IS IT TIME TO SHOW BERNAL AND CRONIES THE DOOR?

"COB should not honor Bernal's 60 day notice and just walk him out..." Commenter

Special to El Rrun-Rrun

Now that City of Brownsville City Manager Noel has handed in his 60-day notice to the city commissioners, do they have to honor his ultimatum? Or, as the commenter above noted – merely walk him out now and stop his $225,000 salary and benefits?

Some commissioners were astounded when they found out through social media that Bernal was one of two finalists for the Adams County, Colorado, manager, much like Cameron County's Pete Sepulveda.  

Then, after being blindsided by that disclosure, they received his 60-day notice that he is leaving for Colorado pastures.

Since December 2018, the commission has given Bernal all he has asked for, including a well-paid cadre of assistant city managers carrying a nearly $1 million price tag in salaries. 

Would that be enough to guarantee the city the brain power and experience that Bernal said he needed to run the city?

Well, no he wanted something else, highly-paid consultants to do the work he and his overpaid underachievers could not do. In other words, another million to pay outsiders to perform the tasks they are being paid to do.

It's neat trick, if the plans generated by the ghost city management team of consultants succeed, Bernal and his crew can take credit for it. If they don't they can always blame the consultants and still continue milking the city.

The top-heavy salaries at the city manager's office – ranging from 82,000 for the lowest assistant city manager to $225,000 for Bernal and another $195,000 for Helen Ramirez – are but one example of the salary disparities. Other department heads say that the "total alignment" concept pays lip service to one of its strategic goals, the improvement of working conditions and improvement in the remuneration of the average municipal employee.

Ramirez – a graduate of the Bernal School of Consultanship – also has a penchant for spending lavish sums on outside consultants. Asked to encourage space-related industries, she quickly fund one, for almost a half-million dollars. 

She was placed as the figurehead of the Greater Brownsville Incentives Corporation, ostensibly to guide it after the city commission did away with that board and took over it themselves. 

So what did they do? You guessed it. They joined to fund a consultant to develop space-related industries. Again, there are no guarantees for the price tag, just a goodwill effort. 

Just as with Bernal's consultants, the agreement between the city and the GBIC pays out $450,000 to a California-based based company to run it. There are no guarantees, of course, as in the consultants for the city manager's office. If they succeed, good; if not, so sorry. The cash is in the bag, anyway.

Ramirez's accomplishments so far? 

Like Bernal, she has a penchant for consultants ($976,420 so far for Bernal) and got the city commission to approve a contract between space port consultant Space Channel from Los Angles, California at $450,000.

We were under the impression that the GBIC was there to bring jobs for local residents, not to hire people from outside and pay them nearly a half-million dollars without any guarantee that their work will be successful. Apparently, there is a new mindset at city hall.

And the hits just keep on coming. Instead of doing the legwork that former GBIC director Mario Lozoya used to do himself and his three-person staff, Ramirez is also going out for consultants to help her in the administration of a north corridor industrial park.

She got the commission to approve the  issuing of a Request for Interest for a master developer firm or consortium to lead the planning, development, and operation of an approximately 730-acre industrial park.

The park is called the Business I-169 North Corridor Industrial Park and it is located on the south side of frontage I-169 between Old Alice Road and Paredes Line Road less than 2 miles from I-69. Again, money going outside the city to pay someone else to do the job they are supposed to be doing. Want to guess how much the outside gunslingers will ask? If the pattern holds up, we're guessing another $500,000.

The new mindset is that money is no object. And that jobs for local residents has taken a back seat on their list of priorities for economic development.