CITY COMMISSION CANDIDATES LITMUS TEST: WILL YOU VOTE TO WITHDRAW US FROM UNITED BROWNSVILLE?

By Juan Montoya
These litmus test for candidates to the upcoming City of Brownsville commission elections must be: Will you vote to get the city out of United Brownsville?
On their answer should lie the decision whether to vote for them or not.
Why do we say this?
It has become apparent that this illegitimate organization that slid in the back door to hijack the power to govern from those elected representatives on the city commission, the Port of Brownsville commissioners, the Texas Southmost College trustees and the Brownsville Independent School District, is now running local government and squandering public funds without accounting to anyone but themselves.
They have packed the shadow government organization called United Brownsville with their supporters in the different elected entities and have convinced them to pay public funds to operate their racket.
The eight publicly-funded entities which in turn pledged to give $25,000 each yearly to keep it alive.
They are the City of Brownsville, the Greater Brownsville Incentives Corporation (GBIC), the Brownsville Independent School District, the Brownsville Navigation District, the Brownsville Public Utilities Board, the Brownsville Community Improvement Corp (BCIC) and the University of Texas-Brownsville/Texas Southmost College.
United Brownsville is under the direction of something called the United Brownsville Coordinating Board consisting of three non-elected officers. These are IBC President Fred Rusteberg, UT-Brownsville President Julieta Garcia, and UT-B vice president Irv Downing.
It all started well enough, as commissioner Ricardo Longoria told local blogger Jim Barton:
"We revisited the idea of a Master Plan (which later became Imagine Brownsville) after a lobbying trip to Washington D.C. in 2006 when then Congressman Jim Oberstar of Minnesota told us that he had money for our Downtown Revitalization, but we needed a plan in print that identified our projected plans and a sort of needs assessment for our community. That was when we came back and went out for proposals and through a fair process (Carlos Marin's) Ambiotec Engineering was awarded a contract to begin this plan so we could return to Washington and Congressman Oberstar and secure funding.
The plan was created, Congressman Oberstar as well as Congressman Ortiz was unsuccessful in being re-elected, so we had to come back and begin anew. In my personal opinion: the plan has been created, the projected targets and needs have been identified. Thank you for your service ladies and gentlemen of our community."
But Marin and his buddies saw the opportunity to turn this boondoggle into real money and refused to let Imagine Brownsville die. Thus what would eventually become United Brownsville was born. Now, based upon the Imagine Brownsville wish-list that was never used for its intended purpose, the vultures started surrounding the fresh kill.
In its website, Imagine Brownsville described itself this way:
"The Imagine Brownsville Comprehensive Plan was delivered by the Task Force to the Brownsville City Commission on Tuesday, July 21, 2009, and it was adopted.
The plan then moved into high gear. Implementation of this "plan" followed.
"The implementation plan is now beginning with the launch of the newly created United Brownsville Coordinating Board and the signing of the Brownsville Borderplex United Proclamation on January 21, 2010 by the "members" of United Brownsville.
Among the members of the board of directors of this organization is city commissioner Deborah Portillo, Mayor Tony Martinez, City Manager Charlie Cabler, and United Brownsville die-hard Rose Gowen. At one time or another, other city commissioners have been members (by invitation only) of the group.
They are, in fact, the tail wagging the dog. And guess what, the dog is paying them to do it.
Why do we need a city commission then? Why do we need a planning department and a city manager when United Brownsville has already co-opted the legitimately-elected public representatives and imposed its mandate over the reins of government?
Marin, Rusteberg, Garcia and her son Oscar, and their ilk have honed in on the GBIC's $4 million kitty filled up with the 1/4-cent share of the city's sales tax to fund their profitable pet projects at public expense. So far, not one job has been created for the average city resident in a city with double-digit unemployment.
It's almost time for United Brownsville to go before the eight entities asking for their annual $25,000 "membership" handout again. Will any of our elected bodies and publicly-funded entities resist the coercive appeal for money to fund these brigands?
This coming May, the city mayor and commission elections must be a referendum on this parasitic shadow government of elites called United Brownsville. Do we live in a democracy where the duly elected representatives of the people decide our future? Or are we happy to hand over the reins of our future to a self-dealing, unaccountable cabal of maggots swarming over the rotting corpse of the body politic?