RUSTEBERG, GALONSKI, GARCIA: A STAKE IN PARK GIVEAWAY

By Juan Montoya
The granting of a temporary restraining order on the giving away of Lincoln Park to the University of Texas System for a paltry $6.5 million by the City of Brownsville commissioners has thrown a monkey wrench into the grandiose plans of the financial and political elite plans to – in the words of D.A. Luis Saenz – continue the "rape" the residents of the city.
That rape began in 1991 when the then-board of trustee of the Texas Southmost College accepted the "partnership" with the UT System that effectively barred them from partaking in the fabulously rich Permanent University Fund pie available to all other UT and AM campuses. Instead, the Edinburg (PanAm) and the UT-Brownsville campuses were left out of sharing in the PUF and – UTB specifically – "partnered" with the UT System to force the community college district to shoulder the burden of constructing the buildings that eventually became UTB.
That august bunch back then had a pliant protege in the person of Julieta Garcia who was then appointed as the partnership's first and only president who was just fine with the new arrangement.
In other words, the poorest community in the United States would indebt itself even more to have the privilege of having a plaque attached to the buildings saying it was part of the UT System.
Our state elected officials were fine with that. Sen. Eddie Lucio and State Rep. Rene Oliveira held down the victim while the UT System had its way with the supine community college district.
Then the "transfers" started. What's more, the scheme was for the community college district not to be abolished because it was the only way that bonds could be floated based on the ability of the partnership using that  property tax-income to borrow money. The community is still paying for these bonds, and will continue paying for them for decades to come.
Each year, TSC would transfer a given amount that has grown steadily since the inception of the partnership in 1991. Last year, that totaled more than $50 million. If you average out the amounts that these "transfers" from TSC to UTB at between $40 and $50 million, that amount easily tops $1 billion, that's billion, with a "b."
When local leaders and residents grew weary of the "rape," and elected TSC board trustees who wanted to opt of the abusive relationship, those with vested interests responded with every weapon at their disposal to sidetrack them. The malcriado trustees were socially ostracized, financially blackballed, and targeted for personal and political destruction.
To their credit, they did not flinch, even in the face of such virulent reaction.
The end of the "partnership," abusive relationship, or "rape," came about despite the bleatings of UTB President Julieta Garcia, whose attempt to have all of TSC's assets (some $200 million in real estate, buildings and even bank deposits) transferred (that word again) to the UTB met an inglorious end.
Just when we thought the assaults had ended, enter Believe in Brownsville Mayor Tony Martinez, UTB instructor and city commissioner Rose Gowen, United Brownsville secretary and now city commissioner Deborah Portillo and the rest of the city commission who voted in 2012 to include Lincoln Park among a number of other "incentives" for the UT System to keep UTB downtown.
To Abraham Galonski and Martinez, it provided a cover for the downtown businessman and real-estate mogul to unload the worthless and moribund Casa Del Nylon property on the city at a heft (and totally unjustified) $2.3 million price tag.
Commissioners Ricardo Longoria, Jessica Tetreau-Kalifa and John Villarreal initially voted to include Lincoln Park when they went along with the city's response to the UT System's Request for Proposals in 2012. Once they saw the gathering storm of public displeasure at the giveaway, they voted against it last week.
Within the next seven months (in May 2015), Martinez, Longoria, Tetreau and Estela Chavez-Vasquez are up for reelection. They will all have to explain to the voters why they wanted to give away a city asset at less than one third of its market value to a fabulously wealthy entity like the UT System.
Galonski was at the city commission vote protecting his interests. If Lincoln Park is moved in front of the sewer plant on East Avenue, his property, a 30 acre tract of land adjacent to the 98 acres the city owns next to the sewer plant, may increase in value. He says he is in favor of moving the park, of course.
And Fred Rusteberg, the mastermind behind the United Brownsville takeover of local government through his shadow government, wants to make sure UTB is satisfied and Galonski is happy so that his organization can continue milking the community for the $200,000 in "membership" donations to U.B.
In this way, he can continue diverting the public funds to steer development toward his customers and his pet projects without it costing him a penny. He can just sit back on his leather armchair in the top story of the IBC Bank headquarters on Ruben Torres Boulevard and watch the money flow in.
Rusteberg, if you'll remember, was one of the leading forces in fighting the dissolution of the TSC-UTB partnership but became the drum major when he saw it was a lost cause and said it was "probably a good thing."
He was also a member of the Brownsville-Rio Grande Railroad board who moved to sell it to the Broe Group of Colorado. Now that the board will be dissolved, he can do business with the Big Boys without some pesky blogger charging that there is any conflict of interest there. In fact, most of the meetings involving the awarding of the railroad franchise to Broe were held at the IBC bank headquarters. Nice doing business with you, boys!
Actually, Rusteberg's control of the Port of Brownsville's finances go way back. The late Raul Besteiro was a member of the board of directors at IBC before he became the port director. And Rusteberg's executive secretary, Donna Eymard, was appointed as Besteiro's executive secretary, becoming acting port director when Besteiro died. She is still port director Eddie Campirano's executive secretary. Campirano is, appropriately, a member of United Brownsville. Cozy, ain't it?
These are the ties that bind. And with his eyes and ears at the port's financial pulse, who better than Fred to make an honest buck where he can?
Rusteberg is one of three members of something called the United Brownsville Coordinating Board, the self-appointed watchers over the Brownsville-Matamoros Metroplex who know what's good for all of us. They will gladly use our money to make things better for all of us who don't know any better.
So what if the grandmas and Little Leaguers have to play and eat their pollo asado while breathing in the smell of human excrement from the sewer plant? As long as UTB has its 48 acres on which Julieta Garcia can build her Institute of the Americas touting the United Brownsville economic development line, who's to listen to the rabble?
Aren't we all here to make a little money at the expense of the public, after all?