By Juan Montoya
Now that we know that OP 10.33 mastermind Mike Hernandez – along with United Brownsville architect Carlos Marin – are planning a takeover of the board of trustees of the Brownsville Navigation Distirct by running for two positions, a lot of questions have arisen.
If Ed Rivera and Raul Villanueva were to win, this would give them a majority on the board with John Reed, the only candidate running unopposed.
Rivera had initially filed against Reed but then later in the day changed positions and ran against Tito Lopez. The other candidate for that position is Patrick Anderson, a school teacher from Los Fresnos.
Reed is someone who obviously gets along with Marin, the owner of Ambiotec.
When the Port of Brownsville, the Brownsville Public Utility Board and the City of Brownsville paid $454,000 to Robin McCaffrey for a Master Comprehensive plan, a part of the document dealing with endangered flora and fauna was farmed out to Ambiotec.
McCaffrey is the same person who worked on the City of Kyle Comprehensive Master Plan, under the name of Mesa when the mayor of Kyle was Mike Gonzalez. Gonzalez is now the executive director of United Brownsville.
Marin, who is on the United Brownsville board, is also listed as job development director with the staff of OP 10.33.
With Reed on board as a shoo-in for reelection because Rivera – also on the United Brownsville bandwagon – didn't run against him, a win by River and Villanueva would give them a majority on the board.
And what would the voters of the navigation district get in return?
According to the OP 10.33 mantra, the group will "vet" candidates and choose those that will do their bidding. Their website states:
"The civic engagement work we do in the public arena is non-partisan and primarily educational in nature, scope and intent.
OP10.33 has also created a political action committee to fund candidates and support ballot issues and measures that are congruent with our larger goals and objectives. We also will use those funds to oppose those candidates and ballot issues and measures detrimental to our goal and objectives."
Obviously, despite their public denials and besmirching of their critics, OP 10.33's Hernandez and Marin have decided that Cowen and Lopez are "detrimental"to their goals and objectives.
And conversely, they obviously feel that Rivera and Villanueva will act appropriately "congruent with our larger goals and objectives."
We know what Marin's goals and objectives are, to promote economic development that will benefit their cronies on neither side of the border. What we didn't know was that Hernandez's goal was to follow in Marin's footsteps under the cloak of civic engagement.
Toward that end, Hernandez has contributed $10,000 to Rivera and Villanueva in "in kind" cash for signs and advertising.
Doesn't that defy OP 10.33's calim of "credibility?"
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rita
4 comments:
So wrong...Reed is not in Marin's pocket.
Have you been to the Port in Brownsville lately? Nothing but empty land. New blood in needed. Period.
What do you have to lose but empty space.
The problem here is that OP1033 keeps harping about rooting out corruption. Under this model, things will grow, which is good, but these people who have gotten wrapped up with OP1033 have been known to do arguably unnecessary work for top dollar. Those dollars could be better spent on things other than, for instance, a small area plant that costs almost half a million and tells us that 511 is a good place to build a factory because there are no houses. This is the problem with this whole thing. Mr. Mike is trying to do a good thing, but he needs to make sure that all of this money is spent wisely. There is enough to go around to make a lot of people some money, but let's not spend it on expensive junk.
Miguel Hernandez III, you should have gone after Reed. You would have won. Stop listening to El Mago.
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