KING TONY HAWKS HIS PRICEY STATE OF CITY BASH

By Juan Montoya
Save your pennies for next Wednesday if you want to hear from Da Mayor King Tony Martinez what state the city is in.
Yes, the same man who has overseen the debt from the $200 million Public Utility Board debt that is paid by the city's ratepayers jump by $325 million to $525 million to build a gas-powered plant in partnership with a private company wants you to feel good about him and re-elect him. Tenaska says the plant will cost $500 million and PUB and Martinez is happy to pitch in $325 million in debt – more than half the plant's cost – and settle for a quater , or 200 of the 800 MWs that will be produced there.

In fact, both PUB and Tenaska have told the Texas Attorney General's Office that they should not be forced to divulge what the full cost and obligations will cost the ratepayers and the TAOG went along with them. Why should the people who are going to pay the bill know what they are paying for?
So far, Da Mayor has convinced the pliant city commissioners to go along with him and issue even more public debt through Certificates of Obligation totaling some $25 million. Da Mayor prefers this method of financing than others because the city doesn't have to go to the voters to see if they approve. A simple vote from the commission of sheep will do.
Like most millionaires – and his buddy Elon Musk of SpaceX is one of them – Martinez does not like to use his own money when there's plenty to plunder from in the city coffers. In one of the CO issues, there was enough there for his law partner (Horacio Barrera) to negotiate the sale of an empty Casa Del Nylon store covering half a block downtown for a cool $2.3 million. An independent appraisal lists the market price at somewhere around $700,000.
Likewise, his RFP offer for the University of Texas System lists 80 acres of prime city real estate at bargain prices. Even the UT System was forced to admit as much during one of the meetings of the regents. The Lincoln Park giveaway by the city to the new UTRGV (formerly Julieta Garcia's UTB) that would move the park to the front of  a stinky sewer plant is just the latest insult to injury that Martinez has inflicted upon the city residents. All the UT System wants to pay for is the cost or removing the amenities (ball fields, toy sets, etc) to a new site.
In his announcement fort the State of the City, Martinez uses the City of Brownsville logo, lists city manager Charlie Cabler's secretary Rachel Figeroa as the contact person and cites the Brownsville Events Center – a city facility – as the site of the SOC bash.
Will you, the tax and rate payer who is footing the bill for all these excesses of King Tony be able to walk in and be thrilled and amazed at the glitzy presentation presented  M.A.P.(Message, Audience, Presentation, Inc.) of Austin, the same company that ran his campaign for mayor, that will rival a Wizard of Oz production?
If you have a couple of $100s you will.
So line up.
What will you have, the Platinum Star Sponsor at $3,000 for eight (the Premium corporation recognition package)? The Gold Sponsor at $1,500 (the corporate recognition package)? The Silver Sate Sponsor, perhaps (merely a table for eight toward the rear)? Or a ticket at $50 each for a seat back in the bleachers?
Which will Tenasaka take? How about Abraham Galonsky (former owner of La Case Del Nylon)? And which sponsorship will SpaceX (which received some $20 million in  state and city subsidies and tax abatements from the county) choose to buy?
The front of the RSVP invite quotes a supposed conversation between unnamed persons and SpaceX billionaire Musk asking the subsidized visionary what he looked out at the waves of Boca Chica Beach.
"The future," he answered.
If the future is the public's money for free, Musk had a point.
But if the publicly-funded and city manufactured invites and sponsored bash for the mayor's re-election bid a scant three months from now is any indication of what a second Martinez administration will mean to the city, we have seen that future and, frankly, we can't afford any part of it.