BEDC HILTS, MARTINEZ, DO COLOMBIA JAUNT ON CITY DIME

By Jim Barton
The Brownsville Observer
With Southmost still not having sidewalks, the "Four Corners" area under water after every rain and downtown still looking like shit, Mayor Tony Martinez and BEDC President Jason Hilts decided in the summer of 2012 to take a taxpayer subsidized, extravagant trip to Barranquilla, Colombia to adopt that Caribbean port city as Brownsville's sister.

Were there a direct flight between the Brownsville/South Padre Island "International" Airport and Barranquilla, Colombia, the trip would be 1,806 miles long, making the faux sibling relationship definitely long distance.

 The Brownsville delegation spent a week in Colombia on the taxpayer dime. None carried a sack lunch or stayed at the Motel 6. Easily, tens of thousands of hard-earned taxpayer dollars were spent on what was a thinly-disguised pleasure trip.

Jason Hilts, who, a dozen years ago, as a BEDC operative, was caught using a city-issued credit card for personal items, including jewelry, was not terminated, but promoted to BEDC's Executive Director. It's as an anonymous poster keeps reminding us: "Brownsville taxpayers don't tolerate corruption. They demand it."

Still footloose and fancy free with taxpayer dollars, Hilts, the architect of the Titan Tire fiasco, decided that traveling to and wining and dining in Colombia on the taxpayer dime was not enough. He talked the mayor into setting up an "office" in Colombia to "promote economic development" between the two countries.


(El Rrun-Rrun reported that while not one job for one Brownsville resident has been created so far, Hilts asserted that their efforts at "developing relationships" has the "potential" of bringing at least 11 mid-size operations in different sectors with $25 million and 200 jobs and another $300 million from two major projects in food processing and retail which might create 450 jobs and another 300 indirect jobs here.
Here's the breakdown on the Colombian office operation funded to the tune of $314,438 from July 2013 to date:

Staff and salary: Director of Recruitment: $50,436 yearly

Office Assistant:                                         $6,600 yearly

Office Assistant:                                          $800 monthly

Total multiplied by 2.5 years:                     $197,590)

Apart from the $197,000 was spent for an office and staff in Columbia between 2013 and 2015, Hilts and crew made SIXTEEN urgent trips back to Colombia to check on the progress of economic development. As we reported in earlier this year:

In the pursuit of economic development for the City of Brownsville, BEDC operatives traveled sixteen times to the exotic destination of Colombia during fiscal years 2013-15. While typically a combination of Jason Hilts, Gilberto Salinas and Olga Ramos made the Colombia trip, one contingent included as many as eleven.

During those years, the BEDC spent $312,541 of taxpayer monies on travel alone. Despite the hundreds of thousands of taxpayer dollars spent on the office, staff and trips to Colombia, the office was simply closed without fanfare in 2015. No jobs were created for Brownsville residents. Nothing in the way of economic development ever materialized between Brownsville and Colombia.

While in Colombia in 2012, the Brownsville delegation were impressed by a local cycling event, Ciclovia, which they brought back to Brownsville as CycloBia with the "B" standing for Brownsville.

Under the strong-armed tactics of City Commissioner Rose Gowen, the City of Brownsville promoted the cycling event, purchasing advertising with taxpayer monies, providing bicycles, police and traffic control, etc. While no accurate and total record of expenditures is available, an estimated cost of each taxpayer subsidized event runs between $60,000 and $100,000 with typically four or more events held annually.

Adding the cost of the original, ill-fated City of Brownsville trip to Colombia, the BEDC office set up and staffed for three years, the 16 trips made to Colombia and four years of subsidizing CycloBia, is it not accurate to describe that original trip as the most expensive in Brownsville history?