UTB AND TSC WORK IT OUT: SO WHY THE RUSH, MAYOR?

By Juan Montoya
Just as we suspected, the trustees of the Texas Southmost College and the representatives of the UT System are working out an agreement on the real estate and facilities that will keep both the community college and the four-year university just where they are.
This leads to the overwhelming question then: Just what was Da Mayor Tony Martinez and Rose Gowen up to when they placed two items on the city commission's agenda to give way City Plaza to the UTB and then to lease the Cueto Building for administrative offices.
Sandwiched neatly in between was the scheme to move all the functions (and personnel) of the city at City Plaza to the hulk of the Casa Del Nylon bargain-store front on Adams Street. Why?
Once we found out that the fate of our city facilities would indirectly depend on the TSC trustees, we began to give a sigh of relief. If their past bargaining performance vis-a-vis the UT System behemoth was any measure, we're in good hands.
It's difficult to see how anyone could put something past Trey Mendez, a downtown booster who knows the ins and outs of real estate in the city better than most, Kiko Rendon, a construction supervisor who can talk blueprints, costs and construction with the best, Rene Torres, a staunch defender of local residents, Adela Garza, who when she was on the TSC board minority gave no quarter and took none, Ray Hinojosa, a consultant on Valleywide educational facilities, and the two doctors Roberto Lozano and Reynaldo Garcia, who have taken a page from the majority and formed a united front in the community college dealings with the UT System.
Unlike the majority on the city commission who have been lulled to a stupor by the Martinez-Freed Rusteberg, Juliet Garcia-Carlos Marin siren song, this bunch takes nothing for granted when dealing with the slick city flatlanders who come down to the Valley trying to dazzle the rubes.
You see, guys, there was no "urgency" to hand over city assets and facilities, approve millions in expenditures for real-estate speculation that benefit the mayor's friends and Garcia, or to give away the farm in the hope of appeasing the voracious UT System.
There was, we now learn, enough space for both institutions to survive side by side like "hermanitas" and provide accessible educational opportunities to all our residents.
Still, the UT System won't look a gift horse in the mouth and will probably accept the 58 acres of land that Martinez and the commission have offered as tribute for the staying in place. Included in that offer is Lincoln Park, which itself was a mitigation for its removal from the island in the resaca now under the US 77-83 overpass over International Boulevard leading to Los Tomates Bridge.
That, too, will have to be mitigated so that the park space that will be taken will be replaced for the citizens of Brownsville.
For the meanwhile, however, the designs of the four horsemen of pillage – Martinez-Rusteberg-Garcia-Marin – on city other assets have been thwarted. But you know the saying, the wicked never rest.
Take solace from the quote the local daily attributed to Trey Mendez: "TSC was going to do its part, not only to take care of the community as a junior college, but also to insure that the university was going to stay here in Brownsville."
Amen to that, brother.