Protesters made one last futile attempt Tuesday to stop county officials from issuing $8 million in certificates of obligation to fund park improvements and expansion.
At a Tuesday night meeting, county commissioners voted to approve a final order to issue the certificates.
Members of the Save Isla Blanca group said county officials were risking the “crown jewel” of the county park system and the most valuable real estate on the Texas Gulf Coast by using it as collateral for borrowing to fund the improvements.
If the county can’t keep up with the payments, officials would go to developers who already have a 100-year lease on park land to bail out the county’s debt, the protesters said. That would give developers the go-ahead to build condominiums and other private projects in the public park, the protesters said.
“How does expanding an already overburdened and mismanaged park system constitute an emergency?“ asked Mary Helen Flores of Brownsville. “Why are the voters not being allowed to vote on a general bond for these proposed capital improvements?”
Winter Texan Claudia Konker said facilities in Isla Blanca Park are dilapidated and the county doesn’t do even the most routine maintenance.
She said promised sewer hook-ups for recreational vehicles have never been built and the tent camping area she uses was almost given to private developers without any bids being solicited.
Even with 15 percent increases in campsite rentals, campers have to put up with “clogged toilets, peeling paint, absent shower heads, broken heaters, missing shower curtains and a completely absent restroom door on the women’s side,” she said.
Protesters claim it is illegal for certificates of obligation to be used for anything except emergencies, but the county’s attorneys and officials said that is not true. Using certificates of obligations reduces costs of borrowing money and saves time, they said.
Commissioners Edna Tamayo of Harlingen, David Garza of Harlingen and Sofia Benavides of Brownsville said people in low-income and rural parts of the county deserve to have parks and revenue from the “cash cow” of the park system, Isla Blanca Park, which can provide funding to repay the certificates of obligation.
County Judge Carlos Cascos said he agreed with the protesters on one issue.
“I cannot support C.O.’s for this,” he said.
He said he would rather have included funding for park repairs and improvements in a bond issue the county is planning for jail improvements and expansion, renovation of the Harrison Street courthouse administration building and other major projects.
Commissioner John Wood of Brownsville said he, too, was initially against the use of certificates of obligation, which is a way for county officials to borrow money without asking for voter approval. He said he was concerned because rates for recreational vehicle sites would have to be raised.
But, after reviewing the projects, he voted in favor of the park financing package, he said.
Tamayo said she has assured many people who called her from poor, rural areas in her precinct that they didn’t need to attend the meeting because she planned to fight for their parks.
“They tell me, ‘Please, we’ve been waiting for 30 years, 40 years,’ ” Tamayo said. “These people have been waiting forever and we have not done our duty to provide for them.”
Benavides and Tamayo said there are many people in their precincts who cannot afford to travel to South Padre Island to visit Isla Blanca Park and they deserve parks near their neighborhoods.
Among the projects to be funded by the $8 million borrowing package are: renovation of Isla Blanca Park facilities, the building of small parks in several small Military Highway towns, in Rio Hondo and a Boys & Girls Club in Santa Rosa.
Garza said he took offense at some of the statements by members of Save Isla Blanca and their supporters.
“There’s a lot of misrepresentation about Isla Blanca Park,” he said. The park is not being risked to finance other projects, he said. The financing package is sound and will be paid off by revenues from park users, as were past bonds and certificates of obligation, he said.
“This is not a C.O. to ruin Isla Blanca Park,” Garza said. “Everything was done properly, except for one mistake in advertising.”
If the county borrows money for parks now, and the Legislature later passes money for grants for park improvements, the county will be able to “leverage” the local funding to get much more state funding for parks, Garza said.
In other business, Nora H. Zamora, director of Brownsville Urban System, talked of future plans to ask the county to approve a $10 surcharge on auto license plates to help raise funding for a public transportation network that BUS plans to expand, along with Rio Transit, a system operated Valley-wide by the Lower Rio Grande Valley Development Council.
If state lawmakers approve the local option, the bus system will be expanded, benefiting rural residents and cities because people without cars will be able to shop and work and build the economy in Brownsville, Harlingen, San Benito and Port Isabel, Zamora said.
But Cascos said that since most Cameron County residents live in cities, city dwellers will have to pay the extra fees to benefit only about 70,000 to 80,000 rural residents.
Calculating the population balance in the county shows that Brownsville will get about 80 percent of the money generated by all county residents paying the $10 fee per car per year, he said.