My Reply to the Mayor's State of the City Address

By Diego Garcia III | editor of The Brownsville Beacon

I would like to thank Mr. Juan Montoya of El Rrun Rrun for publishing my reply to the mayor's "State of the City" address. I will re-run it on this page for your perusal.

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And the Emperor fiddled while Rome burned.

The mayor is so completely out of touch with reality, and the proof is in the State of the City speech he delivered.

I don't know who he has as his adviser, but whoever it is, they should be replaced.  In one of the poorest communities in the United States, the mayor should NOT be charging 45 dollars a head to sit in a ballroom to hear him pontificate on the state of our fair city.  This event should be open to the public and held in the evening so working stiffs and the majority of the community could attend.  This event should not have been sponsored by the Chamber of Commerce and held at the Events Center.  So much for the mayor being a man of the people.

He is right about one thing.  The zoo is a critical component to Brownsville's tourist industry.  However, the years have taken their toll on the zoo.  It is in desperate need of repair and restructuring.  I wonder what this "zoo master plan" is.  One can hope the details will be released sooner rather than later.

I'm glad Brownsville's downtown is being revitalized and refurbished, but at what cost?  The mayor says there have been 30 new businesses open in the downtown area, but how many of them are upscale bars or eateries?  Why is the gentrification of downtown such an important goal for our mayor?  Is it because he owns a building where his fancy pizza and wine restaurant is located and would like to see his property value skyrocket?  Does he have other business partners who are gobbling up sections of downtown in hopes of making money off the new direction downtown is going in? 

Brownsville should be more than hike and bike trails, pizza joints, and art galleries.  Brownsville should be more than poetry readings and fancy bars.

Brownsville is a community of almost 185,000 people who need things.  Tangible, real world, usable things — not pie-in-the-sky farmer's markets and fancy places to have dinner.  I'm sorry, but the state of the city is pretty grim.

Brownsville is broken.  Instead of worrying about investors and stakeholders and cultural district designations, the mayor should be listening to the citizenry and he should be trying to solve the REAL problems that exist in our city.

Infrastructure and urban planning has to be at the top of the list.  I know infrastructure isn't sexy.  I know it isn't a fancy wine and pizza place, but infrastructure is a start.  If the city is in shambles, nothing else matters.  Infrastructure is the foundation of Brownsville, and if we can't spend time, money, and resources to fix that, not a whole lot else is worth fixing.

We need to have a viable, real plan in place to start identifying and analyzing all the infrastructure failures in town; and we need to come up with a plan to start fixing them.  We need people with urban planning and city engineering expertise and education to come up with these plans.  Our streets flood, period.  When it rains, there are several sections of the city that are underwater.  That needs to be fixed.  I get we are close to sea level, and I get that it isn't going to be an easy fix, but we need to be able to get there.  There needs to be a way we can solve our drainage problem.  Also, I understand the soil here in the Lower Rio Grande Valley is unstable and soft, but we need to come up with a way to fix the roads so that they don't break up, shift, and create streets lined with potholes, cracks, and crevices.  There needs to be new technology in the road paving and surfacing industry that can be used to fix the issue.  Refilling potholes is not even a temporary fix anymore.  There are so many other issues that go hand in glove with infrastructure.  Road signs, road general maintenance, and a legitimate centrally controlled traffic center with computers and camera monitoring traffic needs to be put in place.  Traffic along Boca Chica, Ruben Torres, and Alton Gloor, as well as traffic along the highway is terrible and should all be controlled from one central location where a dedicated team of monitors and engineers can make sure traffic runs smoothly.  Emergency management also needs to be addressed.  We are very fortunate we have not had a major natural disaster hit Brownsville, but we need to be prepared for something in case it should happen.

Urban planning also needs to be addressed.  I know Brownsville was one of the first cities in the Valley to have a public transit system, but that system is mired in the past.  The Metro needs restructuring and revitalization.  I don’t know how many times I’ve heard about bus shelters that don’t exist or bus service that isn’t available on a Sunday.  These are things that need to be addressed.  I don’t see why Brownsville is still stuck in the old mentality of nothing important happening on a Sunday, but that is post-WWII thinking.  It is critical that Brownsvillians have access to public transportation every day of the week. 

Public safety needs to be high on the list of priorities as well.  We have made improvements in securing new equipment and vehicles for the Brownsville Fire Department, but now we have to follow suit with the Brownsville Police Department.  We need more police officers.  In addition, we need those police officers to be better equipped with state of the art equipment to be able to combat the increasing threats from the border violence and other issues that plague the city.  The Brownsville Police Department is land-locked.  It should probably be relocated into a newer state of the art facility.  In addition, Brownsville should look into the possibility of breaking up the police department into separate divisions and entities.  Brownsville definitely needs a dedicated traffic division.  I understand Brownsville has a uniform services division that runs patrol.  However, we probably need a separate traffic division with a deputy chief who reports to the chief of police who is solely responsible for traffic enforcement.  We should also create a park police department, similar to what San Antonio has, that is dedicated to patrolling the public spaces downtown and in the other parks and recreational areas around town.  We also need to keep updating the EMS arm of the fire department.  We may need to look in to the option of having private ambulance companies come in to Brownsville to help with response time, or perhaps we should separate EMS from the fire department and have them be run as a separate public safety entity. 

