NO CITY MANAGER CHOSEN; MENDEZ AUTHORIZED TO CUT DEAL

Special to El Rrun-Rrun

If you attended the Tuesday meeting of the commission of the city of Brownsville or tuned in through the televised version, at the end you would have been left in the same state as when you hooked up to watch – in the dark.

You wouldn't know who of the 50 or so applicants made the final cut, their qualifications, their current employment, or their experience in running a municipal government.

Since the item was included in an executive session agenda, you also wouldn't know how your elected representatives voted to move along the process.

All you would know was that the majority of the commission – except for Commissioner Roy De los Santos – voted in the one or two minutes of an open meeting to continue the process shielded from the public who paid the more than $50,000 to a headhunter firm to seek candidates for the position left vacant when former city manager Noel Bernal departed for Colorado and left his protege Helen Ramirez to clean up his mess.

She, in turn, is said to be one of two candidates who made the final cut along with one more applicant. In other words, after all that public treasure has been spent in a "search" for talent, was the plan all along to give the interim city manager the advantage over the unknown applicant?

After all, most city commissioners are getting what they want from Ramirez. One is getting all the money she wants to continue pouring money into the black hole of construction of bike and hike trails. Others are content to have the city commissioners continue to run the economic development incentives corporation with all the opportunities that insider knowledge provides, and others enjoy the perks that a pliant city manager can provide them and their friends and that only they will know.

Others with political aspirations are counting on Ramirez to provide them with the ammunition to buttress their political aspirations over their opponents by announcing pet projects funding that will enhance their election chances.

What happened to the transparency and accountability we were promised? What happened to the end of the inside deal? What happened to accountability?

Is Mayor Trey Mendez negotiating with city manager front runner Ramirez – as he did with former mayor Tony Martinez that let him keep his two reps on the PUB Board, Sandra Saenz and Sandra Langley and Trey himself – to stay in the real-estate game from behind the scenes? 

If Ramirez has the inside track – as most city commission watchers allege – then what was all this noise about an independent search for city manager about? Están dandonos atole con el dedo?

And why did a majority of the commission Tuesday place the task of choosing the next city manager a scant four months before the next city elections in May to a city commission member – Mendez –  who has announced he will not be running for reelection and whose term is over with the May elections where his successor will be chosen? 

1) Consideration and ACTION, if any, related to the appointment or employment of a city manager, and authorize the Mayor to negotiate and execute a contract with the selected candidate. (City Attorney/OD&HR). 

Obviously, the choice has already been made, hasn't it? 

All Trey has to do is negotiate the cost to taxpayers. And believe us, if past practice is any guide, it won't be cheap. This is what Bernal's "Total Alignment" meant before he left and Ramiro Gonzalez was forced to resign: the top administrators in the top-heavy city manager's office totally aligning public cash to their own wallets.

In other words, he won't have to live with his choice, but the city and the new city commission will be saddled with his choice long after he – and perhaps others – are gone. Why not table the item and then have the new city commission make the choice?

If you had attended the meeting or watched it in on your communications device, or even depended on the city to inform you of the choice of the person who will run the city, you would have been sorely disappointed and left in the dark, again. 

Because if you had made the effort as an interested citizen who wants to be represented by his elected officials, you will remain in the dark until the choice – sheltered from public scrutiny –is announced as a fait accompli, a thing that has already happened or been decided before those affected hear about it, leaving them with no option but to accept it.