SILVER SPOON RENE WAXES ON HIS GOOD FORTUNE, OUR BANE

By Juan Montoya
It's strange in a way, but we have found that it's often more revealing to read between the lines when people speak of themselves.

For example, someone may describe their humble beginnings and inadvertently reveal that they were actually well-to-do and lived in one of the nicer neighborhoods in town.

The other day we were reading the semi-autobiography of our esteemed Texas District 37 State Rep. Rene Oliveira where he reminisces about his childhood surrounded by role models, his aunts and uncles, and of course, his grandpa Abelardo Oliveira, the beat cop.

Other people remember him also, but not with the same fondness that Rene did.

"My grandfather, Abelardo Oliveira, was probably the toughest man I ever met in my life, but he could be very gentle. He was a beat cop who walked downtown Brownsville. He would tell us stories about the gunfights he had that might make a lot of people in law enforcement pale today. He was of medium height, rough and ready, with a linebacker's build."

We have a friend who used to shine shoes downtown when Abelardo used to walk the beat. At that time, he would keep kids away from the businesses which catered to white customers, like the Sportsman Lounge. The Sportsman is nothing like it is today, he said. At that time it catered to well-to-do elderly white men, and in winter, to the snowbirds who came here. At that time it had a large front window from where the snowbirds would watch the people – and señoritas – pass by.

"We used to have to sneak in to shine shoes because Oliveira would chase us out of there because he thought we were bothering the customers," he recalled. "The owner and the patrons didn't mind. But he would chase us away. We liked to shine shoes in there because the old white guys would usually pay us extra cause they felt sorry for us."

Life has a way of turning things upside down. Today, that shoe shine boy is the owner of the Sportsman Lounge.

Rene then goes on to talk about his uncles.
"Uncle Joe was a U.S. District Clerk, Uncle Arnulfo was president at both Texas Southmost College and Pan American at Brownsville and Tony, my father, served as a city commissioner."

So much for humble beginnings. It's interesting to hear someone talk about "our family's philosophy of working for the community and giving back..." when Oliveira's entire adult life has been one of taking.

Take, for example, his deep familial respect for his uncle "Nuco," or Arnulfo, the president of TSC and Pan American. It was Rene and his crony Eddie Lucio Jr. over at the Texas Senate that came up with the disastrous  idea of the "partnership" that brought the University of Texas System to Brownsville. Instead of taking the UT System to task for not providing the higher education opportunities to South Texas as it had been forced to by blacks in Prairie View who threatened a civil rights lawsuit, they settled for half measures.

At the end of 22 years – 1991 to 2013 – local college district taxpayers had subsidized the oil-and-gas wealthy UT System to the tune of almost $1 billion (with a B) in annual "transfers" averaging about $50 million a year. It wasn't until Queen Julieta Garcia was deposed by a new TSC board of trustees that the district was able to reassert its independence.

The result of that half-measure attempt to bring some semblance of a world-class university was dismal. UTB-TSC attained an embarrassing freshman class retention rate of less than 50 percent and a dismal 17 percent graduation rate over six years.

That was on top of TSC students having to pay university-level tuition and the community college discarding its original mission to provide accessible and affordable education to district students.

Then, probably out of his deep respect for the memory of his uncle Nuco, Oliveira authored a bill to turn over all the assets of the community college district to his alma mater UT System totaling nearly $200 million. If not for the resistance to the bill by the TSC trustees and district residents, Oliveira and Lucio were content to have TSC and all the assets nurtured by the district's taxpayers since 1926 gobbled up by the UT System.

TSC would retain it college district status only until its taxpayers finished paying for the $128 million in bond debt Garcia has used to construct the palatial facilities.

As it was, Oliveira submitted a bill that in effect erased the $10 million in rent owed TSC by the UT System.

Oliveira had submitted a bill ( HB 3689) backed by UTB-TSC president Garcia that was diametrically opposed to the wishes of college trustees and residents. It took the testimony before the committee of TSC trustee Adela Garza and (believe it or not) Erasmo Castro to convince Oliveira to amend the bill to make TSC an independent institution.

Even the chairman of the committee disapproved of the original Oliveira bill. A substitute bill had to be filed by State Rep. Dennis Bonnen, a Republican to boot.

Yet, Rene waxes poetic about his origins when he says: "I have always been proud of my name. It never ceases to amaze me how I meet someone and get a sincere and warm greeting for just having the name. It is nothing I have done but what my family has done. My cousins and I have a sense of commitment that we should live up to the standards set by our grandfather and parents."

Well, in a way he is emulating his grampa Abel in that just as his ancestor kept the rabble away from the Good People, Rene – through his yeoman's work on pushing the "partnership" also managed to keep the rabble from the Good People at the UT System for a good 22 years.

Touching, isn't it? If we were to paraphrase his warm fuzzy quote we would say something like: "I was born with a silver spoon in my mouth and I – like the Lucios – feel entitled to be your state representatives because of our last name."

In fact, Oliveira has become the poster child for term limits. If he is reelected to another term, he will have completed 36 years in the same position.

That silver spoon in his mouth often, as in the examples above, has turned out to be his foot.