A) Discussion regarding the Metropolitan Planning Organization Policy Committee (MPO) membership.
B) Discussion regarding the Audit & Oversight Committee.
C) Discussion regarding Greater Brownsville Incentives Corporation (GBIC) board appointments.
By Juan Montoya
No one knows who fills the role of Fletcher Christian, the chief mate on Mutiny on the Bounty, but if there is one in the City of Brownsville Commission, one can imagine hearing Mayor Tony Martinez sharply redressing him for the state of affairs on the Good Ship Browntown.
"Mr. Christian, flog those scoundrels!"
In short, Martinez is facing the most direct challenge of his control of the commission with the inclusion of the three items listed above for a workshop scheduled this Tuesday at 5:30 p.m. in the city manager's conference room before the 6 p.m. commission meeting.
But even of there is no action taken after that discussion, the same three items are scheduled for votes in the regular meeting, including removing Da Mayor as chair of the Metropolitan Planning Organization and commissioner Ben Neece as a member and appointing their replacements (Item 18).
The other action item related to that action is to appoint a new chairperson to the MPO to replace Martinez. (Item 19)
Item 20 deals with the proposal to abolish the Audit and Oversight Committee and Item 21 deals with consideration and action to appoint three members to the Greater Brownsville Incentives Corporation.
All items were placed on the agenda by commissioners Commissioners Joel Munguia and Ricardo Longoria, Jr.
If the action items can get a four-vote majority, then Martinez and his minority on the commission (Hizzoner, Neece and Rose Gowen) will have little to say about the actions of the majority composed of Mungia, Longoria and commissioners Cesar De Leon and Jessica Tetreau.
Martinez has long held out against merging the Brownsville, Harlingen, San Benito with that of Hidalgo County claiming it would put Brownsville at the mercy of the larger county upriver. Even though estimates provided by Texas Dept. of Transportation District Engineer Pete Alvarez showing that the city would receive at the very least an additional $2 million if the merger occurred, MArtinez has been adamant about losing local control."It is the policy of this board not to pursue the merger," he wrote Alvarez in October 2017. "We continue to discuss this ad nauseum...It will obliterate the local control fro Brownsville. We are being asked to give up the autonomy we have to control the destiny of our community."
But Alvarez countered that under a governance scheme that in the bylaws being formulated by TxDoT, is includes the concept of a supermajority where the bigger cities in the three existing MPOs would get weighed votes, with Brownsville possibly getting 6 votes and a small community like Los Indios one.
The model envisions the merged MPOs having a board of 42 members, with Hidalgo accounting for 66 percent of the vote. However, in order for any project to be approved, the item would have to get 75 percent of the vote (supermajority), giving Cameron County leverage to decide the outcome of any agenda item with 9 or 10 percent of the vote.
"If 9 or 10 percent of Cameron County votes against any item, it will be quashed," Alvarez told Wood.
Alvarez said that so far, all nine Texas State Representatives in both counties have signed a resolution in favor of the merger as has a unanimous Cameron County Commissioners Court. Cameron County elected state officials including then-State Rep. Rene Oliveira, Rep. Eddie Lucio III, and Sen. Eddie Lucio Jr. have also voiced their support for the merger idea as long as a model making a supermajority included in the bylaws.
Do the MPO rules require the mayor of the city to be its chair? And can a majority on the commission bypass that requirement through a vote? The answers are up in the air and should be decided this Tuesday at the city commission meeting.
The other item that directly challenges Martinez and Neece is the abolition of the Commission Audit
and Oversight Committee. When it was formed, commission members cited the inaction on the part of city administration to investigate and audit city departments, notably the Brownsville Fire Department under then-Chief Carlos Elizondo. In the abeyance of the administration, they formed and passed the committee and Martinez appointed its members.Now, apparently, the majority feel that with the hiring of a professional city manager in Noe Bernal, the audit and oversight should be left in his hands and the commissioners should refrain from intruding into his purview. Left in the air is the committee's other reports, including one on former city manager Charlie Cabler. Will it be now up to Bernal, his successor, to determine whether to make that public?
Any decision he makes will be politically tainted, since Cabler has announced his intentions to run for Martinez's position as mayor. Martinez has not formally declared he will be a candidate for reelection and neither has local attorney/businessman and Texas Southmost College trustee Trey Mendez.
There is, indeed, mutiny afoot,
"Mr. Christian!"