CITY ELECTIONS: TIME TO CALL A SPADE A SPADE IN B'TOWN

"When election time comes, it is wonderful to behold the friendship (Anglo candidates have) for the Mexican voters. Promises of all kinds are made to them, but scarcely are the promises made when they are broken. An hour before the election they are fast friends, 'Mexicans, my very good friends' – an hour after the election they are a crowd of 'greasers.'" American Flag, August 20, 1856

Special To El Rrun-Rrun

There will be three positions open for the City of Brownsville Commission for the May 1, 2021 election.

They are District 3 and District 4 and the At-Large "B".

These seats are currently held by Joel Mungia, Ben Neece, and Rose Gowen, respectively.

So far, Gowen is the only incumbent who has filed for a place on the ballot. Former Brownsville Independent School District trustee Erasmo Castro has filed his appointment of treasurer for Gowen's spot.

Word is that Mungia and Neece will not be running. Two other candidates have filed for those two seats. They are Roy de los Santos for District 3 and former city commissioner Edward Camarillo for District 4.

The last day for filing for a place on the ballot is February 12 and the first day of early voting will be April 12.

The quote from the American Flag has never held more true. 

Gowen, who voted with a majority at a recent meeting to place a two-term limit on city commissioner and mayoral terms has served two terms and is seeking a third one. Since the term-limit amendment will be voted on May 1, she is spared the term-limit restriction because the proposal – if approved by the voters – will not apply retroactively. Her second term ends in May 1 2021, when the item is on the election ballot.

Gowen was elected in 2013 and reelected on 2017.

District 2 commissioner Jessica Tetreau, on the other hand, was elected by a write-in vote in 2011, reelected on 2015 and in 2019. Her term will expire on 2023. At that time the charter amendment, if approved, would prevent her from running.

The first time she ran for office, Gowen swore she was not in favor of commissioners sitting on boards – specifically the economic development and quality of life sales-tax funded entities like Greater Brownsville Incentives Corporations (GBIC) and the Brownsville Community Improvement Corporation (BCIC). But she was one of the commissioners who voted to replace the entire GBIC board and place the commissioners in their place, including herself. 

Long an advocate for hike-and-bike trails, she has steered millions (at last count approaching $10 million) to her pet projectS over the span of her tenure on the commission. 

A gynecologist with a bent for the nanny government, she claimed the trails would lower the levels of obesity and diabetes that cause heart disease and other ailments. And her promise that the "active tourism" attracted by the trials would bring in millions to the city has never materialized after a decade of pumping public funds into the hike and bike black hole. 

What makes this so galling is that the Gowens' circa 1961 home – which they did not build – is listed in the National Register of Historical Places and is 100 percent tax exempted and therefore has paid no ad valorem (property) taxes on a taxable value of $368,491 to the city. It's claim for historical notice? It used to belong to a Tejano rancher family who identified its values with Anglo cattle ranchers and that some of their historical items are kept in the house. As long as it comes from the pockets of the other taxpayers (Other People's Money), she is content to keep milking the public purse for her pet projects as is her entitlement as a member of the Good People of the city. 

She can live with bad drainage, a dearth of sidewalks, and bus shelters which are just a sign on a pole. Anyway, who rides the bus? Not her or her neighbors on Calle Anacua in posh Rio Viejo. 

So much for her making good on her promises or keeping her word to the voters.

The current holder of the At-Large "A" commissioner John Cowen who is not running for reelection this year has not been much different. 

Come election time, the Cowen clan  crow up about their long association with the local Hispanics and don charro costumes to give the "grito" for Charro Days. Ralph Cowen, elected port commissioner, is the self-appointed Ambassador of Goodwill to our "good friends" in Mexico.

But when he was running for city commissioner, John Cowen made many

promises, among them one to "ban" elected officials from serving on boards like the GBIC or BCIC and appoint worthy individuals to make recommendations to the commission on economic development ad quality-of-life projects. He actively campaigned in the barrios and took pictures with Hispanic ladies endearing himself to the city's majority.

Funny how he didn't remember his "ban" of commissioners serving on those boards. Like Gowen,  he has conveniently forgotten his promise to the voters and joined her to do away with the board members and place himself there instead. 

He is now chairman of the board with control of a $13 million budget buttressed by an annual $5 million infusion of sales-tax from where he promised to ban elected officials.

And there was a strong suspicion cast upon Cowen when he was on the GBIC board before this latest stint as the source of inside information to his buddy Patricio Sampayo of the Brownsville Housing Authority that the GBIC was trying to acquire thre properties to offer a steel company to come to Brownsville and provide 600 jobs at $75,000 salaries with a $1.7 billion capital investment. 

After Cowen got a private briefing from the CEO of the GBIC on the properties, "somehow," "someone" told Sampayo about the board's plans and the week after he held an option from the property owners or executors. Unable to close the deal, the steel company emailed the GBIC it was moving their $1.7 billion project to Sinton. The GBIC declined the Sampayo offers and his options ran out. 

The GBIC now owns the properties, but the opportunity to bring good-paying jobs and doubling of the tax-revenues for the city disappeared. Sampayo's home is also a historical building and he gets a 56 percent tax break from the city, too. Now Cowen is chair of the GBIC. Was this like putting the fox in charge of the hen house?

There is no longer an American Flag newspaper around, and the Brownsville Herald is now a cash cow for advertising for the AIM chain, but the observation above from 1856 aptly applies to these two city commissioners who actively seek the Hispanic (read Mexican-American) vote come election time. 

Perhaps the most egregious insult to Hispanics happened after former commissioner Harry McNair – who pays no property taxes on three warehouses there and on his residence on Sunset Drive near Palm Blvd. – petitioned the commission to change the historical name of Fronton Street to McNair Family Drive. Ironically, McNair is a member of the Brownsville Historical Association whose mission is to "preserve" local history. 

The McNairs did not pay city, BND, TSC, or Cameron County taxes on their three buildings on E. Fronton with an aggregate appraised value of $441,871, unlike their neighbors who did.

In fact, this penchant for listing their properties as historical extends to the Harry and Reba McNair home on 39 Sunset Drive which is listed at an appraised value of $350,828 and also was 100 percent exempt from city, BND, TSC, or Cameron County taxes.

The residents objected to have the name of their historical street changed and raised a petition against it. Gowen wanted a policy that set rules for street name changes before she voted wither way. Cowen said he was "fact driven " and would consider their petition if the residents would follow the rules and present a petition from the majority of the voters. They did. And what did these Hispanic-loving commissioners do for their "little friends?"

Cowen and Gowen were joined by Tereau and Mungia and voted against the people and for their elitist buddy McNair and changed the name to McNair Family Drive.

"...An hour before the election they are fast friends, 'Mexicans, my very good friends' – an hour after the election they are a crowd of 'greasers.'" American Flag, August 20, 1856

How things change and yet remain the same.