IT'S UNITED BROWNSVILLE VS. THE REST OF US MAY 11

By Juan Montoya
If ever there was a referendum on whether the residents of Brownsville want to be governed by their elected representatives or to be handed the tablets to the future by a shadowy gang of conspirators who are accountable to no one called United Brownsville, this year's city commission elections is it.
Hizzonner Da Mayor has made it no secret that he is behind incumbent commissioner Rose Gowen and District 3 candidate Deborah Portillo. And although he may have some differences on whether to can City Manager Charlie Cabler with District 4 incumbent John Villarreal, the commissioner has made it plain he's on board with the United Brownsville scheme.
Why is it United Brownsville vs. the rest of us?
The genesis of United Brownsville dates back to  the days of the Eddie Treviño regime as mayor of the city when he hired Matamoros millionaire schemer Carlos Marin to put together the Imagine Brownsville Comprehensive Plan.
That plan was put together to submit to Congress for grant money. The plan never sailed through because the two congressional sponsors (one of them was Solomon Ortiz) who promised to push for it were defeated in their next campaign. Stuck with a useless proposal for congressional funding, Marin and Treviño managed to bamboozle the rest of the city commissioners into funding Imagine Brownsville, at a hefty $1 million price tag.
So, what to do with a plan that had cost the city more than $1 million and ended up not producing what its proponents had promised?
Instead of fading off into the sunset and the dustbin of historical boondoggles, Imagine Brownsville was morphed into United Brownsville and used as a mechanism to siphon off funds from local cash-strapped entities. The scheme appealed to the likes of IBC's Fred Rusteberg, UTB's Juliet Garcia and other well-known manipulators of public resources. Now Mayor Martinez is one of
its main cogs.
With Rusteberg on board, United Brownsville became a non-profit corporation with no funds of its own. Rather, it survives and pays its staff by extracting a $25,000 "goodwill" tribute from the City of Brownsville, Greater Brownsville Incentive Corporation, Brownsville Community Improvement Corporation, Brownsville Independent School District, Brownsville Public Utilities Board, University of Texas at Brownsville, Texas Southmost College, and the Port of Brownsville.
In this way, the non-profit can pay its director Mike Gonzalez, the former mayor of Kyle and a conservative Republican who was handpicked by
Rusteberg as the United Brownsville's director, at a tidy $78,000 a year.
With its all-star cast of  heavy hitters, the local boards and elected officials proved pliant to the entreaties of the local idols.
Rusteberg, tablets in hand, alighted from the heights of the IBC main building and said thus:
"United Brownsville will focus on a set of strategies and actions that will make sure the Brownsville Borderplex and the Brownsville area we imagined together is built to last, built to last for our children, our children's children. When we agreed to lead Imagine Brownsville, it was never meant to be a plan that would sit on the shelf when it was completed. Plans demand action and that's what United Brownsville is about. We are excited to begin the implementation phase of the plan. This is truly a historic occasion."
The good banker that he is, Rusteberg's financial institution has not contributed one thin dime to this project. Rather, the public is being led by the nose on its own nickel.
United Brownsville has never been accountable to anyone. In the past it has claimed that its meetings are not subject to the Open Meetings Act. And the so-called "Imagine Brownsville" plan that is supposed to lead us down the yellow-brick road to prosperity doesn't hold water as a planning document.
You see, the so-called plan is nothing more than a wish-list without any codification or ordinance implementation that would subject the future planners and elected city commissions of Brownsville to follow through on its "recommendations."
Now, with Mayor Tony Martinez suggesting that the individual commissioners relinquish their right to appoint members to the different city boards and hand the prerogative over to Rusteberg, the scheme becomes crystal clear: This is nothing more than the culmination of a political hijacking by the power elite to remove the public from any say-so in their democratic government.
The slogans came in fast and heavy: Better Block, building
communitiesWORKSHOP, and now, ALLIN.
It kind of reminds us of the sloganeering by UTB's Juliet Garcia when she came up with the "community university," "partnership," etc. Now it's something called the University of the Americas.
Look at the ties that bind.
Its officers are: Rusteberg, co-chair with former banker and now UTB administrator Irv Downing, and the third co-chair John Villarreal. That's right, commissioner John Villarreal.
Among its voting directors are Tony Martinez, (Mayor Tony Martinez), Commissioner Estela Chavez-Vasquez, Port Commissioner and wannabe Cameron County Judge Martin Arambula, UTB president Juliet Garcia, Port Director Eddie Campirano, et al.
Among its at-large directors are Carlos Marin, Commissioner Rose Gowen, and former mayor (and now PUB counsel) Eddie Treviño.
Here the plot thickens as the political and economic incest becomes clear:
Gowen is hired by Su Clinica Familiar as a physician which is managed by Dr. Elena Marin, wife of United Brownsville's mastermind Carlos Marin. It's director of Operations in none other than Oscar Garcia Jr., UTB president Juliet Garcia. Gowen has supported the ban on plastic bags, the smoking ban in bars, the sale of hot dogs and burgers at Sams Stadium, and the gag rule against broadcasting public comments during city commission meetings.
Villarreal, a co-chair of United Brownsville, is also the soon-to-be in-law of Cameron County Pct. 2 Commissioner Ernie Hernandez, and is now supporting Gowen against Letty Perez-Garzoria.  He railed against the inclusion of a stand of Citizens Against Voter Abuse because he saw it as a protest against his soon-to-be in-law Ernie Hernandez and his wife Norma's use of paid vote harvesters (politiqueras) during a previous Earthfest on public property. He also went along with the bans of plastic bangs, smoking, and the silencing of public comments.
Portillo is a relative newcomer, but is no stranger from feeding off the public trough as an executive secretary for United Brownsville. According to a United Brownsville response for public information , Portillo was employed with United Brownsville as the Special Assistant to the Executive Director from January 25, 2012 to October 5, 2012 and her grossed salary earnings were $28,103.33 during that time, about $3,000 a month. She is openly supported by Martinez and the same crew that erects Gowen's signs are putting up hers.
So who will it be fellow citizens? Will be be ruled by the people we elect to lead us and who are accountable to us, the voters? Or will we let the bankers and connivers hiding behind the shadow government rule over honest men and women? Come May we have to make a decision.
(We have posted the at-large opponent of Gowen, Robert Uresti, and the District 4 opponent of Villarreal, Letty Perez-Garzoria. There are another three candidates running for the District 3 position against Portillo. They are Martin Sarkis, David Belleperche, and Rosalio Rosales.)