JESSICA TEREAU-ATKINSON GIVES AWAY GBIC FUNDS; INCESTUOUS UNITED BROWNSVILLE CRONIES HAVE RUN OF THE STORE

By Juan Montoya
Shades of Charlie Atkinson giving away the store to enhance his political stock and doing out $25 million to local contractors to construct a Sports Park initially projected to cost $10 million.
Now commissioner Jessica Tetreau-Kalifa is pulling a Charlie giving away the Greater Brownsville Incentives Corporation cash to a United Brownsville protege in anticipation of her run for reelection in 2015.
The latest giveaway happened last night when a bare quorum of the GBIC board voted to give Jacobs Engineering of San Antonio $185,000 contract to tell us how to implement the $454,000 study  which we paid a crony of United Brownsville director Mike Gonzalez to formulate.
The three GBIC members voting for it were Tetreau, County Treasurer David Betancourt and Al Villarreal, a known sycophant of IBC President Fred Rusteberg.
The whole incestuous and sordid affair comes on the heels of information which shows that the engineering firm lists Oscar Garcia Jr. as its local project manager. Jacob's Engineering – the only company that responded to the Request for Proposals – was hired to implement Phase I of the $454,000 study drafted by Robin McCaffrey of Needham, McCaffrey and Associates.
 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. Garcia  is the son of Juliet Garcia, one of the three members of the United Brownsville Coordinating Board, a self-appointed gang whose other two members are IBC's Rusteberg and UTB VP Irv Downing. All three are listed as members or directors of United Brownsville.
The entities that paid for the study were the GBIC, the Public Utilities Board and the Port of Brownsville. All three entities form part of the eight publicly-funded bodies that give United Brownsville $25,000 yearly to be considered "members" of the shadow government run by the so-called "coordinating" board.
At one time, the young Garcia was the operations manager for Su Clinica Familiar, a federally-funded health provider whose director is none other than the wife of Carlos Marin, also listed an at-large board member of United Brownsville. City commissioner Rose Gowen is a member of the clinic's staff and also – you guessed it – an at-large member of United Brownsville.
Jacobs initially submitted a bid to implement all three phases of the Small Area Plan for $750,000. With a copy of the McCaffrey study in hand, all Garcia had to do was to whittle down the 35 small area sites to 10 and collect his $185,000. It's something akin to shooting fish in a barrel. You just chose 10 sites in the plan. The next time you choose another 10 and so forth until you get the full $750,000 smackers.
As Jim Barton reported in his Mean Mister Brownsville blogspot, Garcia was accompanied by the honchos who have allowed United Brownsville to hijack city government and to look upon the GBIC as their personal cash cow: "Jason Hilts, Brownsville Economic Development Council Director, introduced to the GBIC Board, represented by 3 actual board members along with Finance Director Pete Gonzalez and legal representative Mark Sossi, to Garcia, Jr...
Hilts explained to the board that Jacob's Engineering ...had agreed to work for only $185,000 by breaking their initial bid up into 3 phases. Phase 1 will find "funding" for the industrial corridor project and also locate investors during a 4 month timetable."
Up until now, the McCaffrey plan has not generated one job, and it's doubtful that the so-called "Phase I" will generate any either. The only ones collecting the dough are the cronies and associates allied with United Brownsville.
Villarreal, one of the three GBIC members who voted for the giveaway that it was of the utmost urgency for the board to award Jacob's the contract or our children and the generations after them would suffer irreparable harm.
This comes at a propitious time for contentious commissioner Tereau. She is facing reelection next May and having a few friends with deep pockets in your corner is likely to help in her bid. So it's no skin off her nose to give away money meant for the public. Its obvious that the United Brownsville gang now sees the GBIC as their personal ATM machine.
This blatant self dealing will cost all three members who voted for it dearly in the near future. Just remember, Ms. Tetreau, all the king's horses and all the king's men couldn't put Humpty Atkinson together again. You might be next.