PROPAGATING POLITICAL INCEST IN MAY'S CITY ELECTIONS

By Juan Montoya
Once you connect the dots and link the actors involved  in the current city elections, it becomes absurdly clear that unless the citizens of this May 11 (and the period of early voting going on until May 7) get out and vote them down, the bitter fruits of political and economic incest will dominate our city's destiny for years to come.
At the very base of it (and we mean that literally) sits Cameron County Pct. 2 Commissioner Ernie Hernandez. He, along with wife Norma, have literally decided the outcome of elections in the city of Brownsville and in various districts and precincts in southeast Cameron County for years, if not decades. That fine lineage of mail-in votes manipulation, the hauled-in elderly and mentally disabled in rented vans, and the dirty tricks perpetrated by their paid politiqueros is well documented. It wasn't until this past April that federal and state authorities stepped in and shot a bow across the Hernandez political machine by indicting Margarita Ozuna, of the machine's most prolific harvester of votes, both mail-in and walk-in.
Now some politiqueras are holding back and staying out of this year's city elections because htey fear someone is "tomando retratos" of the process.
And, lurking in the bushes, the much-discredited cyberpolitiquero group Cheezmeh waits to see what goodies might fall their way by aligning themselves with the Hernandez machine and supporting their candidates for a price. Austin-based Erasmo Castro (another critic from afar) and Los Fresnos resident Linda Castro Dragustinovis, his one-buxom sister, beguile their dwindling group of unsuspecting followers with spiritual enticements and unimagined sensual promises if they drink the Kool-Aid.
Yet, even though Ozuna's indictment seems to have had a chilling effect on other politiqueras (and politiqueros) this time around, several sources have told us that Norma Hernandez and politiquero Amadeo Rodriguez Jr. have not heeded that warning and have been seen hauling in the elderly and mentally impaired voters in vans again as they did when Erin Hernandez Garcia ran for Justice of the Peace Pct. 2-2 and won.
Why the interest from Norma in a race where none of her family is a candidate? One of her sons, Ernie Jr., has married the sister of incumbent District 3 City Commissioner John Villarreal, who is engaged in a surprisingly close race against challenger Letty Perez-Garzoria, a retired nurse.
Even though the usual snide village cynics from afar who aren't even registered to vote in city elections choose to cast aspersions against Garzoria, Robert Uresti (At-Large B) and Martin Sarkis (District 3) the fact remains that Villarreal, as a co-chair along with IBC President Fred Rusteberg and Mayor Tony Martinez, is an important cog in the plans of a small cabal of bankers and schemers heading United Brownsville to control the reins of the city behind a facade of legitimacy granted the nonprofit by the city commission.
While the faraway self-anointed political critics don't have to live with the results of this elections, those of us who live here do.
In fact, there are four city commissioner (a majority) on the board of United Brownsville. They are Martinez, Villarreal, Rose Gowen (also an incumbent running for reelection for the At-Large-B position) and Estela Chavez-Vasquez. It is the classic case of the tail wagging the dog. With a majority of the commission on board with United Brownsville, the manipulators (Carlos Marin, Rusteberg, and UTB president Julieta Garcia) can just about dictate the future of this city and answer to no one.
This has resulted in the city wildly speculating in downtown real estate to the tune of $3.5 million to be paid by the taxpayers through future property taxes for Certificates of Obligation.The stated aim of these absurd purchases has been to donate it (and thereby entice) the fabulously oil-and-gas wealthy UT System to deign to build their new campus in downtown Brownsville.
Martinez and United Brownsville have also convinced the rest of the docile commission to approve exorbitant utility rate hikes for the ratepayers of the Brownsville Public Utility Board for the foreseeable future to pay for an iffy one-quarter venture to buy into a private electricity-generating plant with a private company, Tenaska, with no guarantees that it will even be built. When we asked the city and the BPUB for details on the obligations the utility ratepayers and the city taxpayers were being asked to shoulder, they objected and asked for an opinion from the Texas Attorney General to withhold it.
The result of this rash and foolhardy enterprise has already had dire consequences. Fitch Ratings, citing the PUB's overstretching of its debt obligations, downgraded $425 million of its bonds from a "stable" to "negative" rating.
We are now in possession of the TAG's opinion that sides with Martinez and the PUB citing "competitive" issues as a reason for withholding the information from the public. In fact, while Tenaska is just beginning to submit its application for environmental and regulatory clearances, the City of Harlingen has already procured them and they will have a similar 800 MW plant online. It is enlightening to note that PUB itself states that the construction of the Brownsville plant is contingent upon Tenaska procuring customers for the remaining 600 MWs of power. With Harlingen offering the very same thing, will the scheme lack legs?
All these instances of arrogance and secretiveness by Martinez and the United Brownsville bunch is buttressed and supported by a political system that has been manipulated by the Hernandez political vote-harvesting machine that keeps those pliant politicians in control. Today, the machine is solidly behind Gowen, Deborah Portillo (a former secretary for United Brownsville's executive director), and Villarreal.
Are the people of Brownsville going to allow this political poison ivy to continue strangulating the real desires of local residents, or will they vote to clip it insidious growth and put the helm of the city's future where it belongs, in their own hands?