DOES CITY COMMISSION YEARN FOR THE BAD OLD BEDC DAYS?

 By Juan Montoya

It should be an interesting contrast to see as the City of Brownsville Commission votes on two agenda items tonight during a specially-called meeting at city hall. 

The first deals with the approval of the annual budget for the Greater Brownsville Incentives Corporation (GBIC). The second deals with approval of the budget of the Brownsville Community Improvement Corporation (BCIC).

Both receive a one-quarter of a cent from the Texas Comptroller's Office collection of Brownsville's 8.25 percent sales taxes on every dollar spent in local businesses. Depending on the year, this has averaged out to some $5.1 million each year for their specific uses under sate law. 

The GBIC is geared to encourage manufacturing and economic development while the BCIC is geared more toward quality of life projects (Sports Park for example) and "self-directed"initiatives like the film commission, BIG grants, etc.,)

But because of expenditures on past projects like the Sports Park, the BCIC is cash strapped and limps along the year with a planned $5.04 million budget to realize its statutory obligations to the city. On the other hand, the GBIC, now operating through its own board and its administration lists an uncommitted fund balance of $12,597,7412.

With a nest egg like that, it is only logical tat the city commission and administration have gone to the GBIC well for items like the renovation of the new airport terminal which has bloated in price through change orders from the original $35 million past $55 million and still going strong. This year alone (2020-2021), the GBIC will make an annual payment of $1,513,650 and will continue for the next five years.

The BCIC, on the other hand, is paying some $2 million in debt service – about one quarter of its annual budget – to pay for the past sins and excesses of its prior administration and city commission directives. It is still a favorite of the "active" commissioners who se the BCIC as a promoter of health and happiness in the form of wellness incentives, public places, non-repayable BIG grants for small business downtown, etc.

The BCIC is a favorite with some members of the city commission and you can rest assured they will be handled with kid gloves. The city has a propensity to embrace grandiose titles like "All American" city, Bicycle Friendly city,  Zumba dance world record holder, resaca capital of the fishing world, etc. So the naming of its new CEO as the wonder boy of the international economic development world before there has been any visible success of the efforts fits the script nicely. 

But if they had done an information request from the GBIC they would have found out that in the short time Mario Lozoya has been at the CEO helm the GBIC has achieved this:

Total jobs created:

2016 -  0

2017 - 740

2018   -  300

2019 - 1222

2020 - 100

Pending Economic Development Projects / Prospects:
2016 - 0
2017 - 0
2018 - 10 new
2019 - 14 new
2020- 5 new
Currently have 29 active projects

FM 511 Industrial Park:
2016 - 350 acres
2017 - 350acres (no change)
2018  - 350acres (no change)
2019 - increases to 492
2020 - increases to 730
2 major projects in process
This supports the City's industrial land use targets.

The GBIC is now operating independently of the felonious Brownsville Economic Development Corporation, has tightened its belt, reducing its administrative costs by more than $100,000 (from $1.518 to $1.419 million) and  "recovering" $764,000 from companies who had not complied with the job creating clauses of its incentives policy. Among those are canceled Memoranda of Understanding with UTRGV and Stargate ($682,000), and canceled contract for non-compliance with performance agreements to realize a total of $1,757,485 in recovered GBIC funds to be put to other uses.

Does anyone remember when the BEDC – under former CEO Jason Hilts and its executive board – ever returned a nickel to the GBIC even after the scams in Colombia were discovered and a forensic audit of the $5 million over three years contracts with GBIC were dissected by the pricewaterhouse national auditing firm?

That audit, by the way, disappeared into the netherworld of the bowels of the city's administration under city manager Charlie Cabler after former GBIC board counsel Luis Hernandez sanitized it with the assistance of then-GBIC board member John Cowen and fomrer Mayor Tony Martinez. The new, improved audit appeared in its new incarnation with all the names of the culprits who used the budget as their personal ATM removed and replaced by a castrated version consisting of a basically online search for the BEDC, Hilts, and, surprisingly, El RrunRrun posts.

Martinez and Hilts continuously dipped into the BEDC well to finance trips all over Latin America, including attending the Paris (France, not Texas) airshow, trips to China and Turkey and the Netherlands in the name of fostering economic development. (Above they are chatting it up with the Colombian babes.) And what happened to economic development that was promised by these world-hoping city, port, and state officials aside from the subsidized cyclobias to please city commissioner Rose Gowen?

Some members of the executive committee self-dealt and did benefit providing legal and real-estate services to potential companies who expressed interest in relocating their businesses to Brownsville. The city commission then conveniently ignored these abuses and let Martinez and Hilts jet off all over the globe.   

Maybe the city administrators were embarrassed to find out that Hilts had managed to have a $5,000 advance payment to his office manager at her home address to pay a forged bill to a Colombian company. What did the do when they found that theft? They let him repay it and then continued on their merry way. Only then did the GBIC board cut off the Hilts-Martinez feeding trough and hired CEO Mario Lozoya who had made his bones as Toyota USA's top Hispanic corporate officer.

"The auditors had told us that the results they were getting could have resulted in criminal charges filed against some of the administrators and perhaps some public officials," said a former board member. But with the gutting of the forensic audit by Hernandez/Cowen/Martinez, it was all swept under the city  rug and everyone walked.

Yet no one in the commission then uttered a peep until new commissioners like Cesar de Leon, Ben Neece and uncharacteristically, Jessica Tetreau, took the BEDC bull by the horns and led it out the city gate.  

Now we have Gowen pushing for Lozoya to spend some money to "interact" with other city entities in promoting feel-good T-shirts and "challenges" against body fat and aorta-clogging carnitas, etc., commissioner Nurith Galonsky turning the budget approval into a Human Resources hearing, or some other nonsense.  

Do we really want to return to the Bad Old BEDC days and ways? Let the man work, for god's sake.