ROBLES AND DOC PALS USED CITY MONEY TO CONSTRUCT BUFFER FOR THEMSELVES

By Juan Montoya
In the early 2000s a local doctor submitted his plan to build a subdivision on 18 acres off Owens Road, the one that snakes its way from Southmost Road north across a southern extremity of Resaca de la Palma on to Boca Chica Boulevard.
The subdivision was to be located on the west side of Owem road, and almost directly across the street from the resaca-side estates where successful physicians like Robert Robles, Romeo Montalvo, and Dagoberto Martinez have built palatial-like mansions. It has become, in effect, an exclusive domain of this profession, a "Doctors Row," if you will.

Alarmed that an influx of new arrivals in a much lower socioeconomic level would disturb their exclusive enclave and bucolic surroundings, the physicians, led by cardiologist Robles, decided that having a subdivision and all that implies directly across from their homes simply would not do.

So they opted to use a non-profit corporation formed ostensibly to display native plants, an arboretum, and walking trails and bought out their medical colleague. The corporation they established was named the Brownsville Botanical Gardens & Arboretum and Robles was named its director and vice-president.

Robles, also listed as manager of his Carclarob Management LLC and Hib Administration, LLC, tagged

Alonzo (Al) Villarreal as director and President of the nonprofit, Clare Bercot, director and Treasurer, Montalvo, director and Joe Krause also as a director.

They registered the Brownsville Botanical Gardens & Arboretum as a Domestic Nonprofit Corporation on Monday, December 29, 2003 in the state of Texas. It remains currently active to this day and Robles still serves as its registered agent.

Ostensibly, the nonprofit is listed under the category in the National Taxonomy of Exempt Entities (NTEE) as one dedicated to Environmental Quality, Protection and Beautification, Botanical, Horticultural, and Landscape Services.

Now, the group, after preventing the construction of a subdivision where just your average Brownsville resident could have lived right on their front door, sought a way to pay for the project.

They enlisted the aid of their friends on the board of the Valley Regional Hospital (Renato Cardenas) and got a chunk of money from his board. Then, they went after foundations like the Brownsville Foundation for Health and Education, The Palm Society of South Texas, and a number of other private donors.

The way they sold the project was for by saying that they had plans that called for "a multi-phase development of a botanical garden and arboretum to include enabling gardens for the physically challenged" on the 18 acres the organization bought in September 2006.

Depending on funding, they said the project could perhaps expand to adjacent lands later.

That would have been just fine for most folks. After all, preserving the environment and promotion native plant species resonates in our current ecological-friendly times. But then they though about it long and hard and decided to seek public funding from the very people they sought to keep from their exclusive enclave, the people of Brownsville.

They applied for – and received – $97,500 from Brownsville Community Incentives Corporation in 2007 and 2008.

In fact, it was the biggest grant awarded in 2008. The others who were also funded that year were:

*Market Square Collections Storage Project, at $64,986.23 to improve the vault infrastructure to provide proper collection storage for the furniture, art, and objects of BHA and other community groups.

*The Tennis Center Storage and Trainer Project, at $26,466To expand the existing tennis center building facility.

* The $9,000 Morningside Park Netting Project award that was amended to the $12,500 Morningside Park Restroom and Concessions Renovation Project Renovate restrooms and concession facilities to meet health, safety and ADA. That was also changed in 2009 to transfer funding to the North Brownsville Little Miss Kickball Restroom Project Phase I. Contract was amended in 2010 for an additional $78,477.

*Gorgas Science Foundation, Inc., $25,562.77 for El Valle Book Project Publication and distribution of a book to view and learn about the rich cultural and biodiversity that is represented in South Texas and Northern Mexico.

The Brownsville Herald at the time said the projected cost of the development was $438,852. The Brownsville Community Improvement Corp., with the City Commission's nod, allocated $97,500 from sales tax revenue to the project in December 2007 and January 2008 respectively.

The master plan of the Brownsville Botanical Gardens & Arboretum calls for native plants and trees, preserving habitats, meandering walking trails, a pavilion, educational tours, a main conservatory facility for education and research and security fencing.

Look at the project today in 2012, six years after they made the promises.

About the best way to describe it is as a parking lot with a half-hearted attempt at landscaping and a half dozen sabal palms planted around a few parking spaces. Four large cacti transplanted from the grounds of a a long-gone hotel didn't survive last year's freeze and now stand withered and dried out, a mute testament that the plants were not native species.

The plans in 2006 to establish "a multi-phase development of a botanical garden and arboretum to include enabling gardens for the physically challenged" are nowhere to be seen six years later. If someone failed to see the sign in front, they could not be blamed for thinking that it was merely a fenced cleared space with neither rhyme nor reason. Today, even the parking spaces serve as a canvas for gang taggers.

But the thousands of dollars in public funds did fulfill one purpose: They helped Robles and his elitist companions to establish a buffer between themselves and the rest of us mere mortals.