DISTRICT 1 RACE A TEST IF SOUTHMOST VOTERS CARE

By Juan Montoya
Would you – living in the blue-collar side of town – vote for a commissioner who agreed to increase your utility bills by double digits, voted to go along with the mayor's speculate on downtown real estate, agreed at the beginning to give away Lincoln Park, and voted not to build a hurricane shelter for "his people?"
This is what voters in the District 1 commissioner's race will decide once and for all tomorrow, election day.
Many people say that the election has already been decided by the early voter turnout. But with the turnout at the Southmost public library at only 488, this might turn out to be  a nail-biter between incumbent Ricardo Longoria and his second-time challenger Roman Perez.
There were 738 votes cast there in the early voting before the May 9 election which resulted in the runoff between Longoria and Perez.
The sins of Longoria have been thoroughly documented. Perez has no public track record as an elected official and served on various city committees including the Brownsville Metro Advisory Board.
Since he has been city commissioner, Longoria voted on items that adversely affect his constituency.
Since November 2011, he went along and voted to increase electric rates by 41 percent, water rates by 25 percent, and waste water by 11 percent. The unanimous commission also approved the Tenaska power plant project which will burden the PUB ratepayers with a $325 million debt, which, according to Fitch, the PUB's bond rating services, forced them to downgrade of the utility's bonds to "negative" citing "ratepayer fatigue."
In that same period, the voted to issue $30 million in Certificates of Obligations outside of the city budget process to be paid by property taxes and landfill fees.

The latest $9.5 million issuance of COs was this April when the agenda item read:

6. Consideration and ACTION on Ordinance 2015-1599, to authorize the issuance, sale and delivery of approximately $9,500,000.00 in aggregate principal amount of “City of Brownsville, Texas Combination Tax and Revenue Certificates of Obligation, Series 2015”; securing the payment thereof by authorizing the Levy of an annual Ad Valorem Tax and a pledge of certain surplus revenues of the City’s Municipal Landfill System; and approving and authorizing the execution of a paying agent/registrar agreement, a purchase contract, an official statement and all other instruments and procedures related thereto. (Pete Gonzalez – Deputy City Manager), they once again dipped into future property tax income and increased landfill costs to make ends meet.

This latest $9.5 million brought the total of COs issued without taxpayer approval in the last three years to more than $30 million.

When they couldn't make ends meet with those additional millions, they again go to the PUB ratepayer well and make "cash transfer" averaging about $7.5 million per year, plus an additional $3 million in 2010 and another $2 million "prestamito" from the utility in 2011. All told, in addition to the extra $30 million in COs outside the annual city budget, they also tapped PUB for free utilities for the municipal facilities to the tune of $4.5 million yearly.
It all comes out of the same pocket – yours.
We have documented how Longoria voted three times to give up the money meant to build a hurricane dome in Southmost for "his people," and then complained that it was the other commissioners who had slighted the neighborhood.
This election  might come down to the election-day vote tomorrow. We have seen how much Longoria cares for "his people." This poorest area of our city can ill afford another four years of this type of poor non-representation.