Brownsville Observer Editor with Robin McCaffrey of Needham-McCaffrey & Associates in 2013
By Jim Barton
Brownsville Observer blog
Much like a Stripes parking lot covered with worthless lottery tickets, Brownsville has been littered with the debris of extraordinarily expensive surveys, master plans, industrial corridor plans, etc., paid for by the city's hardworking taxpayers, but never implemented.
Many still recall the 2009 Imagine Brownsville Comprehensive Plan, purchased at a cost of $900,000, utilizing over $1,000,000 in city labor, now gathering dust on city shelves, never implemented.
Then came the 2013 plan for the Port of Brownsville and the industrial corridor sold to the city by Robin McCaffrey of Needham, McCaffrey & Associates at a cost of $454,592.08.
Here is what we wrote at the time about that plan:
"Robin McCaffrey of Needham-McCaffrey & Associates, Inc. moderated the third leg of a slide show presentation to the GBIC on October 31, outlining an overall plan for a 22,000 acre industrial corridor including the Port of Brownsville. Earlier, the Port of Brownsville and Public Utilities Board heard the same proposal.
"The plan organizes the Port of Brownsville and the surrounding area south of the port and east of the Brownsville/South Padre Island Airport. Specific areas are segmented for heavy industry, light industry and organized according to power and water usage. Simply lining up industry along the ship channel is discouraged, but companies with similar energy and/or infrastructure needs are organized perpendicular to the channel."
A couple years later, GBIC actually rejected a $180,000 addendum to the industrial corridor plan to fine tune it, when Jacobs Engineering was the "only" firm to respond to the RFP and insisted that the inexperienced Oscar Garcia, Jr. be assigned as Project Manager.
So, please understand our skepticism when, at the last GBIC Board meeting, yet another "master plan" for the industrial corridor was proposed.
Brownsville has been there, done that and has the cancelled checks to show for it and nothing else.
Much like a Stripes parking lot covered with worthless lottery tickets, Brownsville has been littered with the debris of extraordinarily expensive surveys, master plans, industrial corridor plans, etc., paid for by the city's hardworking taxpayers, but never implemented.
Many still recall the 2009 Imagine Brownsville Comprehensive Plan, purchased at a cost of $900,000, utilizing over $1,000,000 in city labor, now gathering dust on city shelves, never implemented.
Then came the 2013 plan for the Port of Brownsville and the industrial corridor sold to the city by Robin McCaffrey of Needham, McCaffrey & Associates at a cost of $454,592.08.
Here is what we wrote at the time about that plan:
"Robin McCaffrey of Needham-McCaffrey & Associates, Inc. moderated the third leg of a slide show presentation to the GBIC on October 31, outlining an overall plan for a 22,000 acre industrial corridor including the Port of Brownsville. Earlier, the Port of Brownsville and Public Utilities Board heard the same proposal.
"The plan organizes the Port of Brownsville and the surrounding area south of the port and east of the Brownsville/South Padre Island Airport. Specific areas are segmented for heavy industry, light industry and organized according to power and water usage. Simply lining up industry along the ship channel is discouraged, but companies with similar energy and/or infrastructure needs are organized perpendicular to the channel."
A couple years later, GBIC actually rejected a $180,000 addendum to the industrial corridor plan to fine tune it, when Jacobs Engineering was the "only" firm to respond to the RFP and insisted that the inexperienced Oscar Garcia, Jr. be assigned as Project Manager.
So, please understand our skepticism when, at the last GBIC Board meeting, yet another "master plan" for the industrial corridor was proposed.
Brownsville has been there, done that and has the cancelled checks to show for it and nothing else.
6 comments:
Puro wiri wiri wi y wawawa . All talk, spend money here, spend money there. And what do you know there still no change. Im not much in the know of what goes on with city planning,but does it show when things of these nature fail to happen yet we dont question the incompetence of our city leaders?
You allow "Panson Barton" criticism in comments against him and then you rehab him by posting his stories. LOL
wiri wiri, i agree with you on this subject matter, its all about the BENJAMINS going around and around, bribes here and there, and at the end nothing gets done, tooo little planning, lots of studies, environmentals studies too and nothing ever gets done, thats the Brownsville way, spent, spent spent, anyway its not our money, its only tax payers money. adios
Juan so true, just look at all the planning by PUB and its board to milk the citizens for the last 5 years, higher rates for water, sewer and electricity by saying we are going to built a new electric plant, puro pedo and the CEO, asst CEO and top brass got some nice hefty raise a lot bigger that what the county offcials had proposed and no one can complain or if we could to whom? its a screwed up town.
White on White hanky fight, jotos
I recall that Patricio Ahumada as mayor took a lot of s--t for voting against Imagine Brownsville. He was the ONLY one who voted, "No."
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