"The multi-year rate plan will support growth (and)...the bond issue will take care of our future needs (for the next five years out into October 2016....The rate increases will take care of our future needs and provide low-energy costs to the residents of Brownsville." Brownsville Public Utility Board CEO John Bruciak at a joint meeting of the commission on and PUB board Dec. 11, 2012.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=prHSfdbSY9Q&list=PL_ffKf9NIs6llN3aBO35t9iibSjz9qkRG&index=2
“Tenaska and its affiliates have expertise in the Texas energy market, including owning and operating power plants and marketing electricity,” said BPUB General Manager and CEO John Bruciak, P.E. “That expertise will provide significant value to BPUB in the Tenaska Brownsville Generating Station.” Bruciak, January 28, 2013.
At the Dec. 11, 2012 meeting, the commission voted to increase the rates for the next five years to fund the $550 million Tenaska gas-fueled, electricity generating plant that has never gotten built. Then-Mayor Tony Martinez called the plan "terrific" and congratulated the PUB administration and its consultants for their "great" work.
"You can say whatever you want about John Bruciak and those guys," the mayor later asserted, "but they do a great job." Martinez, April 10, 2019
Starting January of 2013 – a month after Bruciaks' push – until today, PUB ratepayers are paying for these increases:
ELECTRIC RATES: 36 PERCENT
WATER: 20 PERCENT
WASTE WATER: 6 PERCENT
Since then, utility rates have not been the only thing going up. So have the salaries of the top three PUB executives for the "terrific" job they've done, starting with Bruciak's. Some city officials estimate that some $150 million in cash has been collected by PUB through the rate hikes.
Since 2013, when PUB unloaded the rate increases on its ratepayers, subsequent PUB boards have approved increases to their salaries. Are these merit raises based on performance for doing a "terrific" job? If they are, they should have been demotions, not these obscene increases. Compare.
went from
$184,059.20 to $303,576, an increase of $119,517, or 39.37 percent.
.
Asst. GM and COO Fernando Saenz, who commutes from Austin weekly, went from:
$160,014.40 to $273,603.20, an increase of $113,598, or 41.5 percent.
CFO Leonardo Garcia has gone from:
$160,014 to $263,286, an increase of $103,271, or 39.2 percent.
How long will the PUB board and the city commission put up with these proven overpaid underachievers who are rolling in the dough at the expense of the suffering Brownsville PUB ratepayers? Just who do these elected officials represent?
20 comments:
Brownsville utility ratepayers are getting rolled. What a mugging!!!
Pressure Mendez, Neece, Cowan, Galonsky & the rest of that useless gang.
The virus is circling the COVIDiot in Chief and his lackeys. It's only a matter of time.
Ole Cadet Bone Spurs is not exactly in the the healthiest demo for this sort of thing, being the old, unhealthy, obese, adderall-sniffing, KFC-eating Orange mother f**ker that he is.
PURO PINCHE MAMONES TODOS SENT THEM ALL TO JAIL FBI
No tienen verguenza NO SHAME stealing for the poorest town in the country and we have this idiotas
FBI do your job and indict all of them the city is not going to do anything they are ALL involved.
An ignorant electorate will vote for unqualified candidates. Unqualified candidates will be incompetent leaders, who will appoint and/or hire other incompetent leaders. And so it goes down the Browntown food chain.
Who is to blame, lets start with the ignorant voters. You get what you voted for i.e. bad government.
Now watch all the mamones want a pay increase to 300k a year, like the coco at the port the lambiscon at COB, da judge (not really a judge but a bookeeper)at the county and all those other boards ( cronyism boards).
Why are 5 crows flying all over BPUB? just asking
It’s not always about blaming these three idiots. Have you checked the people who work for them? Most of them have BPUB experience and no actual experience with the stuff that happens to the power grid. There are people with basic college degrees to no degrees working in higher positions making critical choices for the city of Brownsville. BPUB has the mentality that of basing your experience on how long you sit on your ass rather that what you actually know and are willing to learn. Most projects they do not pass are because some uneducated human underneath them underperforms. Sucks to know that these people are allowed to underperform since everyone has their “protection.” You can’t touch this idiot since he/she is “protected” by the mighty chisme and nepotism. These are public records and you can pull them out by filling out a form.
All three idiots should be replaced rate payers can't afford their salaries and we cannot accept their ineptness. City commissioners get to work and yes that means you to commissioner Gowen!!
How much longer are we to keep these leeches??
How can we remove them?? This is highway robbery!!! Where in this are the mayor and commissioners? Why are they NOT saying anything? Are they in the scam? Where is the DA in this???
Why are these employees making over $300,000 a year in the poorest city in the USA? We taxpayers must be stupid to allow such overinflated salaries, same goes with city manager, deputy and assistants. This is not Dallas or Houston for these employeees to be earning these enormous salaries. Shame on us for allowing such abuse.
