OUT ON A LIMB: RRUNRRUN'S PICKS IN PORT, TSC RACES

By Juan Montoya
Early voting in the Brownsville Navigation District and the Texas Southmost College boards' elections start at 8 a.m. Monday.
Although we usually aren't in the habit of endorsing candidates we feel that these two boards are critical to the economic and educational development of this city and region that we will take the unprecedented step of endorsing candidates in both races.
The candidates for TSC positions are (the bold ones are our picks) :

Place 3: (Ed Rivera's old seat)

Evelyn Cantu

J.J. de Leon

Tony Juarez

Tony Zavaletta

Pick: It is with no small degree of sadness that we must part ways with our dear old friend Dr. Zavaleta in his bid for this position. Tony and I go way back to my days with the Brownsville Herald when he was a college instructor. He has since reached greater heights and as an anthropology major he has made great contributions to the knowledge of local history, culture and medicinal plants through numerous publications.

However, the reason we pick Dr. Juarez is based on his specific set of skills, namely his being a Certified Public Accountant, a skills set that the board desperately needs at this reconstruction juncture. Another, and perhaps more important reason is because as the provost in the Julieta Garcia administration of the UTB-TSC "partnership," he was privy to her plan to abolish the community college and turn over all of the assets (from bank accounts, buildings and real estate) to the oil-and-gas wealthy University of Texas System...and said and did nothing. It is now, we feel, disingenuous for him to seek a position on the board of a community college that he was willing to see abolished. For that, most of all, we have to go with Juarez.

Cantu is being pushed by the likes of Mary Rose Cardenas (the main sponsor of the "partnership" which funneled millions – some say more than $1 billion over 22 years) to the UT System. She is also receiving bucks from United Brownsville and Ambiotec's Carlos Marin and wife Dr. Elena Marin, of Su Clinica Familiar. She may be great at chaperoning the Municipal Ambassador students of the BISD to the places of power, but she has had little or no policy-making experience. The need now is for the college to rebuild itself and provide more accessible and affordable education to its students. Cantu has little or no experience in those affairs. At this time, On the Job Training cannot be an option. We do, however, think her pretty campaign sings are catchy. It's too bad that attractiveness and good presentation is but a small factor in running a community college.
De Leon is also lacking in independent policy-making experience. For years he has been a receptionist and gofer for various high-ranking BISD administrators. Although that may swing a small number of votes, what the board doesn't need now is another "yes man" as it did when Garcia was president of the "partnership." TSC can do without him at this critical juncture of its new existence.

Place 4: (Held by Trey Mendez)

Beatriz M.  Hockaday

Trey Mendez

Pick: We really have nothing against Hockaday, we have noted in the past that she was a staff member of the OP 10.33 when its CEO Michael Hernandez III urged young people in the headquarters to take an active part in local politics through voting, registering voters, or being candidates. Bea took this to heart and filed for the position held by Mendez. Horrified, Hernandez and Marin (in charge of job development with OP 10.33) rushed to contribute cash to Mendez's campaign as a sign of contrition. We usually part ways with Marin and Hernandez, but in this case, they know a winner when they see one and rushed to be on the winning side.

Place 5: (Kiko Rendon's seat)

Ruben Herrera

Daniel Pizaña

Pick: All we know about Dan Pizaña is that he is young, an attorney on the make, and that his association with TSC board member Art Rendon (of BISD fame when he sued in federal court and won) as his son's law career mentor probably pushed him to run. Art Rendon (another dear friend) has been a disappointment to many on the board of TSC. He has resisted pulling the plug on the annual $25,000 "membership" to United Brownsville, and has generally swung in the direction of the prevailing wind. At BISD, he has been shuffled from here to there by an administration and a board who are reluctant to mess with a TSC trustee with which the district must, of necessity, must work very closely. We admire his loyalty and gratitude to Pizaña for allowing Rendon's law-school son to "shadow" him for a summer. But the future of this college cannot be based on a personal relationship. Herrera, on the other hand, has ample experience serving on various boards and is adept in the nuances of policy making which are going to be critical in TSC's formative years as a community college born anew. We have to go with Dr. Anthony Knopp on this one. He is Herrera's treasurer, and if anyone loves TSC and knows its critical importance to the development of our city and region, it is him. We're with you on Ruben, Dr. Tony.

