HAVE REED, COWEN, DRAWN THE LINES IN BND ELECTIONS? WHO WILL 20-YEAR EMPLOYEE JAVIER VERA PROTECT?

By Juan Montoya
For weeks after candidates filed for the May 5 elections at the Brownsville Navigation District, sitting commissioners John Reed and Ralph Cowen have made it clear that they favor Javier Vera in the race for the seat left vacant by the departure of Carlos Masso.

Masso filed as a candiate in the race for the 197th District Court which will be left vacant in turn by the retirement of Judge Migdalia Lopez.

Two other candidates – Steve Guerra And Patrick Anderson – also filed for the Place 4 seat.
In the other race, incumbent John Wood is being challenged by Brownsville Independent School District board president Cesar Lopez.

But it is the Vera-Guerra-Anderson contest that appears to be obsessing Reed and Cowen to no end. Both have been overheard saying that Guerra is from Matamoros, hint darkly about unspecified unsavory familial ties, and say he is part of a slate in tandem with Lopez.

And Gowen, who drew an unusually high mail-in vote in his 2016 race, has drawn people's interests when he's been seen around town with the usual suspect politiqueras.

Guerra vehemently denies the veiled insinuations and says that not only is he from Brownsville, but that he graduated from St. Joseph Academy and has business experiences on both sides of the border, including a marketing company, hotels and restaurants which he has sold for a profit. As far as running as a slate, Guerra charges that it is the other two Wood and Vera who are doing so publicly, an assertion Wood has denied.

Anderson is a teacher in the Los Fresnos ISD who has been outspoken on the industrial policies of the port board vis-a-vis the environment.

On the other hand, Vera, a certified public accountant, is currently the CFO for the Rose and J. Cowen Logistical Services which does extensive business with the Port of Brownsville. In fact, he has worked for John Cowen since 1996, a period spanning 22 years. Cowen is port commissioner Ralph Cowen's brother. In fact, John Cowen Sr. started the custom brokerage firm and handed it down to John Jr.

We have previously written about the incestuous and "clubby" nature of the board of commissioners of the BND. http://rrunrrun.blogspot.com/2018/02/at-port-candidate-for-commission-same.html

Reed's father, Bill Reed, for example, served as a port commissioner the Port of Brownsville. In fact, he was commissioner in 1994 when the board voted to approved the license issued to Gulf Stream Marine, a non-union stevedore, to set up shop at the Port of Brownsville. Reed had to abstain from voting since his son-in-law Mark Hoskins, worked for the non-union company. The current commissioner – John Reed – is Hoskin's brother-in-law. Then-port attorney Dan Rentfro Sr. – also a former port commissioner – approved the legality of the Gulf Stream license issued by the port staff.

Rentro Sr., in turn, installed his son, Dan Rentro Jr., as port attorney and he has remained ever since. When the port transferred millions to Dannenbaum subcontractors in Mexico through exchange houses to pay them for nonexistent work on the Bridge to Nowhere, Rentfro dutifully said it was all on the up-and-up.

Almost overnight, the longshoremen's nightmare became true. The two existing stevedores – Sheaffer an Dix – having worked with unionized longshoremen for 57 years – found they could not compete with Gulf Stream Marine for cargo since they were paying union wages. Their business disappeared and the new non-union outfit paid the workers as they saw fit.

The hourly wage of an experienced longshoreman under the most recent union contract, affecting U.S. East Coast ports, is $35 per hour; with wages for newcomers starting at $20. Bonuses and benefits drive the potential hourly compensation up to $44.20 per hour, or $91,998 per year for a longshoreman who works 40 hours each week. http://work.chron.com/average-wage-longshoreman-20463.html

Not so in Brownsville. With the coming of Gulf Stream Marine, wages at the Port of Brownsville are now the lowest on the Gulf and East coasts thanks to this little "club." The Cowen Group does a majority of its work with the non-unionized stevedore company.

Besides being Vera's boss, John Cowen was also appointed to the Greater Brownsville Incentives Corporation, is a trustee of the Saint Joseph Academy Endowment, and vice chairman at the Brownsville Housing Authority.  

But it wasn't just the wages of the dock workers that were lowered at the port. So were the working conditions. Without a union contract guaranteeing training and mandatory safety measures in the workplace, Gulf Stream Marine soon became one of the most dangerous places to work.

