MARTINEZ'S AUTOCRATIC WAYS WERE EVIDENT AT THE GET-GO

"I love a good challenge,” Martinez said. “Work doesn't scare me, I’m very organized, (and) I’ve practiced law for 40 years. It makes it easy for me to understand the scope of the kind of work that we're going to have to do and I’m looking forward to it." 

Da Mayor Tony Martinez, May 15, 2011

By Juan Montoya
On May 2011, 5,308 city voters took attorney Tony Martinez at his word and made him mayor over four other candidates. Martinez eventually beat former mayor Pat Ahumada in a runoff for the position.
At first, Martinez took a hands-off approach and allowed the city to function under the direction of the city manager and administration, as the city charter dictates.
But it wasn't long before residents began to sense that Martinez didn't feel comfortable with the weak mayor-strong city manager format of a home-rule city. He soon realized that the city administration had the discretion to spend up to $35,000 without going through the city commission. Soon, bills incurred at the mayor's direction began piling up in city manager's Charlie Cabler's desk with Martinez's signature ordering him to pay them.
As time went on, they became more frequent. City administrators turned toward Cabler for direction on what to do with the growing number of invoices that were addressed to the city "as per mayor Tony Martinez."
Cabler, ever the discreet bureaucrat who knows better than to make waves and displease those that pay his $175,000+ annual paycheck, dutifully approved them.
Then Da Mayor attended the U.S. Conference of Mayors National Meeting in Orlando, Florida, in June 2012 and met the charming David McCarthy, President and CEO of Community Showcase Banners, of Warsaw, N.Y., who held himself to be the second-string quarterback for the Superbowl winners Oakland Raiders, Superbowl ring and all.
McCarthy found in Martinez an easy mark and "awarded" the City of Brownsville an opportunity to receive a community showcase.
"Nationally," McCarthy glowed, "there were only 15 Showcases awarded out of thousands of cities and towns across the country."