PORT OF BROWNSVILLE

Ralph Cowen (inc.)

Raul Villanueva (banker)

Pick: It is too bad that Villanuieva felt he had to run as a ticket with fellow traveler Ed Rivera running against Tito Lopez. His running on the OP 10.33 ticket at the behest (and control) of millionaire and self-anointed messiah Mike Hernandez III who targeted Cowen and Lopes as "detrimental" to the growth of the port. This flies in the face of the port's record-breaking year in cargo and value-added contributions to the region. If anything, these two races will be the litmus test for this organization made up of the shadow government United Brownsville supporters and a leadership that expects the rest of us to follow like lemmings in the direction that Hernandez and Marin dictate. Granted, Cowen is not a dynamic leader, but he has proven in the time at the port that he can make decisions based on the well-being of the district. We already had a banker, Fred Rusterberg, on the board of the port's Brownsville-Rio Grande Railroad, and he managed to sell this profitable operation to a Denver-based consortium for a song. Bankers like profiting from other people's money, and one was enough. The fact that OP 10.33 contributed $10,000 "in kind" to both Villanueva and Rivera to defeat Cowen and Lopez makes us feel as though they will be indebted to take their marching orders from Hernandez and Marin. Thanks, but no thanks.        

John Reed (inc.)

No opponent (Ed Rivera switched)

Pick: It's unfortunate no one ran against Reed in this election because we probably would have gone with his opponent. OP 10.33 pulled Rivera from his position and told him to run against Lopez. If they were really serious, they would have realized that the stevedore belonging to Reed's brother-in-law Mark Hoskins, Gulf Stream Marine, single-handedly busted the local longshoremen's union and lowered their hourly wages to the lowest of any port in the Gulf Coast and the Eastern Seaboard. If OP 10.33 had really wanted to improve wages and opportunity, they could have targeted Reed as a message that they were against the slave wages for workers at the dangerous and heavy jobs that they perform for Hoskins and other stevedores who have profited like thieves as a result of Gulf Stream Marine's breaking of the local longshoremen union. We'll just pass on this one.

Tito Lopez (inc.)

Patrick Anderson (anti-LNG)

Ed Rivera

Pick: Lopez has a personal stake in making the port profitable and seeing it succeed. He employs literally hundreds of truck drivers, mechanics and other workers who make sure that cargoes get from there to Mexico and vice versa. His opponent Rivera has none of this, although he claims he is a master of manufacturing and logistics. Trustees don't manufacture anything out there. Professionals like Lopez do. Let's face it. This port is symbiotically attached to northern Mexico and its mode of production. As goes the northern Mexican economy, so does the fortunes of the port. What's worse, even as OP 10.33 preaches the virtues of sincerity and honesty, they turn a blind eye to the fact that Rivera borrowed his girl friend's address in order to run because he lives outside the district in Laguna Vista. His homestead exemption is there and the TSC website indicates he lives in Laguna Vista. In fact, when he went to replace a lost voting card, he had them issue him on with the address 22 Harbor Town, in Laguna Vista. 

Anderson, is, as far as we know, a decent, righteous candidate. He started as a one-issue candidate but later clarified his stand and his platform emphasizes economic growth with a concern for environmental protection and sustainable growth. Those are worthy planks and we tend to agree with him. However, Lopez's experience and as a known quantity make him, we feel, the best candidate at this juncture. 

Whether you agree with us or not, those are our reasons for our picks. And we know that this year, especially, going to vote has become a repetitive act. But voter fatigue aside, these two elections are important for the districts and for the region as a whole. Please vote.