AN INEPT SEVIER BAD MOUTHED GBIC FOR HIS OWN ENDS

"GBIC has a lot of potential that wasn’t quite being met,” (Graham) Sevier-Schultz said. “It’s tough when you see an economic development corporation that has a $13 million fund balance and you aren’t really running any projects that are successful and you aren’t really collaborating. As a board member it’s frustrating.”

Sevier-Schultz suggested that not all board members were necessarily “on the same page” and that the board wasn’t being presented with economic development ideas to take action on."

By Juan Montoya

The above statements, gratuitously made to the local daily by former Greater Brownsville Incentives Corporation chairman Graham Sevier-Schultz December 2, one day after the City of Brownsville Commission removed all its board members, including himself, have astounded the other former members of the board.

Not only do they dispute his assertions that they were never informed of the economic development projects, but also say that GBIC CEO Mario Lozoya regularly reported to them on the existing and planned economic development projects to be funded by GBIC's share of the city's sales tax which focused on promoting industrial development in the Brownsville-Matamoros region. 

And they also were amazed that Sevier-Schultz, who came to Brownsville in 2015 – a scant five years ago from Dallas with a B.A. in general interdisciplinary studies and spent the next two years there waiting on tables in Dallas restaurants and cafes – could have been appointed chairman of a 4A economic development corporation with an annual income of more than $5 million.

For the next two year after his arrival here with wife, Dolly Lucio, a pediatrician who he met while he waited on tables in Dallas, he sold coffee Saturday mornings in city commissioner (and gynecologist) Rose Gowen's Farmers Market on Linear Park.

The two women, both members of prominent Brownsville families, quickly established a rapport that carried over to benefit Sevier.

In 2017, the couple opened up Seventh and Park Cafe helped along by generous public subsidies facilitated to them by their benefactor Gowen. The city granted Seventh and Park favored "bicycle-friendly" designation and subsidized free advertising for what he hyped as “third wave coffee" cafe serving cappuccinos, latte art, and bike-parts store.

Along the way, he became a business partner with Mayor Trey Mendez in a pizza parlor and was appointed twice to the Brownsville Community Improvement Corporation (BCIC), a Part B sales-tax funds entity that could - and did - pour good money into high-dollar quality-of-life projects like Gowen's bike and hike trails across the city. She used the coffee shop to stage some of her reelection campaign events.

"If he had listened to the report updates that Mario (Lozoya) regularly gave the board, he wouldn't be saying that," said a former board member. "Those remarks are lies and were made for political reasons to justify the city commission members – his business friends – taking over the GBIC."  

In fact, in a copy of the last update that Lozoya gave them before they were removed, specific information of existing and upcoming projects indicate that in the two years that the CEO has been at the helm, not only were existing projects retained, but their expansion also created scores of jobs paying at least $15.00 per hour.

When he came to Brownwsville, Lozoya insisted jobs created through GBIC incentives pay at least that much. It was also stipulated in the agreements that the jobs go only to workers who lived in Brownsville, the former members said.

"Why should Brownsville sales-tax money be used to fund employment for people outside the city?," one asked. "It should help our workers."

Numbers don't lie, the saying goes. And here are a few of the numbers contained in the report, a copy of which El Rrun-Rrun has obtained.

Under the GBIC's Business Retention and Expansion (BRE) list of existing projects, there have been 61 new jobs added to the existing 618 with an additional $4.5 million in capital investment on an additional 50 acres.

And on the list of current Recruiting Projects(RP) are included proposals ranging from building "green" cars to manufacturing medical devices, plastic molding, textiles and workforce training for the coming LNGs. 

If the 16 potential clients close with GBIC, there will be 215 jobs created (at $15 an hour), with a capital investment topping $1.284 BILLION, on facilities covering 412 acres. At least seven of those manufactures have signed letters of intent (LOI) with GBIC to go forward with their plans. The report indicates that the textile plant is related to trade with China.

Taken all together, the economic development projects undertaken during the last two years comprised of the six completed projects and the 20 projects in progress represent a Total Capital Investment (TCI) of $271,500,000, will result in 1,155 jobs created with an Estimated Annual Payroll (EAP) of $37,141,104 at an average hourly wage of $15.46. 

And Sevier missed that?

Did he also miss the Workforce component of the GBIC? After all Lozoya was the top Hispanic executive in the nation with Toyota USA and established his bona fides training residents from the San Antonio barrios to work in the company's auto manufacturing plants there. 

Lozoya was appointed four years ago by Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick to the boards of JET (Jobs and Education for Texans) program to provide grants to the Brownsville Independent School District and Texas Southmost College to purchase and install equipment necessary for the development of career and technical education

courses or programs like robotics, and Pathways in Technology Early College High Schools (P-TECH) an innovative open-enrollment in high schools that allow students least likely to attend college an opportunity to receive both a high school diploma and a credential and/or an associate degree.

(At right, auto manufacturing robotic machines arrive at TSC donated by Toyota USA, Lozoya's former employer.)

At the JET state board, Lozoya suggested changes that would give more points to applications from traditionally underserved and rural communities which resulted in grants coming to the Rio Grande Valley and Brownsville. When he got here, there were no P-TECH grants to any valley districts or community colleges, and the BISD was the first recipient. In fact, Porter, in the Southmost barrio, has been the largest recipient of JET grants in Texas.

Those contacts and the GBIC partnerships with the Texas Workforce Commission, then Texas Education Agency, and the Texas Higher Education Board have translated into workforce related grants of almost $1.5 million and have resulted in implementing Advanced Manufacturing programs at Porter High School Medical program training at Hanna and applications for $150,000 each to implement a welding program at Veterans Memorial and Cybersecurity programs at Pace H.S. 

This, said another former board member, was accomplished in the last two and a half years, a record of accomplishments that dwarfs anything that the Brownsville Economic Development Corporation under Jason Hilts and his VP Gilbert Salinas ever did. That Sevier, the former GBIC chair, could have asserted that no economic development was occurring is far from the truth, and is in fact, an outright lie.

"Sevier was never respected by the other board members," said another former board member. "He insisted on bringing things before the board that were outside the scope of the GBIC mission like making payday loans or providing child care. He had all this information on the ongoing economic development projects as we all did. I don't think he really wanted to understand, or maybe he couldn't. He should have stuck to selling coffee and pizza."