Now, Hizzoner Da Mayor jumped at the honor of Brownsville receiving this great once-in-a-lifetime prestigious "award." He instructed Cabler to receive the gregarious Mr. McCarthy on his own and instructed him to put the good offices of the city and the Brownsville Public Utilities easements and utility poles at his disposal for his showcase banners.
Try as we might, we could find nothing on the city agendas that the city commission had "accepted" the award.What we did have on hand was a nice letter from Cabler addressed to "Dear Brownsville Business Owner" stating (again) that "the City of Brownsville was selected for a nationwide program that aims to showcase both the public and the private assets of the city. We (who's we?) have accepted the services for, and will participate in, a three-year promotional campaign conducted by Community Showcase Banners."
The letter includes a nice photo of Charlie with a Mountain Man identified as David McCarthy, President and CEO of said firm.
But local business people were a little wary of the steep prices charged by Community Banners to "showcase" their businesses and the city on banners appended to electric poles around the city. When someone complained and inquired of the manager if the city was pushing for the company, the entire scheme fizzled and McCarthy – pawn-shop Superbowl ring and all – slithered away.
This didn't deter Martinez from dipping into the city treasury to fund a number of pet projects with the public's money.
Then the bills came (and they are still coming), for his projects. By December 2012, the following had been incurred by Da Mayor:
– In July he had Cabler authorize the payment of $1,500 to one R. Steven Lewis, a licensed architect and self-described "UTB Relocation Consultant." In a previous email, Lewis had said that he would just require payment of his air fare from California and his room at the Marriott Courtyard for "Mayor Martinez." Then, just five days later on July 31, Lewis apparently had a change of heart and Cabler received another email invoice from Lewis, this time for $4,500 for his "UT Brownsville Relocation Consultation." Martinez ordered the city staff to pay it.
– The Complete Streets Workshop" held May 16 featured Kevin St. Jaques, a member of the Complete Streets Speakers Bureau which was held at the mayor's initiative and which required the Brownsville Community Incentives Corporation (BCIC) to fork over $5,000, of which $2,300 was paid to Freese and Nichols, of Ft. Worth, to have Jaques tell us that our things as they were in Browntown left much to be desired.
–  Gil Peñalosa, the executive director of the 8-80 Cities, of Toronto, Ontario, Canada, came on Tony's behalf and told us on August 28-30 at a conference at the Cueto Building that we should be ashamed of ourselves for having such bad streets, sidewalks and phantom bus shelters. Almost a month (August 1) before Peñalosa browbeat the citizens, city administrators and local bigwigs over the condition of our infrastructure and lack of sidewalks and shoddy streets, the city meekly approved payment to him for $7,974 that included $6,500 for professional services, $988 for air transportation, and $485 for accommodations and meals in good old "American dollars," as he requested, not in discounted Canadian currency.
– The  building communityWORKSHOP of Dallas which includes four principals of Design/Program and another four support assistants had been working for Tony on his UTB proposal to entice the Hidalgo County-bound UT System to "please stay in little old' Browntown and we'll give you all kinds of land to do it."
The mayor has convinced a way too pliant city commission to approve real estate purchases in the downtown area totalling more than $4 million to be paid by future taxation on residents' property and "some surpluses" from the city landfill and airport.
– buildingcommunityWORKSHOP has made Tony's pipe dream an industry. It's first invoice for the ongoing work for Tony's UTB proposal is going to cost us a tidy sum.
We have learned that their first invoice landed on Cabler's desk with a thud. The hit for putting together a Request For Proposals which could have been done in-house by a planning intern: Would you believe $27,803.12 which included round-trip flights from Dallas to Harlingen for its principal at a cost of $541. 20 (Sept. 21), $347.20 (Oct. 3), and $535.20 (Oct. 8). Among the items in the invoice is the $475 monthly rent on an apartment (Sept. 21).
And now, Jim Barton, of MeanMisterBrownsville tells us, that same group will have nice digs – on the public's nickel – in one of three refurbished storefronts on Market Square.
That was just the beginning. Tony was just warming up and picking up steam.
In 2013, he convinced the pliant city commissioners to issue Certificates of Obligation calls totaling $13.06 million.
Foremost among the purchases to be made with these was the $2.3 million tabbed for the purchase of the Casa del Nylon on 1304 E. Madison and the adjoining building and property next door at 655 E. 14th Street. The $2.3 million price tag for the 52,586 square feet listed on the CO issue amounts to about $44 a foot, an extravagant amount given real estate prices in the surrounding neighborhood.
That sale was negotiated for the seller by none other than the mayor's law partner Horacio Barrera. In that same issue, a monthly rental of land next to the Cueto Building which houses the mayor's city office and the offices of United Brownsville for parking is included at a hefty $2,500. Over the three-year rental agreement, the city will pay a total of $90,000 to rent the land.
Martinez, a member of IBC's Fred Rusteberg and UTB's Juliet Garcia's United Brownsville "team," has staunchly supported the payment of $25,000 annual "gift" to the nonprofit from at least four city-associated corporations and the city, including PUB. That entity gets the same amount from another half-dozen public bodies, including the Port of Brownsville, UTB-TSC, the BISD, BEDC, etc.
Included in the United Brownsville budget is the director Mike Gonzalez's $78,000 salary plus benefits. Gonzalez, however, has hedged his bets and still keeps house in Kyle, Texas, where he and his wife voted in this past election cycle.
Shall we continue? How about the mayor's expenditures of the $3,060,000 settlement the city received from AEP Texas for personal whims that shocked many in the community. A report by City Finance Officer Pete Gonzalez revealed that $393,142 of the settlement funds had already been spent, at the mayor's direction, leaving a fund balance of $2,666,858.
Some of the money – $25,000 – was for the movement of the historic Stillman House from the King Ranch to the lot next to the Cueto Building, then subsequently to Linear Park for an additional $14,000.
The commissioners, once they were assessed of the mayor's freewheeling ways, voted to have any further expenditures from the fun approved by the full commission.
Other blogs have documented Martinez's excesses and his speculation in numerous real-estate purchases downtown on the public's nickel.
However, the Temporary Restraining Order obtained by Luis Saenz in his role as private citizen and not as the Cameron County District Attorney, to the "gift" of  the 48-acre Lincoln Park to Julieta Garcia's UTB and the UT System, is the first serious challenge Martinez has faced in his spending binge.
We should have read the writing on the wall way back when when Martinez was bamboozled by the fake Superbowl second-string quarterback. That we didn't is one of the reasons we're being penalized today.