SLOGANS AND BUZZWORDS ASIDE, HOW ABOUT EQUAL TREATMENT?

By Juan Montoya

Noel Bernal, the mentor to current City of Brownsville Manager Helen Ramirez, adopted the slogan "Total Alignment" for his brand of management. Ramirez has now invented a "One City"  slogan for her approach. And former city manager Charlie Cabler would simply "Wing It."

And while it seemed to work for Cabler until a majority of the city commission grew tired of the "PUB" Philosphy – hiring Primos, Uncles, and Brothers – things got done, potholes got patched, street bumps were constructed on their friend's streets, and unless you really misbehaved as a city employee, you could retire after a few decades.

Before Bernal left, he never quite attained his Total Alignment philosophy, except for leaving Ramirez totally aligned to replace him. There was, of course, the perfunctory – and costly – nationwide search for  a city manager before the city commission settled on, you guessed it, Helen, who was totally aligned for the hefty paycheck that came along with the title and who is known to be very pliant to the whims of her majority on the city commission.   

Well, this January the Brownsville City Commission unanimously voted to renew Ramirez’s employment contract for another two years, the maximum term allowed by the city charter. The decision, made during the commission’s January meeting, includes a salary increase and an expanded executive benefits package. We weren't told, and apparently no one asked, what that raise was to be to, but if you do a simple 10 percent increase from her city salary that would put close to $275,000 in her designer purse.

That's even with her dismal performance when she was named acting director of the Greater

Brownsville Incentives Corporation where her failure to do her due diligence on applicants for space-related incentives lost the city $750,000 in failed projects. Not a single job for a local resident was created.

Later, when negotiating the purchase and construction of the Marketing and Communications building next to the Casa Del Nylon, cost overruns resulted in the city paying some $462.00 per square foot. 

Incidentally, it was to the same company that did the work on the over the Casa next door where they were also the only bidder. The Communications and Marketing Center has become – with Coffees with the Mayor, Jobs and Coffee and other gimmicks – the de facto propaganda center of smoke and mirrors to razzle-dazzle the peasants with BS instead of results. They also have a large supporting cast to do the city commissioners' bidding. 

She's on a winning streak. After the GBIC debacle, she was rewarded by her selections n as city manager. Apparently, she was "incentivized" to get "quick wins" by Cowen to show that former GBIC CEO Mario Lozoya wasn't moving fast enough and deserved to get a $750,000 buyout.

As a matter of fact, Cowen must be wired, he's held so many Coffees With the Mayor lately.  

And that's not counting Ramirez's supporting cast, who also draw a considerable amount of cash from city taxpayers. We don't know who took over Elizabeth Walker's $140,000 gig, but we believe it's someone named Alan Gard, lately from Ana, Texas, with a 27,500 population compared to Brownsville's estimated 200,000-plus, or about 10-plus percent in reverse.  

Ramirez – like Bernal before her – explains her "One City" approach is necessarily vague to us mere mortals, but it's filled with generalities such as "breaking down silos within the city government and actively engaging with external stakeholders like businesses, non-profits, and community organizations to work together towards common goals." Who would be against that? Of course, silos don't exist around here, but it's a catchy phrase to indicate that the "stakeholders" aren't connected or interact with each other. Not a good thing. 

There's more. "By fostering collaboration," Ramirez aims to maximize Brownsville's potential by leveraging diverse strengths within the community," it will also, according to her, "accelerate our economy and quality of life."  We're for that, fer sure.

But let's see what's on the ground. Look at both photos below. At the top are the saplings which were purchased to grace the sides of the West Side Trail, a pet project of outgoing commissioner Rose Gowen.  They are well on their way to be fully grown and in a few years they will provide a great "quality of life" for the few bikers and hikers who are supposed to swarm into Brownsville to enjoy those creature comforts of "active tourism" and spend millions here and "accelerate the local economy, " which hasn't happened as promised but we wait with bated breath.

How the city got past the deed restrictions prohibiting human contact with the surface of the railroad easement over which for some 100 years trains carried hazardous materials over it, we'll never know. But they did.

And the skinny twig that is passing for a tree or shrub below is one of the plants that grace (landscape?) our city parks, in this case Oliveira Park in the city's West Side formerly known as Las Prietas an area inhabited by low- to lower-middle-income residents. The park, by the way, used to be the city dump and only God knows what's under that dirt. Chances are the twig will dry up and shrivel and be choked by the weeds and high grass given it's sorry-looking appearance. The trail and the park, by the way, at one point run next to each other.

So Helen, Rose, and John: If we're all equal "shareholders" in this "One City" why is it so obvious which side your management style favors? Isn't it obvious that it's the silk-stocking, Spandex bike outfit crowd who are the recipients of the public goodies and not the majority of taxpayers and residents of our barrios and neighborhoods?