BCIC MINUTES CAUGHT IN A LIE ON EX-MAYOR'S $45,000 GRANT

Special to El Rrun-Rrun

For months – actually, since the April 2024 meeting – the Brownsville Community Improvement Corporation (BCIC) had not released or posted the minutes to their monthly regular or special meetings documenting the actions of the board or the awarding of grants to applicants from the downtown area.

Although the board records its actions on audio and video tapes, the meetings – which are not broadcast to the public – are held in relative obscurity shielded from public scrutiny.

In their last meeting, a batch of the meeting minutes were posted on their page, and included the minutes for August 23. Among them was a familiar applicant, Urban 8 Properties LLC, a corporation which lists former City of Brownsville Mayor Trey Mendez and Ramiro Gonzalez the city's former Director of Government and Community Affairs as managing partners. Their application for $45,000 was for a fire suppression system.

Mendez and Gonzalez have come to this well often, and often walk away with tens of thousands of dollars in the form of free grants for their businesses downtown. In one memorable occasion, they were forced to withdraw an application for $200,000 because Mendez was the sitting mayor and Gonzalez was a city employee prohibited from applying or getting the grants from the BCIC. Gonzalez resigned from his position. 

The business this time is the one located at 1018 E. Washington, the old Coca Cola plant. 

But according to participants in the meeting, the minutes approved by the board relating to that particular application was in error. The Mendez-Gonzalez application for $45,000 was reported to have been approved unanimously. However, since the fund had been depleted, there was only $35,000 left in the Business and Improvement Growth fund, and rather than zero out the account, a motion was made by BCIC member Murad Abusalim, who works at Texas Southmost College where Mendez was once a board member, to approve a lower amount. 

Apparently,  Abusalim was determined to change the guidelines to please the ex-mayor and TSC board member to increase the amount from the board-imposed 25,000 cap to 45,000 for Mendez, despite being warned that they were going against their very own guidelines.

There were at least two guidelines broken and willingly ignored. The amount allowed was only $25,000 and the board's time requirement that the sprinkler system to have been installed after April 1, 2023 could be considered. Abusalim insisted on giving Urban 8 Properties 45,000 but there was not enough money left in the account to give him the entire $45,000. They was only $35,000. So he made the motion to award Trey $33,000. BCIC member Linda Macias – a city commissioner who promised city voters she would resign from the BCIC board two weeks after the election but reneged once elected – immediately agreed and seconded the motion.

Chairperson Jill Dominguez, displeased with her colleagues for going against their own rules and against the advice of their legal counsel and city administrators present, knew this was not going to sit well with taxpayers and looked to BCIC member and United Way CEO Traci Wickett for support. Wickett wouldn’t look at Dominguez sitting  inches from her, and instead took a bite of her potato chip and voted "yes." Dominguez immediately said "Nay." 

Yet, a cursory look at the minutes of the meeting that were approved show that the item carried unanimously.

The audio and video tapes were consulted and showed that Dominguez had voted "no," and when this was pointed out, she insisted that the minutes be changed to reflect her vote against the item. Had the error not been caught, their approval would constitute a fraud and an effort to mislead the public. Is this why the board doesn't want the meeting televised or made public? And if we look closely, will we find out other instances where this sleight-of-hand occurred?

And does the BCIC remain an ATM for elected officials and their elite friends?