FROM OUR FILES: MCHALE AND BARTON'S TAKE ON GALONSKYS

(Ed.'s Note: Someone shared this yesterday. It was said to have been written by Jerry McHale quoting a post by Jim Barton.) 

 "Nurith Galonsky, a member of the Greater Brownsville Incentives Corporation (GBIC), was granted a Temporary Restraining Order by Judge Louis Sorola after arguing that her organization's hiring of Mario Lozoya as its executive director was illegal for several reasons. With the controversy raging, Jim Barton, the publisher of The Brownsville Observer, is asking aloud if Galonsky is "corrupt or simply reading comprehension deficient? Here is the extended text of his inquiry:")

By Jim Barton

Mean Mister Brownsville

Rightly or wrongly, thanks to Tony Martinez, the name Galonsky will always be associated with corrupt politics in Brownsville, inside dealing and defrauding the hardworking taxpayers in the poorest region in the U.S. 

Abraham Galonsky came to Brownsville c.1972 and became a downtown merchant selling never used but dated merchandise, much of it still in original packaging at La Casa del Nylon at 1304 E. Adams Street. 

We don't know how profitable that enterprise was. In recent years, no customers were in the store when we stopped in, but Galonsky, much like Bill Hudson, was active in the local real estate market, acquiring downtown buildings and tracts of land outside the city's center. 

La Casa del Nylon had a "For Sale" sign on it for many years. In 2012, Galonsky's property got a bite. 

Newly-elected Mayor Martinez, desperate to keep then UTB President Juliet Garcia placated with promises of a downtown location for the university, sent his doofus law partner, Horacio Barrera, to "negotiate" with Galonsky for a purchase price. The two men agreed on a purchase price of $2,300,000, three times the building's appraised value, all to be paid for by Brownsville's uninformed taxpayers. 

We don't know what Barrera's commission was on the sale or whether or not he divided it with Martinez, but the city's taxpayers lost on this deal. For the last six years the building has sat decaying – off the tax rolls – while Brownsville's hardworking taxpayers pay for it. 

That is a brief synopsis of the elder Galonsky's political defecation on Brownsville. 

Now enters daughter Nurith Galonsky, a non-practicing lawyer, her legal degree coming from SMU in 2001. We first knew there was a Galonsky daughter in 2013 when she became a member of the P.U.B. board, shortly after Tony, Horacio and Abraham fleeced the taxpayers. 

We wrongly reported her name as "Lourdes Galonsky," writing this response in 2013: "I received a call today from a 'friend of the family' of Brownsville resident, Lourdes Galonsky, stating that she was NOT a recent appointee to the P.U.B. Board as I had reported in an August 29, 2013 Mean Mister Brownsville article. The 'friend,' a male, indicated not only had Lourdes not been appointed to a board, she was not politically-oriented, a stay-at-home mom and did not know Deborah Portillo, the city commissioner making the swing vote in the appointment. 

"In a friendly way, the caller asked if I was familiar with a lawsuit filed by the wife of BISD School Board Trustee Otis Powers, where he claimed she recovered $75,000 for being wrongly identified in a published article. I apologize to Lourdes and family for any stress created by my error." 

No, it was not Lourdes Galonsky, but Nurith Galonsky who joined the P.U.B. board in 2013. Along with Mayor Martinez, she has had a hand in orchestrating the $100,000,000 increase in utility rates for Brownsville to build the Tenaska Power Plant. That power plant has not been built, but the taxpayer money has not been recovered. 

Nurith may have never tried a case as a practicing attorney, but she, along with our corrupt mayor, has severely tried the citizens of Brownsville with this boondoggle.