ONE LAST $1.3 MILLION CASH GRAB FROM BCIC BY GOWEN'S GANG

"Yes many may be confused on the property/ sales tax issue, but you can’t tell me BCIC AND GBIC are here TO HELP ?? They may have been setup in the beginning to help but unfortunately got contaminated with corruption. Those two entities only help the rich / chosen few , families and friends!!! There is no need to insult and call people pendejos when they are frustrated and tired of being taken advantage by these entities. These sales taxes collected and grant monies should be fairly divided amongst the people/ businesses that truly need it, not only to the elite, wealthy and well connected leeches..."

Special to El Rrun-Rrun

With the possible dissolution of their Brownsville Community Improvement Corporation (BCIC) cash cow almost a certainty after the May 4 election where voters are being asked to do away with it, its scandal-ridden board and administration have called a special meeting for one last chance to line up to the pig trough.

At today's "special" meeting tonight before the May 4 results will be known, the board is ready to had out the goodies at the meeting to be held at 5 p.m. at eBridge Center for Business & Commercialization, located at 1304 East Adams Street.

There, with only four days before voters decide on the May 4 election on two propositions – one which would dissolve the BCIC and the Greater Brownsville Incentives Corporation (GBIC) boards – they will consider and take action on three suspect agenda items that could encumber the BCIC and the new Greater Brownsville Municipal Development District (GBMDD). And the extravagant cost of these three projects defy logic. All three are termed "quality of life" projects, a handy buzz word for raiding the annual $12 million sales-tax revenues handled by these two entities.   

Take for example, item six on the agenda:

If we divide the $1,003,345 by 32, each shelter will cost $31,354, including labor. Currently, the city is midway through the process of installing 32 basic enchilada shelters (a roof for shade and a bench) which were promised way back in 2022 and are just getting built.

Does this look like it's worth $31,354, even with labor included? Or will they be, as extravagance-driven past and current BCIC boards have done in the past, super-duper state-of-the-art shelters? Will humble bus riders be required to adopt a dress code to do justice to the structures? Smell a scam?

Compare what it is costing the city to put up 30 shelters around town.(See graphic on left.) The city's cost was projected to be $10,750 per shelter. Later modifications by city staff actually lowered that total to $345,067. The final cost per shelter? $11,502, or 19,852 less than the BCIC proposal. Wonder why? DO they have a special vendor in mind? 

And how about agenda item 8, a $198,000 hand off to commissioner Rose Gowen's West Side Rail Trail?

Again, dividing $198,500 by 150, it will cost the city $1,323 to buy and plant to dig a hole and drop in a sapling along Rose''s trail to provide a "canopy" of shade for hikers and bikers who are suffering exposure to the elements while exercising and enhancing their "wellness." $1,300 for each tree? 
 

How things have changed. In the 1920s, as native Montezuma cypresses were disappearing and people were out of work, many were planted in the old Lincoln Park using WPA-funded labor to replant them along the resaca that eventually became the old Lincoln Park that was under the current overpass across International Blvd. on the way to Los Tomates bridge.

If you remember, the old Union Pacific Railroad right-of-way was planned to be the start of a loop from the international (the old bridge) bridge around the city to connect to US I-69 until "plump partridge"  commissioner Gowen led the charge to keep residents bearing the traffic congestion downtown to provide west-side residents with a pleasant traffic-free place to walk and ride their bicycles and exercise their pooches. 

Maybe the West Side Trail should be renamed Rose Gowen's Dog Pee Trail since it thoughtfully provides 150 tree trunks for our territorial furry friends to relieve themselves. Gowen, a Zavaletta (with two tts), has had a historically-designated residence since before she was elected in 2021 until she sold it this yea which was exempt from city taxes, but steered millions to her diabetes- and obesity-fighting bike and hike trails. A savvy public servant, she loves spending OTM (Other People's Money). Once more to the trough. C'mon $1,300 per tree?

If you think the two "quality of life" projects are hare-brained, take a gander at Agenda Item 10.

When you are going to fly out of the pretentiously-named Brownsville-South Padre Island International Airport with your kids, do you dress them up so they can run and romp in a playground while waiting for your flight?

Not many airports, especially one with a comparatively low number of passengers like ours, provides a terminal playground for kids to play awaiting their flight departure. And parents arriving with kids at the airport don't usually hang out so they can romp at a in-the-terminal playground. Are you kidding? 

Which contractors are champing at the bit for these last-ditch raiding by the board of  BCIC funds? Will it be fly-by-night "space-oriented" business operators like the ones that duped Helen Ramirez of nearly $1 million while she was the director of the GBIC, only to be promoted to city manager as a reward for her ineptness?

Sadly, this BCIC boards' type of extravagance with OPM is just abut par for the course. Their track record includes ignoring their own rules and handing thousands out to their friends, to city elected officials, their own board members and their families, and doing as they damn well please because there have never been any consequences from the city commission or our local district attorney. 

And ince mayor John Cowen them that once the GBIC and BCIC are combined into the GBMDD after the May 4 election, their administrations and staffs will remain on the payroll in the new entity, why not allow the buzzards to swoop in for one last gluttonous binge at the BCIC trough? 

How things supposedly change, but still remain the same! Burp!