MITCHELL-BENNETT, SEIVER-SCHULTZ: READY FOR PRIME TIME?

By Juan Montoya

When Greater Brownsville Incentives Corporation hired Toyota USA's wunderkid Mario Lozoya from San Antonio as its next CEO on August 2018 after ditching the contract it had with the Brownsville Economic Development Council to entice manufacturers with good-paying jobs, the position was fraught with landmines.


First, the new director had to overcome the sordid past of the BEDC's CEO Jason Hilts and the self-serving executive board which seemed to perceive of the GIBC' recurrent three-year, $5 million contract as a personal ATM card to fund junkets and land potential clients for its members.

Then it had to reset the Type A sales-tax-funded corporation to it's mission, perform forensic audits on the board's and Hilts' excesses, and lay the groundwork for a refocusing on attracting industry that would hire and train its workforce and bring the fruits that might be generated with its $5 million annual budget.

But apparently, some movers and shakers, real-estate speculators, and self-styled armchair economic development gurus liked the situation the way it was. So when the new guy took over, he found the economic panorama riddled with parasites and land speculators that were challenging the efforts of the city to attract good industry.

The new guy came in and found that the GBIC had, in 201, released the Brownsville Industrial Area Plan which called for development of an industrial park on land that, in 2018 - seven years later - the director of the then-Community Development Corporation of Brownsville Nick Mitchell-Bennett and hidden investors were now targeting for mixed-income residential subdivisions.

That clashed directly with the new guy's plan to attract Steel Dynamics, a high-tech, $1.9 billion environmentally-friendly steel mill that would have doubled the city's tax base. They needed 1,100 acres to bring their mill to Brownsville and gve Losoya time to acquire them.

But Mitchell-Bennett had already moved to rezone the land from Dwelling “Z” to Apartment “G” to allow for the multi-family housing component. The first freading of the ordinance passed but was tabled at the second reading because of GBIC's objections to the housing development so near a rail yard and correctional facility and its need of land for the sgteel mill.

GBIC figured it could still acquire the necessary acreage (1,100-acres) for their operation. Lozoya looked at the land available east and west of the GBIC property and ran against some entrenched interests who saw the potential coming of the steel mill and saw dollar signs.

The first problem was to the east. One day after Lozoya told his board in executive session that they were going to approach the land owners east of the 141 acres, they ran into a road block.

Somehow, local real estate speculator Patricio Sampayo (and an associate of commission - and GBIC board member - John Gowen on the Brownsville Housing Authority) heard of the GBIC plans and by the time GBIC representatives approached the owners of the 110- and 142-acre tracts owned by the MD Wheeler Tract and the 37 acres owned by the Nunez Family, he had a contract with an option to purchase the entire 289 acres.

In other words, the owners told GBIC reps, they would now have to deal with Sampayo instead of them. The price, of course, would not be anywhere near the appraisal value but instead would include a hefty profit for the speculator. How did Sampayo know if no one but the board members and the GBIC attorney knew of the impending purchases?

The GBIC then went before the Planning and Zoning Commission to acquire the zoning on land they had designated for the industrial park 10 years ago - something that former GBIC and Brownsville Economic Development CEOs failed to do - their plan fell on deaf ears and the chance to get the $1.9 billion project expected to create about 600 jobs and produce 3 million tons of steel annually disappeared.

Now, going on two years since Mitchell-Bennett decided that he had given the GBIC enough time to act and declared the housing project "shovel ready," the ground remains unbroken and for all practical purposes the city has lost out on both projects.

To make matters worse, the city commission changed and has started to stack the GBIC board with members like bike-repair and coffee-shop owner Graham Seiver-Schultz who obviously lacks and experience in large-scale economic development or manufacturing.

But there is one thing that Seiver-Schultz does have, and that seems to be a requirement for success in Brownsville, and that is political connections. Just like Sampayo has connections to Cowen on the city commission, Seiver-Schultz is connected with hike-and-bike trail fanatic commission Rose Gowen and is a business associate of Mayor Trey Mendez in his downtown pizza parlor.

Seiver-Schultz came to Brownsville five years ago after working as a waiter in Dallas and then coming to Brownsville with his pediatrician wife ( a pal of Gowen's) to start his bike and coffee shop and milked the benefits of his association with the city commissioner.

At first he sold coffee Saturdays at the Farmers Market on Linear Park pushed by Gowen. His business was declared "bicycle friendly" and he received favored treatment in the form of free advertisement and other types of municipal support.

Then he got started getting board appointments. One of those was to the GBIC where - you guess it - he is now chairman of a board that controls a $5 million annual budget from its share of its sales-tax revenues.

In his latest brainstorm, he placed on the agenda and pushed for the GBIC to "loan" Mitchell-Bennett's Community Loan Center $500,000 at 2 percent over 10 years to fund a modified payday loan program with personal loans at 18 percent with the the sales-tax funds meant for manufacturing and industrial development.

The plan was touted as an "employee retention" scheme and as a way to "attract' industry by the duo.

The GBIC board, fortunately, gave the plan a quick death with a "no" vote. At that, Sevier-Schultz petulantly told the board members that: "The motion dies, and so does this organization. This is totally ridiculous."


But it makes one ask: Who have we put in the forefront of economic development after we got rid of the Jason Hilt BEDC fiasco?

Are we back to letting political connections take precedence over the the city's efforts to develop its economy to benefit its workforce?

Brownsville lost a $1.9 billion steel plant which would have doubled its property tax revenue because of land speculation based on insider knowledge,  and its GBIC is now being run by an economic development novice way over his head.