ARE PUB CHAIR SAENZ AND MARTINEZ JOINED AT THE HIP? COZY MARTINEZ-SAENZ TIES REVEALED. WHO'S PROTECTING US?

 Special to El Rrun-Rrun

When speakers during the comment period at the Brownsville Public Utility Board Special Meeting Monday lashed out at the performance of former City of Brownsville Mayor Tony Martinez (who was also a former PUB ex oficio member) in the Tenaska-PUB debacle that cost ratepayers some $125 million in the form of artificially high rates, they could see that PUB chair Sandra Saenz did not like it one bit.

"He's a con," said one of the speakers, and one could feel Saenz squirm. "It was plain robbery."

Although the comment period rules did not allow board members and commenters from engaging in dialogue, Saenz was visibly upset that her longtime boss was being called a con and a thief because he had kept the fact that Tanaska had unilaterally terminated its participation in the plant in 2017, but he didn't let the cat out of the bag until November 2020.

On June 28, 2019, with lame-duck Martinez still mayor, the agenda item for nominations for PUB board members included a motion by District 1 commissioner Nurith Galonsky  to appoint Saenz to the board which was approved.

(A PUB records request indicates that this is Saenz's second four-year term on the board and will expire on July 2, 2025.)

Saenz, Martinez's longtime law office private secretary who became his public-paid secretary at the city while he was mayor, used to be a tenant paying rent for Spanky's Burgers with her husband Ronnie, a former Cameron County Sheriff's deputy. 

(In the photo at right, she and hubby Ronnie posed in support of Martinez's foiled bid for re-election. He is now an announced candidate for Cameron County Sheriff.)

Less than eight month later, on February 10, 2020, public records indicate that the property and building where Spanky's Burgers stands (1355 Palm Blvd.) were transferred to the couple, ostensibly for $160,000. Martinez's Lola's Bistro is next door at 1335 Palm Blvd. And Mayor Trey Mendez (also an ex oficio member of the PUB board) reportedly is renting the property at 55 Calle Retama where Bates Cleaners used to be from Martinez to set up a pizza and wine joint. 

(Mendez's supporters say this doesn't mean he's "doing business" with the former mayor. If renting his property to set up a business is not "doing business," with him, what is it, then?)

As far as the Spanky's Burger property is concerned, the $160,000 figure is listed on the official records deed transfer, but a growing number of sources indicate that Martinez has claimed in the past that he "gifted" the property and building to his longtime private law secretary for her loyal service in his law firm and on the public payroll when he was mayor.

But according to the Tax Account Summary of the property, the improvements alone are valued at $160,982, with the land value placed at $58,718, listing  its appraised value at $219,700. Tony was very generous to the Saenzs, indeed.

Sources close to the PUB board members indicate that Saenz defended Martinez and PUB CEO John Bruciak after the release of the forensic audit charged them with concealing Tanaska's 2017 withdrawal from the PUB board and the city commission until November 2020.

The audit also documents the collusion between Bruciak and former mayor Martinez (also a member of the PUB board during his tenure) in keeping secret Tenaska's termination of its role in the project in 2017.

In fact, in 2019, two years after Tenaska pulled out and he kept it from the public, Martinez told the local daily that: "You can say whatever you want about John Bruciak and those guys," the mayor later asserted, "but they do a great job." Mayor Tony Martinez, April 10, 2019

Based on the concealment of the Tenaska pullout, the utility continued to purchase right-of-ways from Hidalgo County to Brownsville. It also allowed the utility to continue collecting high utility rates from its ratepayers that continue today. 

 The board – by unanimous vote and Saenz as chair – instead of firing Bruciak or placing him on administrative leave without pay, voted to suspend Bruciak for sixty days with pay pro rated from his $350,000 salary.

When she was appointed to the board, people asked whether her appointment – and that of  Sandra Langley, Martinez's fellow traveler on the Brownsville Economic Development Corporation's public dime to Colombia and other points in between – were done so they could act as Martinez's proxies and protect his interests.

Did Martinez tell his longtime private legal secretary that Tenaska had pulled out in 2017? What did she know and when did she know it? Was she a willing participant in the public's deception as chair of the PUB?

Did CEO Bruciak not tell the chair of his board the gig was up when he briefed her on the financial state of the utility and its obligations when she came on board and subsequentely during her first and second term on the board? If not, why not?

With the vote to continue paying Bruciak during the suspension – who Martinez said was doing a great job two years after the project was terminated and continued using Tenaska money raised by high utility rates to pay lawyers and the acquisition of right-of-way for water, natural gas and transmission lines – it appears those fears were founded in reality.

Martinez and Bruciak are apparently protected on the board. So who's protecting our interests?