THE BROWNSVILLE FOIBLES: CITY, BISD, BCIC DOINGS

Special to El Rrun-Rrun

The Brownsville Community Improvement Corporation

Word is out that, despite not mentioning their name, that Curio 409's John and Felicia Edge Furia are voluntarily rescinding their application based on which the board of the Brownsville Community Improvement Corporation awarded them a third grant in the amount of $125,000. 

Reports are that before, when the BCIC awarded them the first two grants – for $32,500 and one for $75,000 –   they couldn’t stop mentioning their name and the business Curio 409, and, curiously, at this months's special meeting she is only known as the applicant who so generously backed away from the project. (That's the building at right which was awarded $75,000 by the BCIC board.)

Is the reason for this is that the couple is applying for Federal and State tax-free exceptions for the historical building? Could it have something to do with the fact that have been unable to acquire the applicable city permits and have no prints to present to the State Historical Association for consideration?

Further, how about the fact that they have no permits for the construction that was proposed? That they are a Residential Apartment and a Galleria. How about the fact there is little or no historical significance to the corner building, which has only one wall left standing propped only by two-by-six boards? 

To be able to get a historical marker you first need to prove why it is historical. Just being old doesn’t qualify. Another crucial aspect is that you can’t destroy the roof, walls, or structure without prior city- and state-approved modifications. Neither Felicia nor BCIC CEO Cori Peña had the gumption to just plainly say it. Before, the board was content to just give them free money by just looking the other way. Peña just mumbled it while looking down at her toes. 

But after these revelations appeared in social media by its seven to eight readers, the money was returned. Care to guess which favored applicant will now be given the returned money? Another rich St. Joe alumni? Or an LLC used as a straw man which cannot be traced to them? 

Yet another foible by this bunch was announced at the BCIC meeting and was contained in agenda item 7. Consideration and Action to authorize a memorandum of understanding (MOU) between the Brownsville Community Improvement Corporation and Solaris Management Solutions.

According to the MOU  approved at the meeting, Solaris – owned by Benito Garcia, from Transmaquila Transports – will lend the BCIC 15 pieces of what he calls expensive, one-of-a-kind art pieces to be displayed at the EBridge Center next to the Casa Del Nylon original commercial sign. Garcia chose 15 pieces of art, convinced the BCIC to enter into the MOU, hold a ceremony to announce their display, then throw a reception to recognize the fact that he knows what real art is.

A plaque recognizing Solaris and thanking them for the display would be nice, too. But let's not hire a merwe maintenance worker to place the works. The BCIC agreed to hire a professional art hanger to handle the "works." Just having some carpenter will not do, but the board approved the hiring of a professional art hangar at BCIC (taxpayers') expense  During the meeting, Peña said it will cost roughly about $2,000 (that is correct TWO THOUSAND) for someone to put a professional nail on Sheetrock where there is a stud. Not just anyone knows how to use a hammer and a nail, much less how to find studs along a straight line. 

But, hey, what do you and me know about art? Leave that to our neighbors from our sister city in Matamoros. Now, they know art. Judging from the two murals that Garcia had painted on the walls of the old HEB and Fallas building at the corner of  Ninth and Elizabeth streets by painters from

Matamoros and San Luis, Potosi, they apparently think they do. 

The one facing Elizabeth looks like a giant version of the biblical burning bush, but uses a tree instead burning below a SpaceX Starship being launched from Boca Chica.

And of  course, there is the little matter of insurance for the works and the added lighting to show the art pieces lent (for a slight fee, of course, by Solaris (AKA) Garcia.

Brownsville Independent School District

Turmoil reigns at the BISD, specifically, at Stillman Middle School, as details emerge in social media from the shakeup there. The principal and the secretary are said to have been placed on administrative leave as has a seventh-grade Asst. Principal, allegedly also involved in the scandal which, according cording to one source, involves some $30,000 in missing funds.

But that's only one mess. The other involves the filing of complaints against a coach who students and their parents charged with inappropriate touching of male students in his care. At about the time that this was coming down, his mother, a Human Resource administrator, is said to resigned (retired?) after decades in the the district.

Sources say that the administration had refused to give parents copies of the complaints against the coach and would only tell them that the case was under review. But one persisted and now they have been told that the case is under police investigation.

One of the students told his parents that the coach would turn the lights off in the locker room and then touch their private parts in the dark. Their complaints to the administration went unheeded for months before parents insisted that the district address the issue. Now there are reports emerging that the same coach was involved in perpetrating these same acts at another middle school from which he was removed and placed at Stillman. These same reports indicate that this was not the first teacher involved in this type of inappropriate activity. The other one there had some connection to a former district judge since retired. Nothing happened on that one we are told.

Will we see the same people working at different schools after they are removed from one school for accosting and engaging in pedophilia and placed at another?

City of Brownsville

After the Brownsville City Commission appointed then-Assistant City Manager Helen Ramirez to replace Noel Bernal at the position, everyone wondered if she would continue the practice of bringing in buddies from outside the city to fill top lucrative administrative and professional positions while ignoring local applicants. 

Bernal did it with Ramirez, the former city attorney, and a gaggle of other administrators. Now we get word that she has set her sights on replacing Noe Hinojosa's Estrada-Hinojosa Investment Bankers,

which got its start in this city. Hinojosa knows the ins and outs of local governmental entities like the BISD, the city, the county, the Public Utility Board, and surrounding municipalities and school districts.

Did Ramirez meet some financial advisors during the city manager and planners conferences and decided to replace Hinojosa with someone she met at these confabs?

If you remember from the forensic audit performed on the project by an independent firm, Noe was the only voice who warned the PUB board and administration that the PUB-Tenaska plan for the Brownsville Generation Plant was flawed because Tenaska had not been able to sell its 600 MW share of the 800 MW electricity that was to be generated by the project. 

He turned out to be right and his advice went unheeded by the board and city commission. The taxpayers continued to shell out excessive utility rates to build the plant long after the project was no longer viable and had been terminated after Tenaska withdrew unilaterally from the project. 

He also provided the formula to finance the Brownsville-South Padre Island Airport as well as restructuring Certificates Of Obligation issues to get better interest rates and place more funds for city projects. Who does Ramirez have in mind who would have the knowledge of local finances than Noe who has first-hand experience for more than 30 years on local finance?

And this is the thanks he gets?