By Juan Montoya
The races for the City of Brownsville Commission are underway.
After a hugely successful Charro days, Mr. Amigo and SombreroFest, the attention of the electorate is now on the commission elections for three seats now held by incumbents John Villarreal, Debby Portillo (who is not running) and and Rose Gowen.
There are now three races with six candidates. They are William Garza running against Joel Mungia for District District 3, Ben Neece running against John Villarreal for District 4, and At-Large "B" incumbent Rose Gowen running against Head Cheez Erasmo Castro.
As they say in football, it's anyone's game.
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In District 3, newcomer Joel Mungia is facing Garza, a perennial candidate who has not been able to win in his last two tries for the city commission. But now, with newcomer Mungia having the support of Mayor Tony Martinez and Ambiotec's (also shadow government architect United Brownsville), the game just got a bit more interesting. Will Garza be able to overcome Mungia's big-money supporters for a chance at the brass ring? As the man said, campaign, campaign, campaign.
In the case of District 4, John Villarreal is facing former Chief Municipal Judge Ben Neece. Hanging around Villarreal's neck like an albatrosses?), are his votes on the purchase of the Casa del Nylon from $2.3 million, the proposed sale and move of Lincoln Park to a site across from the sewage treatment plant, the 36 percent hike in utility rates to pay the city's $325 million share of the Tenaska $500 million gas-powered electric plant, and his continued support of city attorney Mark Sossi as a full-time employee.
(The photo above, sent in by one of our three readers, shows Neece riding a horse in the Charro Days parade. If you notice at the left rear of the horse, that's Villarreal standing by the yellow pedestrian sign looking on aghast with arms akimbo as Neece's steed scampers by. Wife Lynette, stands on the right of the sign while Cameron County Pct. 2 Commission and wife's aunt Sofia Benavides look on. Click on graphic to enlarge.)
But there is more trouble for Villarreal. In a case that mirrors the Perfect Storm, he has to live down the mistrust of those who think he may have been in line to move up to Cameron County Treasurer to replace David Betancourt who was set to move to the County Tax Assessor-Collector position held by Tony Yzaguirre. Reports from David's birthday party held on a Thursday indicated that he was announced as the next tax assessor-collector when he was introduced. David would replace Tony and Villarreal would replace David. Pretty neat, hey?
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But that little apple cart was overturned when Cameron County Clerk Sylvia Garza-Perez – following the directives of the county commissioners – executed the officeholder bond and administered the oath of office to Yzaguirre the next day, before there was an item posted on the commissioners court agenda.
Even if Yzaguirre had not been convicted on the 23 charges filed by Cameron County District Attorney Luis V. Saenz, he would have had to wait until the next general election to regain his seat if someone else had been appointed.. When Yzaguirre posted the bonds and got sworn in, that little scheme evaporated. Now Villarreal has Yzaguirre (who got 10,000 votes even after he had indicted) and his supporters mad at him and Garza-Perez's followers who found out what had happened. Neece, then, has a built-in support system that will be hard for John to overcome.
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In the case of At-Large B incumbent Rose Gowen, challenger Castro has been a busy little bee this past few years building up a following on social media that garnered him 10,901 votes in the BISD's 2016 election, second only to Laura Perez-Reyes with 11,861, with 960 more. Gowen, in her reelection in 2013, got only 2,097. Can Castro woo back one third of the voters who filled in his oval on the ballot and eject Gowen from the city commission breaking up Martinez's majority?
The majority of the voters in the city seem to have lost patience with Gowen who has raided the city's treasury (and GBIC and BCIC) to fund her pet projects like the bike and hike trials and to close downtown once or twice a month to have Spandex-clad suburbanites pedal around a ghost downtown. She carries the same albatross that Villarreal does with her support of Da Mayor's priorities. The race, it appears, is Erasmo's to lose.
The races for the City of Brownsville Commission are underway.
After a hugely successful Charro days, Mr. Amigo and SombreroFest, the attention of the electorate is now on the commission elections for three seats now held by incumbents John Villarreal, Debby Portillo (who is not running) and and Rose Gowen.
There are now three races with six candidates. They are William Garza running against Joel Mungia for District District 3, Ben Neece running against John Villarreal for District 4, and At-Large "B" incumbent Rose Gowen running against Head Cheez Erasmo Castro.
As they say in football, it's anyone's game.
In District 3, newcomer Joel Mungia is facing Garza, a perennial candidate who has not been able to win in his last two tries for the city commission. But now, with newcomer Mungia having the support of Mayor Tony Martinez and Ambiotec's (also shadow government architect United Brownsville), the game just got a bit more interesting. Will Garza be able to overcome Mungia's big-money supporters for a chance at the brass ring? As the man said, campaign, campaign, campaign.In the case of District 4, John Villarreal is facing former Chief Municipal Judge Ben Neece. Hanging around Villarreal's neck like an albatrosses?), are his votes on the purchase of the Casa del Nylon from $2.3 million, the proposed sale and move of Lincoln Park to a site across from the sewage treatment plant, the 36 percent hike in utility rates to pay the city's $325 million share of the Tenaska $500 million gas-powered electric plant, and his continued support of city attorney Mark Sossi as a full-time employee.
(The photo above, sent in by one of our three readers, shows Neece riding a horse in the Charro Days parade. If you notice at the left rear of the horse, that's Villarreal standing by the yellow pedestrian sign looking on aghast with arms akimbo as Neece's steed scampers by. Wife Lynette, stands on the right of the sign while Cameron County Pct. 2 Commission and wife's aunt Sofia Benavides look on. Click on graphic to enlarge.)
But there is more trouble for Villarreal. In a case that mirrors the Perfect Storm, he has to live down the mistrust of those who think he may have been in line to move up to Cameron County Treasurer to replace David Betancourt who was set to move to the County Tax Assessor-Collector position held by Tony Yzaguirre. Reports from David's birthday party held on a Thursday indicated that he was announced as the next tax assessor-collector when he was introduced. David would replace Tony and Villarreal would replace David. Pretty neat, hey?
But that little apple cart was overturned when Cameron County Clerk Sylvia Garza-Perez – following the directives of the county commissioners – executed the officeholder bond and administered the oath of office to Yzaguirre the next day, before there was an item posted on the commissioners court agenda.Even if Yzaguirre had not been convicted on the 23 charges filed by Cameron County District Attorney Luis V. Saenz, he would have had to wait until the next general election to regain his seat if someone else had been appointed.. When Yzaguirre posted the bonds and got sworn in, that little scheme evaporated. Now Villarreal has Yzaguirre (who got 10,000 votes even after he had indicted) and his supporters mad at him and Garza-Perez's followers who found out what had happened. Neece, then, has a built-in support system that will be hard for John to overcome.
In the case of At-Large B incumbent Rose Gowen, challenger Castro has been a busy little bee this past few years building up a following on social media that garnered him 10,901 votes in the BISD's 2016 election, second only to Laura Perez-Reyes with 11,861, with 960 more. Gowen, in her reelection in 2013, got only 2,097. Can Castro woo back one third of the voters who filled in his oval on the ballot and eject Gowen from the city commission breaking up Martinez's majority?The majority of the voters in the city seem to have lost patience with Gowen who has raided the city's treasury (and GBIC and BCIC) to fund her pet projects like the bike and hike trials and to close downtown once or twice a month to have Spandex-clad suburbanites pedal around a ghost downtown. She carries the same albatross that Villarreal does with her support of Da Mayor's priorities. The race, it appears, is Erasmo's to lose.