IS THERE A "F--K BROWNSVILLE COMMITTEE" IN DALLAS?

By Juan Montoya
As people in inside circles with the city and county wonder, "What has Brownsville done to Dallas that they send us these fine gents?"
They start off with blogger and disbarred attorney Robert Wightman, next mention Carlos Quintanilla, of Fly Frontera infamy, and now Mike Hernandez III, of the messianic OP 10.33 group.
The first arrived here unannounced, proceeded to sue and browbeat everyone and his insurance company, and then, after befriending several unsuspecting politicians and mid-level administrators, abruptly turned on them and outed them as his confidential sources. He has been been, at various times, a failed lawyer, a cyberpundit, an accused vexatious litigant, and constantly, a cyber hypochondriac. After one of his post complaining about some esoteric new illness, themedical personnel in Harlingen cringe at the thought of Wightman barging in the door and elbowing out real combat veterans to demand care fo his new imagined malady.
And for a slight fee, Wightman comes back to his cubbyhole and tells Hernandez, the new Dallas arrival, he can show you how to best put your philanthropic millions to good use.
And interestingly, as the Mexican saying goes, "Dios los hace, ellos se juntan solos."
Not long after Wightman slithered into town, Quintanilla showed up with his pitch to set up a charter airline to service violence-torn northern Mexico (Monterrey) with connecting flights to Tampico and Mexico City and beyond. Quintanilla, the ultimate salesman, got many community leaders and elected officials to take the bait.
As if by script, Wightman jumped in and made the case that Quintanilla was damaged goods (a convicted felon), that Fly Frontera was a fly-by-night operation, and that he would personally conquer the invader.
This prompted Austin's (and Brownsville) Erasmo Castro and his Cheezmeh gang to join force with Wightman and a few others who tried to make the point that Quintanilla was a con man and that they would save the city from utter perdition. Castro was throwing stone s in his glass house, we later found out, because he, too, had been convicted of a felony in his younger, wilder days.
Behind the scenes a city commissioner and other airport officials had been enticing AeroMexico with generous promotional incentives ($150,000) and a subsidy for unfilled seats was offered by the Brownsville Development Council ($500,000).

Quintanilla was called a "convicted felon" by the other convicted felon, hounded by the misanthrope disbarred lawyer who even intervened in the purchase of his children's home in Dallas, and was demonized by would-be accountants for even suggesting that Brownsville needed the service to Mexico.

Fly Frontera owned no planes, the office was operating out of Quintanilla's home address, they had no corporate record, etc..., they bellowed. The torch-and-pitchfork crowd won.  

Quintanilla and Fly Frontera were defeated and AeroMexico and city officials, with much pomp and circumstance, announced the beginning of flights from here to Mexico and Monterrey, just as Fly Frontera had offered in the lower-cost on-demand flights.

Local reputations were made by these fine folks as the saviors of the community, the paladins of the masses, etc., It was just a matter of time before they were all fighting over who should get credit for defeating Fly Frontera and vanquishing the evil Q. 

They all claimed credit for their "victory."
Then AeroMexico, citing low ridership, collected its subsidies, gathered up all their gear, and flew off to greener pastures.
Hernandez III, as do most messianic leaders, seems to have his heart in the right place, asserts his Dallas cohort Wigthman. It's in his chest cavity, he says.
Characteristically, after each one of these splinter counter-FlyFrontera groups fought over the credit for vanquishing the evil Quintanilla, there was a falling out and now each runs alone.
For now, Wightman is currying the OP 10.33 moneybags with his plan to end poverty in Brownsville by October 2033, 20 years after he read in the Houston Chronicle that Brownsville was considered the poorest city in the United States. With his millions, a refined method of squeezing state and federal grants, and his cadre of organizers, economic and employment developers, and a slick marketing plan consisting of billboards exhorting the populace to uproot corruption and seize the opportunities, Hernandez thinks he has hit upon the solution.
However, his implementation has been nothing short of using a sledgehammer for a surgical operation to drive home his point. After months of weasel-wording and dodging responsibility for targeting the board of the Port of Brownsville, he has finally admitted that the first order of business will be the throwing out of Port rascals Ralph Cowen and Tito Lopez.
This is months after local residents had reported campaign workers who were not up on port issues handing out campaign literature for his two-hand-picked candidates Ed Rivera and Raul Villanueva.
The reason? His website says that politicians who are "detrimental" to OP 10.33 goals – nirvana, a free meal to everyone, prosperity etc. – will be targeted for political destruction. He blames these two for the port's numbers on "tons shipped (which are up), direct jobs (also up), and overall trade value (coincidentally, also up)."
In Dallas, Quintanilla finally managed to implement a regional airline plan which is now in business (Texas Sky). Wightman continues to pander to Hernandez III to heed his advice, and Hernandez rules over a fragmented cadre composed of the likes of Rivera (who did not reside in the port district until he moved in with his girlfriend) and Carlos Marin, the architect of United Brownsville who is his OP 10.33's job developer. After nine years and more than $1.4 million in contributions  for "memberships" by publicly-funded entities, Marin has yet to show what jobs United Brownsville has produced for local folks.
And everyone is wondering when Hernandez III will become Wightman'sd flavor of the day and he berates him fo being a "moron" for not heeding his sage advice.
There is another Mexican song which is popular in local joints which we wish to paraphrase in relation to these gents: The first line of the chorus goes: "Lllevatelos pero lejos..."