BCIC BOARD MEETING VIDEO CONFIRMS FAKE MINUTES ENTRY

Special to El Rrun-Rrun

A video of the August 23 meeting of the board of the Brownsville Community Improvement Corporation confirms that the minutes of the meeting were incorrect when they listed a $33,000 Business and Improvement Growth (BIG) grant to Urban 8 Properties LLC – a corporation owned buy former mayor Trey Mendez and his fellow managing agent Ramiro Gonzalez – as having been approved unanimously.

The tape shows that one board member – chairperson Jill Dominguez – was the lone "nay" vote. In the minutes released last month, they state erroneously that the item carried unanimously after a motion by member Murad Abusalim and seconded by BCIC board member and city commissioner Linda Macias.

Once alerted to the error, chairperson Dominguez insisted the minutes be changed before they could be brought before the board for their approval. BCIC, by the way, does not broadcast its meetings. That will change as of February 1, 2024 when it and other boards will be required to broadcast their meetings after an agenda item proposed by city commissioner Roy De los Santos passed unanimously during the city commission meeting October 17.

And although the error was caught, the tape of the meting was incredibly low-tech, with the board pictured in a tiny corner on the top right side and the rest of the screen taken up by the Power Point screen that covers more than 90 percent of the viewing area  making it extremely difficult to ascribe voices to the members or who is making the motions or how the they voted.

"It looks like the meeting was taped using a laptop camera much like the kids at the BISD used for distance learning during the pandemic," said a meeting participant. "It seems like the board doesn't want people to know what's going on in their meetings. This is amazing since earlier in the meeting they were talking about spending thousands of dollars to acquire high-tech hardware for the eBridge building."

BCIC Director of Business Development Nathan Burkhart had made a presentation early in the where he outlined the progress on the eBridge Center Project and reported that he was in the process of acquiring additional security cameras, access control systems, more locks, additional networking equipment, training room equipment, a sound-masking system, blueprint lab prototype space, and other high-tech (and expensive) equipment and software.

BCIC Director of Marketing and Communications Nelson Amaro gave members with a Power Point presentation using graphs which purported to show "social-media growth" for BCIC, StartUp Texas, eBridge, and Boarder (sic) and Sea. He stated he would be doing Success Stories for all BCIC programs and an "Impact Map" showing the corporation was doing Quality-of-Life projects.

But even thought BCIC counsel Deborah Goetz, of Atlas, Hall and Rodriguez, was present virtually, and City of Brownsville Chief Finance Officer Micheal Delmore and his assistant Salvador Villalpando were in attendance in person and were in agreement (as per BCIC guidelines) that the BIG grants would be limited to $25,000 per applicant, Abusalim made the motion to give Mendez and Gonzalez their request for $45,000.

When he was informed that the BIG fund would be depleted, he made the motion to grant them $33,000 instead so that the fund would not be zeroed out.

Macias then seconded the motion and the rest of the board – with the exception of Dominguez – voted to ignore their own grant limit of $25,000 and give the former mayor $8,000 more for the fire suppression system installed at their building at 1018 E. Washington Street (the old Coca Cola Building).

"Why have rules if you are going to ignore them even when your legal counsel and  the city's Finance CEO are present and watching?," asked a meeting participant. "The board members apparently think that they can do as they wish regardless."

There was, however, one chink in the armor of BCIC CEO Cori Peña. After emerging from executive session, members voted on extending her contract for another year until September 30, 2024. The minutes (if correct) show that board member and United Way CEO Traci Wickett made the motion seconded by Zoraima Diaz. Mark Horowitz voted against and Abusalim abstained. With a city audit being performed on the BCIC's finances and procurement process, are storm clouds gathering in her horizon?