MARTINEZ-MARIN BI-NED SMOKE AND MIRRORS CONTINUES

By Juan Montoya
We learn from a newspaper report today that the cities of Matamoros, Harlingen and Brownsville have inked an agreement committing them to a regional economic development approach in a document calling for "the creation of an advanced manufacturing zone straddling the border in order to capture a piece of the advanced manufacturing surge occurring in Mexico's interior."
It's funny how such a weighty, high-sounding endeavor had not been heard of at Brownsville's City Hall, or by its city manager, or by anyone other city elected official aside from Mayor Tony Martinez.
In fact, the moving force behind the "agreement" binding the city to nebulous and unspecified commitments and goals turned out to be none other than Mike Gonzales, the director of the United Brownsville shadow government.
(In the photo at top, a delegation from Mexico visits United Brownsville. If you look way at the back there's IBC President Fred Rusteberg [and United Brownsville tri-chair] and one over to his left is Carlos Marin almost directly behind U.S. Rep. Fil Vela Jr.
As of Friday and even today, we have been unable to get a copy of the resolution. At the city, they tell us that there is no such document in existence in their files. They also say that the approval to commit the city to the agreement never went through the city commission and has never appeared on any of its agendas.
In other words, up until the document was signed Friday by Martinez at the third annual Business Awards Banquet hosted by the School of Business at the University of Texas, no one knew (or knows) what it contained, or what city's resources will be required by this group which is accountable to no one.
Secrecy and non-accountability have been trademarks for this bunch.
It all started when former Mayor (now PUB counsel) Eddie Treviño rammed through a city-funded $1 million study called Imagine Brownsville and performed by master manipulator Ambiotec's Carlos Marin. That morphed into the beast we now know as United Brownsville. The board of this group is composed of none other than local banker and exploiter IBC's Fred Rusteberg, UTB President Julieta Garcia, Martinez, and former banker cum academic Irv Downing. City commissioner John Villarreal is the titular figurehead as one of the three co-chairs with Rusteberg and Downing.
Under the guise of the high-sounding name of the called the Bi-National Border Economic Development  Trojan horse, the usual suspects – Rusteberg, Marin, Martinez, FINSA's Sergio Arguelles, and Garcia – are in the process of hijacking the direction of this region's economic development to benefit a select cabal of their fellow travelers.  In fact, Treviño is a United Brownsville board member, too.
Since neither the bankers nor the academics were willing to foot the bill to fund their vehicle of deception, they were able to go to at least eight public entities for $25,000 a piece in annual "membership" fees to pay their executive director (former Kyle, Texas mayor Mike Gonzales) and his "staff."
Those public entities have – for the past few years – chipped in their annual $25,000 apiece and include:

City of Brownsville, the Greater Brownsville Incentives Corporation, the Brownsville Community Improvement Corporation, the Brownsville Navigation District, The University of Texas at Brownsville, Texas Southmost College, the BISD, and the Brownsville Public Utilities Board. Only Cameron County has refused to fork over the $25,000 "partnership" fees to this bunch.
This "synergy" apparently won't include the Marin invention called Imagina Matamoros, headed by Sergio Arguelles. You know Arguelles. He has been linked in various media accounts to former Tamaulipas governor (and Matamoros mayor before that). Even as Yarrington denies the accusations he profited from drug runners while in office and purchased numerous properties held by straw "prestanombres," at least two of them – in at SPI and another in McAllen – were auctioned as forfeitures by the U.S. Government.

Now Arguelles, who purchased a large chunk of Ranco Viejo is the anchor for United Brownsville on the Mexican side of the river. 

Even the Mexican counterparts now know that they were not dealing with an elected body, but rather a gab-bag of manipulators and money men interested in promoting their own interest who have been allowed a free hand from docile city commissioners and members of the other boards that put up the ante to fund their schemes.

In fact, we learned that the Matamoros city officials insisted that Arguelles and Imagina Matamoros be excluded from the affair since they realize that having Arguelles near anything would tarnish the city's image and make them the laughingstock in Mexican government circles. That, apparently, deosn't matter to Martinez or his cronies on the U.S. United Brownsville side.
It's instructive to learn that that Leticia Salazar, the mayor of Matamoros, has attended at least three of these BiNED meetings and that not one of them has taken place in the commission chambers of the City of Brownsville. They have all been held either at UTB or in Rancho Viejo.
In comments to Mexican media, Martinez said that the group was formed to address insecurity, instability and to prevent the increase of undocumented immigrants to the United States, all federal responsibilities.
Yet, Gonzales insists that the BiNED was formed to "encourage cooperation and remove barriers standing in the way of the region acting as a single economic unit."
Really? And where was United Brownsville when MExican truckers complained that the TExas Departmetn of Public Safety troopers were driving them to use the Pharr International Bridge through their selective enforcement of traffic laws at the Veterans Memorial Bridge (Los Tomates)? If there ever was a barrier, that was one.
And in what basket is this so-called united effort putting all of its eggs?
"Central to the BiNED concept is establishing advanced manufacturing locally to serve the electronics and automotive manufacturing industries that are booming in Mexico's interior."
How is encouraging maquiladoras going to benefit U.S. workers when it's these very runaway industries that gutted our manufacturing industries to begin with?
"By funding a study," Martinez told Mexican reporters.
Actually, the public already has funded these private interests since the Greater Brownsville Incentives Corporation paid nearly a half million dollars($454,592.08) for a plan for the industrial corridor, including the Port of Brownsville.
a recent report from local blogger Jim Barton stated that:
"Robin McCaffrey of Needham-McCaffrey and Associates, Inc. moderated the third leg of a slide show presentation to the GBIC on October 31, outlining an overall plan for a 22,000 acre industrial corridor including the Port of Brownsville. Earlier, the Port of Brownsville and Public Utilities Board heard the same proposal."
Now we have learned from other sources that the Robin McCaffrey is the same person who worked on the City of Kyle Comprehensive Master Plan, under the name of Mesa. McCaffrey was hired when Mayor Mike/Miguel Gonzalez was still in office in Kyle. Gonzalez is now the executive director of United Brownsville, a rather tidy arrangement.
When will the city commission wake up and tell these scalawags that no one elected them to represent the interests of the people of Brownsville, that the money that they have received have been acquired through guile and fraud, and that the city and other entities who have given these gang the money are just as guilty of fraud as these perpetrators?
What new "study" will they now propose to enrich their cronies? What new "plan" will the concoct to pillage public funds? What new scheme do they have to encumber the public's tax dollars and tax-generated funds?
Or is everyone content just willing to stand by and watch them pillage the public treasury?
And when will someone do something to stop the usurpation by these hidden interests to control the pilferage of public funds to benefit their private interests?