Viro Cardenas, chairman of the city of Brownsville’s Charter Review Committee, told members of the city commission on Dec. 6 that the committee wished to avoiding recommending any changes that will create a “ripple effect” causing problems for the city at a later date.
The committee was formed in the wake of revelations about Brownsville Public Utilities Board management’s handling of the failed Tenaska Brownsville Generating Station project. A forensic analysis of the Tenaska deal drew attention to a city bond ordinance requiring BPUB to transfer 10 percent of its surplus revenue to the city at the end of each quarter to service bond debt.
The Charter Review Committee was activated to look into whether amendments to the city charter are warranted. The voters would have final say on amending the charter, though altering the ordinance related to BPUB’s quarterly payments to the city would require a separate bond election.
Specifically, the committee is charged with reviewing Article VI of the charter where it relates to BPUB, consider other charter provisions recommended by the committee, and “technical or clean-up provisions” suggested by the city attorney or city manager.
Among the changes the committee has discussed so far are requiring a super majority of city commissioners to remove a member of the BPUB board “for cause” rather than a simple unanimous vote as the charter currently requires, Cardenas said. The charter strictly limits how often board members can be removed in order to limit opportunities for politicizing BPUB board appointments.
“At the moment it’s one board member per year that can be removed for cause,” he said. “The question there is what’s the definition of cause?”
“I think that’s a real slippery issue and I don’t think you all really need to try and define cause,” Mayor Trey Mendez said. “Ultimately the most important thing here is whatever comes from your recommendation or our ultimate approval is that voters are going to be looking at it, that have to understand it, it has to make sense. Ultimately they’re going to be the ones that are voting on it and approving it.”
Cardenas agreed, adding that “we want to simplify because we don’t want seven different amendments to seven different areas of the charter.” If it’s too complicated voters will either ignore the question or vote on it without understanding it, he said.
Mendez cautioned the committee against “making an over correction” as it develops recommendations for any changes to the charter, if any.
“Just be reasonable about it,” he said. “Really if you do something like a super majority, you kind of the ability of somebody to politicize it out, unless the whole entire commission politicizes it. Otherwise I think it’s reasonable to consider something like that.”
Meetings of the Charter Review Committee, which are open to the public, have been moved from Thursdays to Wednesdays. The meetings will continue through the end of February. The next meeting is scheduled for Dec. 14 at 5:30 p.m. at the Brownsville Events Center.
