BEDC BOARD GIVES THUMBS DOWN TO $407,878 STUDY

By Juan Montoya
Citing a lack of urgency to dish out an additional $407,878 for a Phase II Small Area Plan after the Greater Brownsville Incentive Corporation board had already voted to give them $185,000 for Phase I and concerns that no other proposals were considered besides the one by Jacobs Management, the full Brownsville Economic Development Board voted to table the proposal indefinitely.
The proposal was made by Jacobs Project Manager Oscar Garcia Jr..
The process of considering awarding contracts begins with the BEDC board which vets the and then sends its recommendation to the GBIC. In this case, the BEDC board voted not to recommend the project.
Some of the members were wary that the GBIC was left alone to fund Phase II after the Port of Brownsville and the PUB declined to co-fund it as they did Phase I.
"If GBIC funds the study, will other organizations have access to the data?" a member asked.
"And is something bad going to happen if we don't fund this new study right away?" asked another.
Garcia replied that there wasn't any urgency involved and that the planning process was for one phase to follow another. No oine from the city showed up in support of the proposal except for City Manager Charlie Cabler who did not comment on Garcia's proposal.
The overriding sentiment of the board seemed to be that there was no clear benefit that would come to the city as a result of further funding the project.
"It was the full board's decision," said a member. "No one felt the need to spend that money on yet another study."
When Garcia Jr. was the chairman of the Brownsville Public Utility Board, he signed off on the $454,000 Brownsville Strategic Infrastructure and Land Management Plan and the utility split the cost three ways with the Port of Brownsville, and the GBIC.
That study was drafted by Robin McCaffrey of Needham, McCaffrey and Associates, the same firm that 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. At the time McCaffrey went under the name of  Mesa
The so-called master plan identified 35 small-area sites and called for the development of commercial corridors and recommended that the development of the plan be split into three phases at a total cost of $750,000.
The firm recommended that United Brownsville be placed in charge of implementing the plan using funds from public entities.
The Coordinating Board of United Brownsville includes IBC President Fred Rusteberg, UTB vice-president Irv Downing, and Julieta Garcia, former UTB president and – coincidentally – mother of Garcia Jr.
The availability of the $750,000 spurred Garcia Jr, into action and he bolted the PUB and latched on to Jacobs Project Management Co. Jacobs Project Management Co. is a subsidiary of Jacobs Engineering, which is an international engineering, architecture and construction firm. The main company is headquartered in Pasadena, Calif. although the nearest office to Brownsville is in San Antonio.
Although Garcia Jr. isn't an engineer, he has parlayed his parental connections and his pull at United Brownsville to climb the financial ladder.
Before he was appointed to the PUB, he was the operations manager for Su Clinica Familiar, a federally-funded health provider whose director is none other than Dr. Elena Marin, the wife of Carlos Marin, also listed an at-large board member of United Brownsville and the Brownsville Economic Development Council (BEDC). City commissioner Rose Gowen was a member of Marin's clinic's staff and also – you guessed it – an at-large member of United Brownsville. She now works as a director of a UTB medical research facility.
Jacobs initially submitted a bid to implement all three phases of the Small Area Plan for the $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 first $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.
On the night of June 19, 2014, a bare quorum of the GBIC board voted to give Jacobs Engineering the $185,000 contract to "find funding for the industrial corridor project and also locate investors during a 4 month timetable."
Jacobs was the only company that responded to the Request for Proposals during the short period that it was advertised.
The three GBIC members voting for it were city commissioner Jessica Tetreau, County Treasurer David Betancourt and Al Villarreal, an employee of IBC's Rusteberg.
So far, the combined $639,000 spent so far on the McCaffrey plan and on Jacobs Phase I have not generated – except for Garcia Jr. – one job for a Brownsville resident.
Theoretically, now that BEDC has tabled the request, the GBIC could still consider it and go against the BEDC recommendation not to fund the project. Only the chairman of the GBIC – Betancourt – can place the proposal on the GBIC agenda for its board's consideration.
They are:

                                                      David Betancourt - Chairman                                                       

Email: david.betancourt@co.cameron.tx.us

Ed Sikes

Email: eddie.sikes@roystonlaw.com

Al Villarreal

Email: alvillarreal@ibc.com

Jessica Tetreau-Kalifa

Email: jtetreau@cob.us

John Cowen

Email: jcowen2@cowen-group.com