PUB OUT $2.6 MILLION; GAGS BOARD MEMBERS ON THEFT

By Juan Montoya

Ready to double down and pay $2.6 million cor a $1.3 million fuck up by the Brownsville Public Utilities Board?

In what will likely be considered one of the most sordid, corrupt and arrogant moves in Brownsville history - even worse than blaming Black soldiers for the Brownsville Raid - PUB CEO' John Bruciak and the majority of the board have issued a gag order against PUB, its employees, and other board members not to touch th $1.3 million swindle.

The theft of the money, apparently was set up by a telephone call to someone at  PUB from from Texas Noble Builders for work on the utility's $16 million administration complex.

The caller instructed PUB to switch their bank account for construction payment draws from Lone Star to Bank of America. They got a signed document allegedly from the company regarding this new account.

"When the $1.3 million payment came due, PUB paid it to the new account. Noble called PUB a day or two later wondering when they would receive the payment. That's when they (PUB) realized that they hadn't actually sent the payment to Noble but apparently to someone else."


PUB hesitated to pay Noble then, sources  say, and when litigation was threatened, Bruciak buckled.

Bruciak doled out another $1.3 million and evened up with Noble even before the FBI was done with its preliminary investigation into the heist.

With the initial $1.3 million long gone into the labyrinths of cybercrime, the payment to Noble means that PUB paid out $2.6 million to try to keep the case under wraps.

Now we hear from the bowels of PUB that its long-time contract lawyers in San Antonio, Davidson, et al, have warned board members against making any of this public on pain of untold punishment if it can be proven someone did.

In their last meeting, the board - with Brownsville Mayor Trey Mendez sitting is an ex-oficio member - approved Bruciak's agenda item to place the PUB outside the scope of applicability of the Texas Public Information Act - effectively denying public access to information of their utility.

 And who would've thunk that the messenger Bruciak's bluster would be none other than PUB chair Ana Oquinn, Ms.Big Mac herself? Was he trying to cover up for the MacBurglar?

On Monday, the PUB administration just pulled out a benign rabbit out of the hat promising $2 million to help the poor and those impacted with COVID-19- generated economic hardship to pay their exorbitant Tenaska-laden utility bills.

This despite the fact that more than $150 million sit in PUB vaults as a result of the utility hike increases mandated by Bruciaks' board and the City of Brownsville Commission while under the leadership of Tony Martinez starting in 2013.

Ostensibly, the hikes were meant to pay fro the construction of the Tenaska-COB $500 million gas-generated electric generating plant.

Scheduled for completion in 2017, the plant is now on hold, with no one saying hat will happen to the plans, or what they are planning to do with the stash they got from the suffering ratepayers in the country's poorest community.

The $2 million in the SHARE utility-assistance rabbit Bruciak pulled out of the hat is less than the salary of Bruciak and the other two top executives at PUB - Fernando Saenz and Leandro Garcia.

In the last three years, their salary totals $2,458,958, about $500,000 more than the $2 million they are doling out to the ratepayers who pay for their salaries.

Thee pampered - and arrogant - public "servants" think nothing of doubling down on the initial $1.3 million lost to the swindle but egged on by Sen. Lucio and Noble general counsel Eddie III threw another $1.3 million good money after bad since it's not their money, but the ratepayers. Between the $2.6 million lost to the Noble-related theft and their sweet $2.5 million, what's $2 million crumb to the poor?

The company which will be hired to dole out the $2 million and make the applicants go through hoops and jump hurdles for the $200-cap on help will be rewarded with 9 percent of the amount he eventually gives out. That means the poor soul - if he gives out the entire $2 million - stands to rake in $180,000 or his troubles.  We wonder if Bruciak and the board already have somebody in mind? We'll see.

But don't worry. The money is no skin off Bruciak's or Saenz or Garcia's noses. Bruciak lives in a condo on South Padre Island. Saenz commutes to his Brownsville apartment each Monday and leaves every Thursday noon back to San Antonio, where he lives. And we're checking on Garcia.

This smells worse than the South Wastewater (Sewage) Treatment Plant on East Avenue.