PUB BOARD VOTES TO SUSPEND BRUCIAK 60 DAYS...WITH PAY: KICKS THE CAN DOWN THE ROAD TO CITY COMMISSION TODAY

Special to El Rrun-Rrun

By a unanimous vote, the members of the Brownsville Public Utility Board on Monday's special meeting voted to suspend CEO and General Manager John Buciak for 60 days with pay pending an "internal" investigation into the forensic audit that implicated him and former City of Brownsville Mayor Tony Martinez of deliberately lying to the commission and the PUB board to continue imposing utility rates increases years after a plan to build an electric plant had been abandoned

Bruciak will continue to collect his nearly $350,000 salary pro rata for the next two months as utility bills double or triple for the PUB's ratepayers, many of who now are making arrangements to pay or face disconnections. 

The board generously voted to suspend disconnections for non-payment until February, when the full bill will be due. There was no talk of refunding the money to the PUB ratepayers.

The $125 million stash of cash that PUB ratepayers forked out to the Tenaska Plot in the form of 42 percent utility rate increases has disappeared, with only $29 million left. 

Bruciak and Martinez knew as early as 2015 that Tenaska couldn't fulfill its obligations to sell 600 MWs the projected 800 MWs of electricity produced, and by 2017 received Tenaska's unilateral termination of its participation in the project but decided not to tell some PUB board members or the city commission the gig was up until 2020 to continue the artificially-high rates.

Along with Bruciak being placed on 60 day administrative leave with pay, the board is giving him that time to be able to refute any of the allegations made against him or BPUB in the forensic audit.

The move didn't sit well with some present at the meeting.

"That's theft by deception by a public servant," Brownsville small business owner Ezequiel Silva told a reporter. "Now those people should be charged criminally because they intentionally, knowingly deceived the public for monetary gain."

Silva said that as a business owner he is held to a higher legal standard when it comes to handling money and wants the same applied to Brucaik and the others involved.

Kayla Taboada, a BPUB customer, told a local broadcaster that the report's findings, if found to be true, reflect a pattern of disregard for public trust within the community.

"It's so sad because they are also part of the people, their family members are their neighbors," Taboada said. "They're done. They're gonna move on to another city, state and do the same thing, and, you know, because they are con artists, that's what it is, and, so it's just very saddening."

The board named Jaime Estrada, who has been with BPUB for over 20 years, interim CEO.

The city commission of Brownsville will meet to discuss the audit in their own closed session during their meeting Tuesday.

Bruciak, who lives in South Padre Island, will now stay in his SPI beach house at the expense of the ratepayers he and Martinez swindled and bamboozled. And he won't miss any part of his $350,000 salary and benefits package while he lounges on the veranda overlooking the Gulf of Mexico.

Internal investigation? Really?

If, until now, PUB internal auditors over the last 10 years had said nothing of the Tenaska gravy train that lined the pockets of engineering and legal firms, what makes Martinez acolyte and chairperson Sandra Saenz and the rest of the board think that they will do it now? 

But for the next two months, Bruciak can lay back and listen to the crash of the surf while numerous households in Brownsville are facing disconnections because of bills that have doubled and tripled, and will have to pay the accumulated utility bills despite the disconnection moratorium that will end in February.