We also need to address the issue of how Brownsville is continuously being taken advantage of.  We need to stop allowing companies to come to Brownsville, save millions of dollars on tax abatements with nothing being given back to the community.  For all of the times the mayor mentions his business acumen, and investors, and stakeholders, and money, you’d think he would want these companies to start investing in the PEOPLE of Brownsville.  Titan Tire, that Italian tractor company, and SpaceX are just a few examples of companies that have come into town, taken millions in tax abatements, and haven’t given Brownsville a whole lot of anything.  SpaceX has broken promise after promise after promise.  They said there would be several jobs created for Brownsville locals.  They said there would be many more jobs created because of all the people visiting to see these rocket launches — to date, none of these things have happened.  They’ve even screwed over the people of South Padre Island.  They thought building an amphitheater so people could see all these rocket launches would benefit them.  Now there aren’t any launches and the amphitheater was still built.  All these companies have done is leave Brownsville’s landscape dotted with half-abandoned warehouses and broken promises.  Soon, if SpaceX has their way, they’ll probably close off access to Boca Chica Beach permanently and displace a beachside community that has existed for generations. 

Education should also be a priority for the mayor.  The UTRGV debacle should have NEVER happened, and it happened while the mayor was a member of the TSC board.  The simple truth is TSC should have vanished a long, long time ago. TSC should have been absorbed by UT Brownsville and the UT System.  The only reason TSC stuck around was to have another taxing entity in Brownsville.  The perfect opportunity for a legitimate split in the two schools was also lost when the Amigoland Mall was acquired.  The Amigoland Mall is more than large enough to have housed all the programs that TSC offers.  The entire TSC campus could have moved to the Amigoland Mall and the UT System could have paid TSC for all the property on their current campus and UT Brownsville could have remained UT Brownsville.  The majority of the undergraduate programs and almost all the graduate programs are being run out of Edinburg.  The day will soon come when UTRGV completely relocates to the old UT-Pan Am campus and leaves Brownsville high and dry.  I’m sure if the university leaders had their way, the move would have happened a long time ago.  Then we have debacles like the one where Texas A&M was booted out of a training program they would have set up at the Port.  Local politicians should be doing their best to bring as many institutions of higher learning to Brownsville, not asking them to leave and never come back.  I would think the mayor’s connections to TSC would make him the perfect person to try and fix the problems with the university and the college. 

In accordance with improvements in our local institutions of higher learning, and if you could work together with the local school district to improve relations between the community and the district, we need to work together to preserve Brownsville’s rich history.  Brownsville is the most historically significant city south of San Antonio, and it should be treated as such.  I am glad to hear the mayor is interested in doing something with the original site of Fort Brown, because it is in a sad state today.  It would be a pity to lose more of Brownsville’s history to the passage of time.  It would be good if the mayor could intervene and put all the drama that is currently going on at the Brownsville Historic Association to rest.  We need to put all of the petty bickering and hidden agendas aside and move forward in educating the community just how historically significant Brownsville is.  Brownsville has played a major role in the development of Texas and in the development of the United States.  We have a rich history that spans all kinds of ethnic groups, and we should honor that.  We are very fortunate to be at the crossroads of several different cultures.  We should celebrate those cultures coming together.  The city needs to take a more active role in promoting Charro Days as that cultural celebration.  We do not need a new annual celebration in February.  We already have one.  Charro Days has also become mired in corruption, scandal, and behind the scenes power-grabs.  We need to remember why it is that we celebrate Charro Days, and we need the city to bring the different entities in charge of the celebration together to make it what it once was instead of what it has become.  We need lest beer festivals and less wine tastings and more celebrations of our history and our cultural uniqueness.

The mayor needs to listen to the people rather than the special interests.  I get that he has a vested interest in seeing downtown flourish, but the simple fact is there are more important things to worry about rather than hike and bike trails and beautification pet-projects.  He should be working to bring legitimate companies to town that are going to be a part of the community, lay down roots, and bring good paying jobs to the people of Brownsville.  Politicians often forget their job is to serve their constituents and do things that are in the community’s best interest.  Being mayor is not a vanity exercise.  The mayor has an opportunity to do a lot of good for Brownsville, but he is definitely not heading in the right direction.  Brownsville needs fixing.  Brownsville needs healing.  Brownsville needs a leader who is capable of listening to the people and doing the right thing to fix all the problems that currently ail us. 

