's the same boondoggle that we paid $900,000 for to compile a volume of readily available U.S. Census data and a grab-bag of pipe-dream wishes to be administered by a self-appointed board with IBC's Fred Rusteberg as Puppet Master. Who does Rusteberg answer to?
Ahumada,who refused to support the United Brownsville scam was voted out of the group's board by a majority on the city's commission after he complained that the group was accountable to no one and that there was no transparency because of their private meetings.
Will Martinez now that that pesky Ahumada is gone now be invited to join the Big Boys in the cutting of the public pie?
Rusteberg's "Community Betterment" Foundation gave Martinez $5,000 according to campaign reports he filed with the state.
United Brownsville is getting subsidized by the taxpayers to hire a director from outside the city and a public relations guru to make us all swallow the bitter truth that our city commissioners have abdicated their fiduciary responsibilities and handed the reins of our destiny to the moneychangers at the temple.
Now, with God himself apparently at his side, will Martinez look down from his throne and consider the silly needs of us mere mortals like good streets, creating good-paying jobs and putting an end to the costly and inefficient city bureaucracy?
We can only pray.