IN A SUDDEN ATTACK OF REMORSE, PENA NIETO ACTS; OH WERE IT THE SAME FOR THE BROWNTOWN GRAVY TRAIN

By Juan Montoya
In a move unprecedented in the morass of Mexican politics, Presidente Peña Nieto ordered that a multimillion dollar light-rail contract that benefited his relatives and past political leaders of his PRI party be cancelled and rebid.
The contract for a light rail project that was to cost 58 mil 820 millones de pesos (about $4.5 billion US?) is to run between Mexico City and Queretaro and was awarded to four Mexican firms with a consortium of four Chinese companies providing 85 percent of the financing.
The awarding of the contracts was announced November 3 by Pablo Suarez Coello, general director of the Multimodal and Rail Transport department of the Mexican Dept. of Transportation (SCT).
However, no sooner had the contracts been awarded than some media organs (notably El Norte newspaper) pointed out the relationships to Peña Nieto and his ruling political party the PRI.
One of the principals, Hipolito Gerard, with Empresa GIA-+A is the brother of Ana Paula Gerard, the wife of former President Carlos Salinas de Gortari, of the PRI.
Another principal, Juan Armando Hinojosa Cantu, with the firm Constuctora TEYA, is the father of Juan Armando Hinojosa Garcia Cantu, a compadre of Peña Nieto, also of the PRI.
Still another, Olegario Vasquez Raña, with Prodemex, is a longtime PRI financier who donated heavily to the presidential campaign of Francisco Labastida, a politician who rand for the presidency under the PRI.
Peña Nieto, through his spokesman, said he had ordered the contracts cancelled and rebid to get better terms and in the interest of "legitimacy and transparency."
Such a move is unprecedented in Mexican politics, where it is almost expected that the cronies and relatives of the Mexican president will get favored treatment when major contracts and appointments are awarded. That Peña Nieto would cancel the contracts to his political party cronies and his compadres marks a watershed event.
If that makrs a reform in Mexican politics, then we in Brownsville would do well to take a page from that playbook.
In Brownsville, where local look down on Mexico and speak about "compadrismo" and favoritism as if it were a foreign disease, we are not much removed from the same malady.
For example, Julieta Garcia, the past president of the University of Texas at Brownsville is a member of the United Brownsville Coordinating Board. Her son, Oscar Garcia Jr., was hired by the wife of Carlos Marin to be the operations manager for Su Clinica Familiar. City commissioner Rose Gowen is a member of the clinic's staff and also – you guessed it – an at-large member of United Brownsville.
He then was appointed to the Brownsville Public Utilities Board (PUB).
The Greater Brownsville Incentives Corporation, PUB and the Port of Brownsville paid nearly a half million dollars ($454,592.08) for a plan for the industrial corridor, including areas within the Port.

The firm that got that plum was none other than Robin McCaffrey of Needham-McCaffrey and Associates, Inc.  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.

Garcia Jr. was the chairman of the PUB until he resigned to enter private business, an admirable act. But this is Brownsville, and there is always something going on behind the sleight of hand behind the public act. Garcia Jr. left o become the local operations manager for San Antonio-based Jacob's Engineering.
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.
Or, take another example, the city's "branding" contract.

Despite coming in a full 10 points behind the Atkins Group on the City of Brownsville criteria score sheet for its Branding and Marketing Services, Hahn Public Communications of Austin walked away with the $139,980 contract to come up with a catchy slogan and logo to sell the city.
With the evaluations ranging from a 90 to Atkins, an 80 to Hahn and a 77 to Brownsville's Breeden McCumber, the evaluating group put together by the city were apparently bowled over by the presentation put together by Hahn associate Ron Oliveira. (see graphic)
Yup, that's Oliveira as in State Rep. Rene Oliveira. In fact, they's cousins, a fact apparently not lost on the evaluators.

We could go on and on about the incestuous arrangement that continues milking the city treasury for the benefit of certain families and compadres, but you get the drift.
Peña Nieto probably cancelled the light rail in Mexico because the process had been obviously corrupted. When can we expect this bunch in Brownsville to stop riding the public gravy train?