I’m sorry, Mr. Mayor, but the state of Brownsville is not strong.  It was, once.  Brownsville was once the crown jewel of Deep South Texas.  We were the anchor of the Magic Valley.  We can be that once again.  If you are willing to set your business interests and gentrification projects aside, we can fix and breathe life into the city.  Brownsville can absolutely be beautiful — Brownsville can absolutely be strong.

Listen to the people.  Listen to Brownsville’s native sons and daughters.  Listen to the people who are crying out for real, legitimate change. 

Lead us.  We can be the Valley’s shining city upon a hill once again.

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UPDATE

I also included an addendum in Mr. Montoya's comment section.  I will also run that on here.

I understand some people will probably read what I’ve written and say, “Well, what are your solutions to all of these things you’re complaining about? It’s one thing to complain and another to offer solutions.”

Respectfully, I submit a plan that can start us on the way to success. One of the things we need to do is look into securing funding for a lot of these projects. The mayor, and the rest of the city commission, need to go to Austin and to Washington D.C. and go with the hustle. They need to present our case to the state and federal governments. We need to swallow our pride and ask them for help. There have to be several state and federal grants that we can apply for to help us get the infrastructure improvements we so desperately need. Grants can be applied for almost everything we need, from road and sidewalk improvements, to road lighting and everything else. Grants can be had for improvements to the library, and I’m certain some of them would be approved. This is where we need to lean on our state and federal legislators. The Lucios, Alex Dominguez, and Filemon Vela can be instrumental in helping us secure some of those grants.

Where grants run out, we can lean on our mayor for help. It appears one of the mayor’s strengths is his business acumen. Brownsville can use that to its advantage. The mayor and the rest of the city commissioners can keep on going with the hustle and try to secure corporate sponsorship for some of the projects he’s proposing. When big companies become rich, they want to become respectable. They want their public image to make them look good instead of looking like a bunch of greedy money-hungry suits. There are several projects that would benefit from corporate sponsorship. A massive zoo refurbishing and renovation project could be funded this way. The mayor’s “Brownsville’s Bountiful Broadband” project (I just came up with that in case someone else wants to take credit for it) slated to bring broadband internet to more people in town could also benefit from corporate sponsors. There are also plenty of wealthy people in Brownsville who we could lean on. Lots of Brownsville’s ruling class don’t pay taxes on the historic mansions they live in. There are people who have made millions in their business ventures. Perhaps instead of trying to create a political machine that controls local politicians (OP 10.33), some of those funds can be diverted into some of these projects.

In other cases, we may be able to go directly to the manufacturers of equipment we may need. Brownsville is in desperate need of better and brighter street lights. Maybe there’s a company that is working on a new generation of LED street lights, and they would be interested in using Brownsville as a test city to see how their products work. Chicago and their Department of Innovation & Technology is undertaking a massive project to install “better quality, more reliable LED fixtures on streets, alleys and viaducts to increase safety, reduce energy, and improve the environment. The city wide lighting initiative will replace over 270,000 existing outdated High Pressure Sodium light fixtures with new energy-efficient LED lights…” There is absolutely no reason why we can’t have a department of innovation and technology to think of ideas like this.

Speaking of energy, Brownsville needs to seriously revisit the structure and organization of the Public Utilities Board. There are definitely advantages to having the PUB structured the way it is. In other cities, their water, light, and garbage collecting bills are all separate. I like the idea of having to pay one bill for all of those services. That said, the rates we are paying are too high. Brownsville needs to be at the forefront of alternative sources of energy. The mayor and the city commission should be looking towards encouraging new homeowners to consider the possibility of installing solar panels on their property. We should also be looking into the possibility of building wind farms here in town. These wind turbines already come into South Texas via the Port of Brownsville. There’s no reason why Brownsville can’t have a wind farm somewhere in the city limits. All that said, the city needs to look into the whole Tenaska power plant debacle and why we’re still paying exorbitant amounts of money on our energy bill for a power plant that will probably never be built. We need to figure out a way to start reducing the electrical rates and giving that money back to the consumers in the form of discounts and credits on their PUB bills. If Brownsville is going to stay in the utility business, they should figure out a way to make the power affordable for all the residents of the city. Struggling for basic necessities like light, water, and garbage collection should be absolutely unacceptable in an industrialized nation.

We don’t need more taxes. There is more than one way to skin a cat. We can figure out how to improve this city without bleeding its citizens dry. THIS is what city leadership should be trying to do. They should be concentrating on trying to figure out how to fix the real, legitimate problems we have here rather than trying to figure out how to give cyclists more access to bike trails. We need to learn how to prioritize. To quote Friedrich Nietzsche, “He who would learn to fly one day must first learn to stand and walk and run and climb and dance; one cannot fly into flying.”

Mr. Mayor, we’re still learning how to stand, walk, and run. Don’t fly us into flying.