VOTING IN DISTRICT 3; INDEPENDENCE OR A POLICE STATE?

By Juan Montoya
Ask the average Brownsville resident is there's an election going on and you'll probably get a blank stare.
The runoff election for District 3 on the Brownsville City Commission kicked off yesterday and will continue until June 18, next Tuesday. Election day at the district's precincts is Saturday June 22.
United Brownsville protege Deborah Portillo is facing challenger Martin Sarkis for the spot.
Normally, a single district race would be inconsequential, but given the near-hegemony that Mayor Tony Martinez exercises on the pliant city commissioners, this election might be more important than people think.
On the commission now are Martinez drones Rose Gowen, John Villarreal, Estela Chavez-Vasquez, Jessica Tetreau-Kalifa, Ricardo Longoria, and outgoing District 3 commissioner Melissa Zamora.
Not one of these commissioners has been able to effectively present any opposition to Martinez's autocratic manner of governing, although it is well known that Longoria, Tetreau-Kalifa and even Villarreal at times have chafed under his rule. With a potential fourth vote in Sarkis, will they gather the courage to break the Martinez shackles?
Now, with Martinez clone and protege  Portillo running as the mayor's hand-picked candidate for District 3 against outsider Sarkis, this election takes on more importance to those who question the wisdom of Hizzoner's one-man rule.
Martinez, for example, reneged on his half-promise that he would liberate the people's airwaves and turn aside the gag on public comments on the city's cable channel. Once inside, he decided the gag was just fine. He used the justification of his ethics-challenged contract attorney Mark Sossi as the basis for his decision that someone might sue the city for the public commenter's statements. Ever hear of a priori censorship, Mark?
And in this past election John Villarreal sicced the local police, fire department and health inspectors against the supporters of Letty Perez-Garzoria and Sarkis by reporter her BBQ fundraiser and by removing their supporters from the sidewalk in front of early voting site of the Central Boulevard Library. Yesterday, Portillo's political campaign workers were on the library side and Sarkis' supporters with their signs were across the street. Talk about the chilling effect on the right of expression.
And Martinez has not made it a secret that he favors privatizing the operations of the Brownsville Public Utility Board and other city departments such as Public Works and others. We know he has already hired consultants from outside the state to tell him how to do it. Imagine, he' using the people's money to implement a program that will put them – taxpayers who own homes and sent their children to local schools – out of work. Has he asked them what they think of his plans? Does Portillo care what Martinez is doing?
So far, Portillo has not uttered one word on whether she will dissent from her former boss's style of governance. Will she go along with his style of presenting the rest of the commissioners with fait accompli projects like the massive multi-million speculation on downtown real-estate using millions in future debt (certificates of obligation) without going to the public for its approval?
Will she also go along with the encumbering of the city and PUB into a partnership with private energy company Tenaska that already cost the utility a downgrade in $425 million of it bonds from "stable" to "negative" without a peep like the rest of the commission?
Before the grand announcement of that "deal," the city commission had approved the hefty increase in rates for the next six years to pay for the Tenaska project without the city telling everyone what the increases were for.
Requests for specific obligations of the city and the energy company, tax abatements, incentives, etc., were not forthcoming to those who asked. Instead, the requests for information were contested before the Texas Attorney General and the AG accommodated the city and Tenaska by ruling that the deal was "competitive" in nature and the information on what encumbrances the citizens incurred under the "deal" could be withheld.
Why is it competitive since the deal had already been reached? No one else was in the running as far as we know. In other words, it was a deal that was reached behind closed doors between the city and a private energy company and they didn't want to know, or didn't care what the people who would eventually pay for it had to say.
Does the term taxation without representation have a familiar ring?
Portillo's newspaper ad on Monday – when early voting began – recycled an endorsement by the Brownsville Police Officers' Association PAC for her candidacy. The PAC said Portillo's "honesty and ideas for moving the city forward" set her apart from other candidates.
What, pray tell, are those "ideas" if not a rehash of the flowery, self-righteous drivel spewed by United Brownsville – her former employer – to dazzle the peasants of Brownsville into acquiescing to accept the rule of puppeteers pulling the strings that loosen the City of Brownsville treasury without having to account to anyone and dipping their grimy paws into the public's  pocket?
There were only 80 votes cast in the election yesterday at the Central Library site, the busiest of the two. And with politiqueras effectively staying away from this election after the Margarita Ozuna scare, every vote is important and could prove the crucial difference in this race.
If only for the sake of having one voice dissenting and speaking out for the rest of us, we go with Sarkis.