By Juan Montoya
We wish we could take credit for the graphic accompanying this note, but we can't.
It was actually part of the Channel 23 KVEO news cast on the new city ordinance drafted by the City of Brownsville in response to the lawsuit by the Texas Attorney General calling the $1 plastic-bag fee illegal.
But take a gander at what the city used the money and you decide whether it was used for what the ordinance said or for pet projects of some of our city commissioners.
How about advertising at $19,910 and the $19,669 for Project Make Brownsville Beautiful? Last time we looked the city hadn't changed much.
Even worse, how about Rose Gowen's pet project, the Project Hike-Bike Trail Master Plan ($130,440)? What does riding bikes have to do with protecting the environment from plastic bags?
How about the contractor-friendly gravy train called the Project Duck Pond at $335,204 of your plastic-bag fee dollars? Why were fees on plastic bags used to make the resaca duck friendly? Isn't parks and rec part of city government functions?
There are several high-dollar items here that are the normal functions of municipal solid-waste management: a $419,101 tub grinder, two street sweepers at $$431,120, a landfill compactor at $772,762, and asphalt recycler at $194,900, a downtown sanitation truck at $152,753, and the repair of the landfill dozer-compactor at $1,259,272.
The AG was right. Once idle city elected officials and territorial bureaucrats see a pile of money, they will find some way to get their hands on it and spend it.
17 comments:
LE hubieran arreglado los dientes a jessica tetreu
They put a bunch of "Keep Brownsville Clean" (or something like that) in the historic bike trail
The AG said it was an illegal sales tax, and it appear he was right.
This is blatant irresponsibility. Now citizens who used to have their merchants, gladly, provide them with free bags to carry their goods out of the store, as a courtesy, are stuck with NO BAGS, unless they buy them. What used to be free, now costs. Way to go morons. Who did you really represent in this fiasco, Rose and John? Do you "feel better" about your "feel good" projects.
These misappropriations of funds were probably illegal, to boot, but, of course, that doesn't matter over at Shitty Hall.
Good job exposing these jerks, Juan, too bad, nobody will give a damn.
Vote Erasmo and Ben..............rid the city of these pendejos
Ben yes but Erasmo es otro pendejo
If you believe this document you are high on crack. How much of this money went directly to healthy communities of browntown? Who pays Rose Timmer's salary?
Now we're stuck with no bags because of some idiotic commitment to "going green" while these losers ignore the city's real problems. Vote these morons out this election!
Thank you Rrun rrun for staying on top of this. It smells like shit because corrupt people are involved. Can someone demand to see receipts and real documentation of this spending?
"Vote Erasmo and Ben..............rid the city of these pendejos"
By electing even bigger pendejos? No, thanks!
CASH ME OUSSIDE,
HOWBOWDAH!
The city commission has put the city into turmoil because businesses don't seem to know what the rules are for bags....so clients get no bags for their purchases. My wife went shopping at a clothing store and got no bags. The clerks didn't understand why, but they stopped using the bags with their store logo/name. Just another fiasco from out elected commission. Does anybody know? Maybe part of the money should be spent to let the public know what the ordinance says/mandates of buyer and seller. Just more bullshit and confusion from a useless city administration.
WE NEED TO HAVE THE CITIZENS OF BROWNSVILLE VOTE IF THEY WANT TO KEEP PLASIC BAGS GIVEN AWAY AT STORES IN OUR NEXT ELECTION.
Lmao
The other winners in all this" Go Green" ,besides the city, are greedy Walmart and HEB grocery stores. They sure made a lot of money selling their own bags and saved a lot of money by not providing paper bags. I remember when the hike in gas prices created a domino effect in cost of milk and other items going up. However, when gas prices went down nothing else did.
This is another Rose Timmer recycling disaster. Bunch of old lady busy bodies at healthy communities of browntown who have nothing better to do. Attention old ladies, stay in your own neighborhoods. Ken Paxton stuck it to you.
This point about accountability was brought up when the bag ban was first being discussed by the Commission, many years ago. Commissioner Anthony Troiani specifically pointed out that there appeared to be little oversight as to where the funds would go or how they would be spent. The bag ban had its positive aspects, including less waste, less clogging of city sewers, less trash floating around, but he pointed out rightly, it was a situation where money was being collected but not accounted for. Would it end up being misspent or in someone's pocket? Fast forward a few years, this article, basically repeating what he said. Oh but, you hate him because former elected official. Got a laugh
As long this PENDEJO community keeps voting for democRATAS we will continue this sewer mentality.
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