MAYOR:TSC UNDER THE GUN TO COUGH UP LAND

By Juan Montoya

Just as the plan proposed by UTB President Juliet Garcia to gobble up Texas Southmost College was described as a "must-do before the UT System-imposed drop-dead deadline or else they would go away," now we have the a rerun – this time with Mayor Tony Martinez as the protagonist – to force the college to sell its real-estate.

Granted, this time Martinez isn't trying to do what Garcia and TSC trustees David Oliveira and Robert Robles were attempting. That is, trying to ram the "give-us everything for nothing and you keep the debt, thank you, ma'am' scheme" past the majority of the board. That majority has told Garcia, the UT System, UTB Provost Alan Artibise, the Regents, the Cameron County legislative delegation, and anyone who is willing to listen that the UT System can lease all the land and buildings it wants, but to forget the idea that the trustees will agree to sell any of the community college's assets.

"That's not on the table, and they know it," said a source close to the board's majority. "What Martinez and Artibise are saying to the Brownsville Herald is not true."

Martinez is playing the role of the not-quite-ready-for-prime-time" player who is a day late and a dollar short. Even with his lavish outlays for overpriced real estate compliments of the city taxpayers, he is still some 250 acres short of the 300 to 400 that the UT System is asking as its pound of flesh to stay put downtown.

But with the UT System's own projected 7,400 cap on the UTB student body, some skeptics of the proposed  “urban campus” think the real-estate conundrum is a red herring meant to distract residents from the fact that they may already have another site in mind.

"I have a friend on the Rancho Viejo board of aldermen who has been approached by the (Renato and Mary Rose) Cardenas about making improvements on Carmen Road just in case they can get the UT System interested in buying some of the acreage they own out there," said a source close to the UTB-TSC administration. "Obviously, they don't believe that the UT System is seriously considering investing its PUF (Permanent University Fund) dollars in Martinez's downtown."

The city's property includes two vacant armories the city owns near the REK Center on campus; Lincoln Park, which the city also owns; and an adjacent 17.4-acre parcel owned by the U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service but which the city may be able to acquire through a land swap, Martinez told the Herald.

And, the UT – at arm's length – asked Martinez whether the city will be able to acquire the USFW's 17.4 acres as well as 35 acres just east of the Expressway and north of Veterans International Bridge at Los Tomates. Martinez, who is downright generous when it comes to public assets and bucks, said he hadn't decided yet whether to sell or give the land away to the fourth richest university in the United States.

But first, though, there is a small matter of the smell of feces permeating the air down heah'.

Martinez said that UT and the consulting firm hired by the system to look into the downtown proposal could tell the Brownsville Public Utilities Board to make its wastewater treatment plant on East University Avenue near the bridge smell a little better by using chemicals to hide the stench.

Da Mayor said that BPUB already has begun engineering work on odor mitigation at the plant.

So it was OK for the residents of the area (Southmost, East Avenue and those around Tony Gonzalez Park, etc.) to live with the smell of raw sewage for all these years, but when the UT System complains about the smell Tony – a ex-officio member of the BPUB – gets flatulence and jumps.

Even then, with Martinez jumping through hoops and spending the people's money to speculate in real estate and and indebting them for the foreseeable future with property tax-funded certificates of obligation issues, it still won't add up to enough land to make the "urban campus" option viable, Artibise said.

He told the Herald that the "crucial" remaining factor is whether those pesky TSC trustees will sell them the community college's property. He said that both sides are talking, an assertion disputed by sources close to the TSC board.

"Get this straight," said the source. "Nobody is negotiating with UT about selling the land. They can lease if they want, but we are not going to sell."

Conveniently left unsaid in the Herald article was the fact that UTB has offered TSC "construction" prices for the buildings, overlooking the fact that what may have been built for $300,000 is now valued at close to $800,000.

"The quote attributed to Artibise that 'We are actively in negotiations to buy land and buildings from TSC,' is  a bald-face lie," he said.
Once again, the UT System is putting the TSC trustee under the gun by stating that it has to know whether it can get its cut-rate deal from TSC by the February meeting when the Board of Regents is "expected"  to hear the site selection committee present options for them to make a final decision in it March meeting.
Martinez said that From UT’s perspective, the system already has invested some $130 million in campus facilities here.
Funny how he doesn't mention that over the 20-some-odd years that TSC has been hustled by the UT System in its "partnership" with UTB, TSC has "transferred" some $53 million annually to the oil-and-gas wealthy university system. Do the math. Over 20 years at $50 million a pop, it means this community has "transferred" more than $1 billion (with a B) to UT.
And don't forget to thrown in the $55 million in bond debt that college district residents still have to pay and the $15 million or so that UTB still owes the district in rent arrears.
And he doesn't mention that as part of the anxiousness of Garcia, Cardenas, State Rep. Rene Oliveira and Texas Sen. Eddie Lucio Jr., to bring the burnt-orance cow skull head logo here they agreed to forego UTB-TSC's participation in the state's distribution to UT and Texas A&M systems of the state's $13 billion PUF money.
Now that fund is again being dangled like a carrot before a starving rabbit to get it to give up its land.
When is the UT System going to put its money where its mouth is and buy land and build its own campus like it has done elsewhere in the state without leeching off the local community – one of the poorest in the state and country?
Last time it latched on to our community it didn't even kiss us before it had its way with us. Now it's putting the screws on the trustees through its handy megaphone the Brownsville Herald to get them to bend over and do it again.