THANKS BUT NO THANKS, RALPH: TITO NEW CHAIR AT PORT OF B'TOWN

By Juan Montoya

For months, Brownsville Navigation District trustee Ralph Cowen had been unabashedly seeking to have his colleagues on the board of directors skip over fellow trustee Tito Lopez and place him as chairman of the port.

Alas, it was not to be.

When Ralph, an affable cheerful fellow when things go his way, realized that he didn't have the votes to get the chair, he didn't attend the meeting when the officers were elected.

Instead, the majority opted to make Lopez chairman, Carlos Masso vice chair, and Martin Arambula secretary.

Cowen and John Reed, the outgoing chair will simply be members of the board.

Already, there are whispers in the Golden Ditch that the new majority has a few changes in mind, starting with the lavish spending and obscene salaries of the top administrators. And the new majority, instead of heaping bonuses on the likes of Port Director Eddie Campirano and others, will now try to raise the salaries of the minimum-wage employees out there, sources said.

"The port is making money," said one, "but Reed, Ralph and Campirano were going through it like water."

Another likely target of the new majority will be the expensive lobbyists that have been on retainer since the days of Port Director Raul (sorry) Besteiro and his cohorts in Washington like former congressman Solomon Ortiz and his right-hand man Lencho Rendon.

For example, of the Washington D.C.-based LeMunuon Group's total annual income of $465,000, they clean up on the port's munificence to the tune of $120,000 per year. And what do we get in return? So far, every application for the so-called TIGER grants from the U.S. Dept. of Transportation has been zilch. In fact, on two of the grants, the port paid an engineering firm almost $100,000, only to be left out of the grants. The Port, in fact, is the lobbying firms's biggest client with the two closest one (at $80,000 per year) being the Air Transport Service Group and Alliance Air Services.

Another boondoggle that Cowen has been pushing for is the effort to attract cruise ships to dock at the Port.

Even after none other than Stewart Chiron of CruiseGuy.com stated in USA TODAY that: "The reality is they have as much chance to get a cruise ship to (home port) as they do in luring the Lakers from Los Angeles. They're too far from any major airport, and there aren't enough people within a three hour drive to warrant it."
Nonetheless, Cowen convinced the Cruise Ship Committee, an entity composed of representatives from Cameron County, the port,, Port Isabel, South Padre Island and Valley International Airport,to set up a five-member task force to execute the so-called Cruise Initiative.

The paid consultants , of course, have said that a market exists here and have given Cowen the impetus to push the plan forward.

“It would need some improvements, but it’s within the realm of possibility to get it started with what we have,” Cowen, who also delivers the Charro Days grito each February, crowed to the Brownsville Herald. So far the five entities have chipped in for $25,000 for a first study and will be touched again for another $48,000 t determine the feasibility of bringing a cruise line here.

Then again, if the conclusions are not positive, that will have been money spent chasing Cowen's pipe dream.

"Expect that effort to dwindle," said our source. 'with Reed out and the more sensible Lopez and Masso and Armabula making the majority now, they will be less likely to splurge on Ralph's pet projects."