MARTINEZ-GALONSKY CAMPAIGN TO SABOTAGE GBIC CEO ON

By Juan Montoya

We predicted this would happen.
We predicted that Mayor Tony Martinez and his ally on the board of the Greater Brownsville Incentives Corporation Nurith Galonsky (daughter of downtown real estate mogul Abraham Galonsky of Casa del Nylon infamy) would try to sabotage the hiring of the GBIC's new director.

You see, Tony didn't get his way. And when Tony doesn't get his way, he won't think twice about throwing the city's future and its economic development under the bus like a spoiled child.

Toward that end, they had someone feed our pal Jerry McHale a copy of the contract that the majority on the board apparently had agreed to offer Mario Losoya to become the GBIC's CEO. Losoya is currently the External Relations and Government Affairs Director for Toyota Motor Manufacturing of Texas Inc. (TMMTX). The "Toyota Way" Losoya helped to implement in San Antonio is being used as a model for economic development by the federal government today.

The board formalized Losoya as their choice for GBIC CEO at their June 26 meeting by a 3-2 vote when they voted to accept the terms of the contract negotiated by chair Cesar de Leon and the candidate.

Losoya had edged out other applicants to garner a majority vote on the contract opposed by GBIC board members Nurith Galonsky and John Cowen. Both carry water for Martinez.

The majority, city commissioners Jessica Tetreau and Cesar de Leon and David Betancourt, the Cameron County Treasurer, voted to approve. The GBIC contract with Losoya pays him $220,000 his inaugural year and a subsequent $250,000 salary the following years with an annual $30,000 performance bonus.

That started the sabotage campaign rolling. In a series of articles, McHale proves to be the willing hatchet man for the Martinez-Galonsky-Cowen triumvirate to try to derail Losoya's hiring and perhaps even void it with their claims of Open Meetings Act violations.

This is almost laughable if it wasn't so hypocritical and underhanded.

The current GBIC board terminated the contract with the Brownsville Economic Development Council because it had had gone through subsequent three-year $5.2 million contract to foster economic development and bring jobs to the city's residents. The BEDC failed miserably and it resulted in fiascos like Titan Tire and the Colombian satellite office.

Its discredited CEO Jason Hilts stayed on the BEDC gravy train despite getting caught with brazen credit card abuses to buy himself things like a grandfather clock, expensive perfumes, and other personal luxuries by wining and dining local elected officials and bureaucrats like Martinez and subsidizing jaunts by Da Mayor to places like Colombia, Turkey and the Netherlands.

Hilts even went to Brazil with the female director of development for the BEDC in Colombia, fueling reports of hanky-panky. He even jaunted to China. How many jobs were created by this extravagant expenditures of the public's dime? Not one.

It was during the time that Tetreau was the chair that the GBIC ditched the BEDC and its board and terminated its contract. Yet, McHale has no qualms about writing that "During Jessica Tetreau's reign as chair of the GBIC, the infamous Brownsville Economic Development Council became the most outrageous of all the silo organizations plaguing the community with their self-serving agendas...

"It's a dishonest organization that blatantly lies to the public because its leadership knows that the dying daily infamously known as The Brownsville Herald has discontinued investigative reporting and will not keep GBIC transparent and accountable."

Did you say something about "dishonest," Jerr?

Will Jerry's goading prompt the daily to make Losoya's contract an issue? Apparently, that's the plan.

And no, Jerry, there is no violation of the "Texas Open Information Act" because no such things exist. There is a Texas Open Meetings Act, if that's what you mean.

If De Leon is guilty of anything it's of jumping at the chance to land someone with Losoya's credentials to guide the city's stalled economic development. But he was empowered to negotiate the terms of the contract with Losoya by the board in a meeting June 21.

Do we really want to continue with the Martinez-Galonsky-Cowen proven failed (and self-serving) economic development methods?

To prove that the smear campaign is on full blast, Jerry is not above reminding readers that De Leon is " already held in low esteem by the community for referring to two female African-Americans employed as Cameron County Assistant District Attorneys with the N-word..." and to ask if "fellow GBIC members David Betancourt and Jessica Tetreau meet in a secret quorum..."

Where were the Galonskys and McHale when Martinez convinced the rest of the city commission to pay her father Abraham $2.3 million for a shell of a building called La Casa del Nylon on the pretense that the University of Texas would buy it from the city to set up their "community university" there?

And it has been reported elsewhere that Martinez's law partner Horacio Barrera – Galonsky's neighbor – negotiated with Galonsky on the price. Not only that, but there have also been reports that Galonsky was allowed to enter into the commission's executive session to pitch the sale of the useless property.


And while we're at it, why was there no outcry when Martinez discussed the sale of a tax delinquent property next to his law offices in executive session and then voted during the open meeting to sell himself the property which enhanced the value and allowed him to sell his offices to the Rio Grande Valley Legal Rural Aid at a healthy profit?

The only hitch holding up the sale was the lack of parking space, which the property Tony sold to himself took care of. (See graphic at right. Click to enlarge)

Compared to the illusory Open Meeting Act violation, that obvious conflict of interest which resulted in personal profit trumps it hands down. Where was the complaint to the Cameron County District Attorney?

Martinez is used to having his way. And we know that he holds a special spot for current interim CEO Gilbert Salinas.

Salinas was there with Hilts and Martinez when they prepared the sausage that they stuck to the residents of Brownsville. Salinas is not a bad fellow. But he started out as a newspaper reporter (as did Jerry), later published a low-rider magazine, and finally landed a spot on the BEDC as Hilt's assistant.

His track record on economic development is what he picked up from Hilts, another non-achiever who was hired on the basis of political influence.

After every GBIC meeting, he would saunter over to Martinez and divulge the inner workings of the board to the point where Da Mayor knew more about what was going on in the organization than some of its board members.

Normally, when we request copies of information from the city, it takes a full 10 days to get it. Jerry was fed the Losoya contract overnight.

If the sabotage and smear campaign results in the mayor and his partners in crime removing a professional like Losoya as the GBIC's CEO, then we know that they care nothing for the future of this city and its residents.

 And – like the petulant kids who don't get their way – they'll take their ball and go home.