Truth can be a casualty when Trump talks about deaths from the coronavirus in the United States.
He’s claimed that the United States is on par with Germany in keeping down COVID-19 deaths, which is not the case in mortality reports. He’s brushed off projections that deaths in his country will double from earlier forecasts, misrepresenting how the numbers were calculated.
These distortions emerged over the past week alongside his relentless bragging about the U.S. testing system, which failed in the crucial early weeks and remains globally subpar. Pushing to get the country back to normal, Trump also suggested that children are safe from the coronavirus, ignoring the several thousand kids known to have been sickened by it, some gravely.
City commission, please do something to reduce these unjustifiable salaries for all City management staff and PUB GM. Their salaries should be cut in half, very pathetic that we have employees making minimum wage while these bozos want to be millioners at taxpayers expense. Get with the program and start doing something positive for the taxpayers which by the way, elected you to make these type of decisions.
Corruptville Texas, thieves and scammers come down here selling chinese trinkets to the poorest town in this country. Fake generators, the invisible bridge, all america city, paper decorations downtown, bike trails with elaborate shelters, diesel buses that use gas, two blocks to repave took ONE WHOLE YEAR etc etc and etc.
Juanito I developed a mixture that will solve all the pot hole problems and I will sell it to the city at $500 an ounce. I also can syc ALL TRAFFIC LIGHTS so that no one in this stinking city will ever catch a red light at a cost of 1.3 million dollars deposit at my bank a mysterious caller will call the finance dept for instructions on how to submit payment.
I will also request that I be named CEO of a newly formed board at 350k a year. Thats the going salary here for unqualified CEO and be allowed free reign of all operations NO QUESTIONS ASKED BY NO ONE.
Thats what ya-all do here ain't it?
Privatize PUB. This would solve the problem. We would get a cheaper utility bill, better service, competition (which is good for everybody except the rats at PUB), and investors (stockholders) in the private would make money.
Get Pat Ahumada to investigate where the money went. He'll find it.
Has anyone ever asked for the contract to see if BPUB is under any obligations with Tenaska even if the plant hasn't built? I'm sure that PUB or the city would have pulled the plug if something wasn't holding them due to contract obligations.
In my opinion, it is delusional to think that by replacing high salary people with low salaried employees is going to fix BPUB.
Good Executives cost money. Good directors cost money. Good managers cost money. Bottom line is good talent cost money.
I'm also in no means saying the current executives are "good talent."
What it looks like to me is that these guys were brought in "cheap" by the Board. I wonder what their past experience granted them to become executives. However, I'm willing to bet they didn't have that much experience to get them at lower salaries. Now, after years of working with BPUB, and with help of consultants, they probably got the experience they need to merit higher salaries.
Ask yourself why they haven't hired anyone for the DIRECTOR OF ELECTRIC TRANSMISSION & DISTRIBUTION position that has been opened for over a year. I'm willing to bet that BPUB can't afford a real electrical engineer for that director position. And, if they haven't hired internally it also means no one internally has the experience. I guarantee it and willing to bet you on that one.
After talking to people working at PUB, all I can say is thank God PUB has a nepotism policy in place. Because the one guy Fernando keeps pushing for is just his inept puppet.
SENT THEM ALL TO JAIL NOW, SENT THEM ALL TO JAIL NOW, SENT THEM ALL TO JAIL SENT THEM ALL TO JAIL NOW, NOW, SENT THEM ALL TO JAIL NOW, SENT THEM ALL TO JAIL NOW, SENT THEM ALL TO JAIL NOW, SENT THEM ALL TO JAIL NOW, SENT THEM ALL TO JAIL NOW, SENT THEM ALL TO JAIL NOW, SENT THEM ALL TO JAIL NOW, SENT THEM ALL TO JAIL NOW,
A Public Works Department employee "borrowed" a 1.99 (cost of shovel) to do some work at home. That same day the city police arrived at his home arrested the public works employee handcuffed him in front of his family and his children and took him to jail.
A $1.99 shovel!
WHY CAN'T THE CITY DO THIS TO THAT BPUB "GRINGO"? ARREST HIM AND SENT HIM TO JAIL AND FIRE HIM IMMEDIATELY!!!!
This is NOT a Tikkun Olam nor a mitzvah not even close
"We can battle insensitivity, immorality and dishonesty in our lives individually and collectively as a people. We have a wonderful road map in the Torah and its traditions. It is time to think seriously about our reputation in the world and what we can do to enhance it, not because we want to look good but because we want to be good."
DOES NOT APPLY HERE. GREEDY MONEY HUNGRY IS THE DRIVING FORCE HERE!!!
Los Tres Verguezas sent them all to jail NOW don't wait for no trial stealing from the poorest city in this country NO SHAME
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