"NATIVE SON" RONNIE GETS $140,000 FROM UNITED B'VILLE

By Juan Montoya
Just about the time that a sudden rainstorm flooded parts of town including W. Washington and Fourth streets, a majority of the United Brownsville cabal on the city commission was giving away $140,000 for a logo and "rebranding" to a company whose front man is the cousin of Texas Rep. Rene Oliveira.
There wasn't even a semblance of public input into the simplistic logo that piggybacks on SpaceX's plans to construct a commercial vertical launch pad, but Mayor Tony Martinez and commissioners Rose Gowen, Deborah Portillo and John Villarreal still voted to give the cash to Hahn Advertising for the logo and a promised campaign to push the concept.
It wasn't the maudlin performance by Oliveira reminding commissioners of his Brownsville roots and the fact that his father was a city cop and his mother a teacher at the Brownsville Independent School District that moved commissioner Jessica Tetreau to tears. And it wasn;t Ronnie's voice with its "sonorous timbre" that led commissioner Cesar de Leon to second her motion to not award the money to Oliveira's firm.
Rather, it was the shoddy quality of the design, the brazen favoritism shown to the cousin of the state rep, and the sense of entitlement that oozed from Oliviera's kin that galled those who did  not vote in favor of the award.
Hahn says the logo "aims to convey the notion that Brownsville is a portal, a door, an entrance, a gate” that “whispers a promise of change."
The logo incorporates the shape of Texas, with the “V” in Brownsville corresponding with the state’s southern tip. The bottom of the “V” appears to emit a multi-colored spark.
“Owning the tip of Texas within the stronghold of the Valley activates a certain spark that continues to ignite Brownsville,” reads the description. “The shape of Texas accentuated by the vibrancy of color at its base represents much more than simple geography, but rather represents the power, pride, biculturalism, growth/potential and brightness of future that come together to form what Brownsville is — both today and tomorrow.”
Critics say that the outline of the State of Texas makes it seem like the state is farting all over Brownsville, said to be at the anus of the Rio Grande..
City commissioner Ricardo Longoria opted to stay out of the fray and was absent from the meeting.
Even though commissioner Portillo went out of her way distance herself from the selection process of the logo and the vendor, during Oliveira's tearful presentation in his "sonorous timbre" with a tinge of nostalgia for the time he spent in Brownsville decades ago, he personally thanked her as well as Gowen,  IBC President Fred Rusteberg and others associated with United Brownsville.
Oliveira said that the city was not ready for SpaceX, as if that was the only direction that the city's image could take.
It will probably cost the city a few more $100,000s to retool itself and its stationery to adopt the matchstick man-like design provided by Oliveira's Hahn Associates. But thanks to the vote taken on Tuesday, now we know that it's the United Brownsville bunch under Rusteberg and Martinez-Gowen-Portillo (and now Villarreal) who are doling out the taxpayer's money for trivialities while the city sinks around them.