Even though it hawks its safety awards, the record belies that assertion. In Houston and Brownsville, the company experienced six fatal accidents from 2007 to 2011. OSHA investigated and issued violations in each case, but, in half of them, inexplicably agreed to delete all of the violations and erase the penalties.

The accidents bore similarities, OSHA records show. In January 2007, a Houston Gulf Stream Marine employee – not certified to drive a fork truck – ran into a security guard with the pipes being carried on the truck, causing fatal chest wounds. Three months later, also in Houston, a bundle of pipes being lifted by crane knocked a worker into the side of a ship. He fell into the water and never surfaced.

In 2008, a worker in Houston was crushed by a truck that came loose from the crane loading it onto a ship. The next year, in Brownsville, a large chain suspended from a crane got stuck, then snapped loose and hit a worker in the head, killing him. An employee in Houston was run over by a truck in 2010, and, the following year, a truck driver in Brownsville was hit with a 40-ton metal beam and killed.

In one case, OSHA deleted two serious violations carrying a $9,800 penalty after Gulf Stream Marine’s safety director sent the agency a map showing the areas of the port leased by the company and the areas controlled by the Port of Brownsville.

A spot labeled “incident site” showed the accident occurred just outside the area under Gulf Stream Marine’s control. OSHA noted in the file, “The evidence suggests Gulf Stream Marine … had no controlling authority over safety and health.” The citations vanished.

In another case, OSHA deleted two serious violations carrying a $10,000 fine because “there were issues” with the phrasing of the regulations cited, OSHA said. In a third case, OSHA deleted two serious violations and a $10,000 fine in a settlement. OSHA said it got something in return –  a company pledge to adopt a new policy.

Corpus Christi lawyer Bill Tinning has battled Gulf Stream Marine twice. In 2005, he represented a worker who was offloading large pipes from a truck when one came loose and crushed his head, leaving him in a vegetative state.

In 2003, he sued on behalf of the family of a worker who had been crushed to death by a load that came loose from a crane Gulf Stream Marine was operating. Tinning alleged in court filings that the company replaced key parts of the crane immediately after the accident, started disposing of the crane even though there was an ongoing OSHA investigation and withheld information about the accident — claiming that one investigator Tinning wanted to depose was a “non-existent person.”

“It was the most outrageous conduct I’ve run across,” Tinning said.

Tinning lists that case, Ramirez, etal vs. Gulf Stream Marine, Inc., etal,as one of his multi-million settlements, although the company insisted that the amount and stipulations remain confidential.

John Newquist, a former assistant regional administrator for OSHA since retired, said Gulf Stream Marine’s record and OSHA’s handling of the death cases “should trigger maybe an outside review of it because there’s something wrong.”

“This should never happen,” he said. “It’s an embarrassment if you’ve got fatality cases and citations deleted.”
Some of the most egregious cases are listed in the links below:

http://rrunrrun.blogspot.com/2011/09/body-count-rising-agt-gulfstream-marine.html

https://www.chron.com/news/houston-texas/article/Barge-worker-dies-at-Ship-Channel-1828747.php

https://setexasrecord.com/stories/510647673-texas-longshoreman-alleges-negligence-in-accident-aboard-vessel

That has been the complaint against this potentially energetic component of the local economy. Yet, despite all the hype surrounding its progress, it remains in the hands of a small group of people who have staked their personal interest in keeping it moving in a direction that they can control and from which they can profit.

The lines have been drawn. In the graphic at right, that's Mark Hoskins' home at 45 Calle Cenizo bearing his boy Vera's campaign sign.

The port has responded not so much to the dynamic leadership on the board or its administration, but to the vagaries of the border and Mexican economy. The port has so far only gone along for the ride where the tide takes it. Its pipe dream is the China trade, which seems so far, yet close enough for commissioners and administrators to occasionally take a taxpayer-funded jaunt there to – as a former commissioner used to say – to be "made" in China. So far, ni arroz for the local economy.

Leaving all personalities aside, one can only look at the members of the board and see that the majority have a huge personal interest in keeping it the way it is instead of opening the throttle to bring economic prosperity to all just as a tide lifts all boats, and to protect the livelihood and safety of the workers.

Do you think Vera would do anything to disrupt the entrenched Reed/Cowen interests at the port? He can't because his boss's interests would be harmed and his trustee brother would oppose it. He will make sure that as CFO of the Cowen Group, their interests will not be harmed. In other words, Firulai will not bite the hands that feed him.