By Juan Montoya
It came during the presentation of the 2020-2021 budget for the Greater Brownsville Incentives Corporation where director Mario Losoya and board member Dennis Sanchez outlined the board's general outline for the coming year for the city commission.
Part of the presentation included subjects under the title "Other Activities" such as setting aside $250,000 for Job/Workforce Development and Training activities during the upcoming year.
Among those proposed set-asides were some championed by GBIC chair Graham Seiver-Schultz
such as the $200,000 for "Space Related Activities" and another $100,000 for professional studies. Other pet projects pushed by Seiver-Schultz was one to use $50,000 to the Brownsville Community Development Corporation for it to set up a loan fund to compete with "payday" loan companies.
He is also the main force behind for GBIC to use some of its funds to pay for child care. Fortunately, cooler heads prevailed on teh GBIC board.
But a call for RFPs for a study has already been let out "requesting proposals from qualified firms and individuals to provide a Feasibility Study for Child Care Needs in the Brownsville, Cameron County, Texas area."
What that has to do with attracting industry and economic development isn't quite clear. Shouldn't jobs be created first?
The agenda item started out on a contentious note with Mayor Trey Mendez openly telling Lozoya that the presentation was "the worst budget I've ever seen" and complaining that the GBIC had not provided them a line item budget.
City Manager Noel Bernal covered himself saying that he had received the full item-by-item document that morning, but did not explain why all the commissioners had not been provided with it before the meeting. In reality, Sanchez and Lozoya knew that the document had been sent to the city manager a full week ago, but declined to counter Bernal's claims in the open meeting.
Commissioner Nurith Galonsky, still smarting from her failed lawsuit to keep Lozoya from the top position at GBIC, and having been removed from the board through city ordinance, wanted him to explain the staff turnover, a confidential Human Resources issue that isn't appropriate for discussion in public.It could have also run afoul of the Texas Open Meeting Act since the budget, not staff turnover, was on the agenda.
She said she would not approve money on expenditures that were already addressed by the Brownsville Community Improvement Corporation. Would she have approved the city's $2.3 million purchase of the Casa del Nylon from her family when most appraisers said the real price should have been no more that $700,000 tops?
After that boondoggle, more money has been poured into the building so that now it has become known as the "Black Hole" of downtown Brownsville. The homeless love it, though.
Coincidentally, even before Lozoya had set foot inside the Brownsville city limits, she had already sued him.
Given that plus the fact that she sued the GBIC and its CEO, can she convince anyone that there is not a conflict of interest there?
And hike-and-bike trail advocate Dr. Rose Gowen (La Chisquiada) could not help herself from chastening Losoya and the GBIC board for not thinking about promoting good health habits to fight diabetes and obesity in the workforce with their budget.
"The pandemic has taught us many things and one of those things that has been reinforced is that people with diabetes and obesity are at particular risk for severe disease and death," she said through her Zoom connection.
"Since we have an enormous array of obesity and obesity-related disease like diabetes our human capital is not as strong as even with an education, unless they're paying attention to their health...
Gowen went on to say that GBIC should "interact" with other city entities to address her health concerns.
"So I read once more about workforce development, which I strongly support, but I still see nothing year after year about hw you as an organization ar going to work with the city and other related entities to interact with areas of health even if it's something simple like sponsoring a T-shirt or a challenge, something like that...," she intoned.
If Lozoya and the board don't include workers' health practices in their workforce plans, she said that the pandemic "should have proven that you are wrong in that assumption..."
T-shirts and challenges? What did the good doctor have in mind? Maybe a contest on who can stay unemployed the longest and call it the "Arrastrado Pero Contento" challenge? Or maybe which contestant could chase an unemployment check the longest. Call it "Chasing El Cheuco" and see which contestant is most persistent.
The commissioners tabled approving the GBIC budget until the next meeting before the beginning of the fiscal year. But it is evident that – unexplainably – some have forgotten that GBIC is a Type A EDC and must focus its spending primarily on manufacturing and industrial development.
EDCs may use Type A revenue to fund land, buildings, equipment, facilities expenditures, targeted infrastructure and improvements for projects including:
Manufacturing and industrial facilities, recycling facilities, distribution centers, and small warehouse facilities; research and development facilities, regional or national corporate headquarters facilities, primary job training facilities operated by higher education institutions, job training classes, telephone call centers and career centers not located within a junior college taxing district.
Lozoya, upon arrival here, brought a representative from the Texas Attorney General's Office to outline eligible uses for the 1/4 cent tax portion of the city's sales tax which amounts to about $5.1 million annually. Knowing the parameters of eligible activities, can Lozoya steer clear of ineligible activity by his board and the commissioners?
And no, loan finance companies, T-shirts, child care, and "challenges" were not mentioned at that presentation. It may be time to bring the guy back and make attendance mandatory for the GBIC board and the city commission.