SIGNING FOR FOR CAMERON COUNTY IS ...DAN SANCHEZ?

By Juan Montoya
Last August 21, a meeting was held in Harlingen pushing for the expansion of the Bi-National Economic Development grouping, the brain child of Carlos Marin and United Brownsville.

The so-called BiNED was formed by United Brownsville and Imagina Matamoros in March 2014. 

In the beginning, it was started by the mayors of Brownsville, Harlingen and Matamoros, in conjunction with U.S. Rep.Filemon Vela.

At the meeting, United Brownsville's CEO Mike Gonzalez called it a "historical" event and explained the reason they needed to expand beyong Brownsville and Matamoros.

"When we started BiNED we had a very simple premise, we need to capture more of the opportunities coming through here," He told The Guardian's Steve Taylor.

"In Brownsville, we looked at ways to capture more of the manufacturing clusters. This called for the development of an advanced manufacturing strategy. Well, when you look at it you see that all the supply lines run outside of the city’s boundary. We decided we definitely needed Matamoros and we kind of needed Cameron County. That is where the original partnership was at.”

Cameron County had long resisted the siren's song of United Brownsville, seeing it more as a self-proclaimed economic development organization composed of players who no one had elected, and who were pushing for economic development outside the purview of elected government.

United Brownsville, for example, was formed to "lessen the burden of government" on elected officials and to "provide a forum" for economic development projects. Of course, they couldn't say which elected officials asked them to lessen their burdens. But soon thereafter, using the influence of people like IBC President Fred Rusteberg and UTB's Julieta Garcia, had managed to bag $25,000 annually from eight publicly-funded entities to fund their activities. $200,000 a year on vague promises is not a bad gig.

Well, guess who attended the August 21 meeting and signed on to the "agreement" without the consent of the commissioners court or the county judge? Neither county judge Pete Sepulveda nor judge pro-tem Alex Dominguez was told of the meeting. For that matter, not even Pct. 3 commissioner David Garza knew of the event.

Would you believe Pct. 4 commissioner Dan Sanchez?

The three founding entities were joined by Cameron and Hidalgo counties and the cities of Reynosa, Edinburg and McAllen. The ceremony was held at the Regional Academic Health Center in Harlingen for leaders of the various entities to sign the documents.

What Sanchez "agreed" to is not stated in the accounts of the meeting, but judging from the reaction from the commissioners when they were told they were now part of the BiNED scheme, it will not be a pretty sight when Sanchez is called to answer for his indiscretion.

Dan, for his part, left the commissioners meeting early on Thursday. He said he had a very important appointment to watch the Texas Longhorns vs. Notre Dame football game in Austin on Saturday.

He wasn't there to explain how he could have obligated the county to espouse the aims of BiNED or to cast his vote with the rest of his colleagues to not raise the county property tax rate.

Others who signed on to the BiNED were Brownsville Mayor Tony Martinez, Matamoros Mayor Leticia Salazar, Harlingen Mayor Chris Boswell, Reynosa Mayor Elias Leal, Edinburg Mayor Richard Garcia, McAllen Mayor Jim Darling, and Hidalgo County Mayor Ramon Garcia.

Now, do the cities on either side of the border realize that they have no authority to enter into international agreements of any kind? That is the purview of  the national government, not of a municipality.

And if Sanchez had no authority to sign the "agreement" to  join BiNED, is the county beholden to honor it?

Or is it merely Dan posturing to make a run for the county judge's position now being held by Sepulveda?