Cameron County Precinct 1 Commissioner Sofia Benavides will announce she is seeking reelection for a third term on the steps of the Cameron County Oscar Dancy Building, 1100 E. Madison Street, at 5:30 p.m. today.
Benavides, who took over the unexpired term of her late husband commissioner Pete Benavides, has been reelected twice since her appointment to Pct. 1.
Pct. 1 covers an economic and socially diverse area encompassing the area from the Gateway Bridge eastward to Southmost, Boca Chica Beach and South Padre Island.Benanvides says that ever since she joined her late husband, she has shared his vision of improving the quality of life and economic opportunity for all the residents in the county. She said her work on recreational projects like Isla Blanca Park improvements, boat ramps like the Jaime Zapata Park and social service centers are examples of her commitment to his legacy and their joint vision.
Some example she cited were:
*UTRGV: Working with our partners in education, local municipalities, our colleagues in Hidalgo County, and the University of Texas System Board of Regents, we moved forward with plan to create a new world-class university in South Texas. The University of Texas Rio Grande Valley – UTRGV – will generate hundreds of high-paying jobs and attract researchers and scientists. It will also provide world-class educational opportunities to our local students.
*Space X: I am proud to say that I was personally involved in bringing Space X to Pct. 1. Not only will it bring an estimated 300 jobs and create $85 million in capital investment in South Texas, But it will also make us the center of the commercial space industry with jobs and economic opportunity for our people and educational opportunities for our children.
*Second Causeway to South Padre Island: After the collapse of the Queen Isabella Causeway in 2001, a second access to the island has been in the plans. We are nearing that goal now. Not only will it provide a hurricane evacuation for the island, but it will also increase economic opportunities for the residents of Pct. 1 and the rest of Texas.
* Port of Brownsville: Construction of just one of five proposed LNG projects would support an average of 675 on-site jobs over a four-year period, which translates to approximately $324 million in direct labor income for Texans, according to an Ernst and Young economic analysis completed in February 2015. Once operational, the facility would employ about 165 workers at an average salary of about $70,000 a year.
6 comments:
UTRGV- Not much to do with Sofia's work.
SpeceX- She did help give away county properties to spacex.
Second causeway- She did make sure our county tax money is paying for that through $10. from our vehicle tag fees.
Port of Brownsville- She is bending over backward to bring in LNGs with tax abatements totaling in many millions (much more than the jobs will bring).
Quality of life is heading down the toilet. With a record like that- we might not survive another one of her terms.
She should be apologizing for each of those three things. They are going to cost us more then we will profit from them. Is there a politician anywhere that looks to the long term consequences of their actions? Someone that looks beyond the next election cycle.
SpaceX will deprive us of full access to Boca Chica Beach while removing important wetlands from our environment and impacting much of the surrounding area. A new causeway will seriously affect the natural tidal flow in the bay. Think of every piling as a tiny dam and then add them all up. Look for a higher salinity in the bay once the flushing action of the tide is reduced. This will be bad but at least the developers north of SPI township will be able to advertise that they are only minutes from a golf course. By the way, the claim that we need a 2nd causeway for hurricane evacuation is bogus. It just allows people to leave the Island later then they should. There is always enough notice of a storm to allow for the full evacuation of the Island if people would do so in a timely fashion. Why should the rest of pay so they can stay hoe a few hours longer? And as for LNG, I call bullshit on the employment claims (SpaceX, too -- the city and the county are the ones making extravagant employment claims for SpaceX. SpaceX mentions significantly fewer numbers). There are many negatives associated with the LNG plants, some noted in previous posts but just to belabor it; one of the local claims for LNG is that it is clean energy. Well, yes, it is but it doesn't come out of the ground that way. The impurities will be cleaned out of the natural gas on the banks of our ship channel and those impurities will be put into our atmosphere. It will be Russia and China that enjoy the benefits of the clean fuel. Admittedly, it is a good thing for the Russians and Chinese to reduce their air pollution but not at the expense of our air.
The Port of Corpus Christi is 120 miles nearer to the gas fields then is the Port of Brownsville. That's many millions of extra dollars in pipeline construction costs. I think they want to come here because they already have been given the word that they can get away with more here with a minimum of political accountability.
When I was a kid, growing up in Brownsville the Fort Brown Resaca was clear water. We used to sight cast to bass hanging alongside the aquatic vegetation that that grew up from the bottom and anchored the mud, keeping it from being stirred up and muddying the water much like a grass lawn keeps the dust from blowing up. At that time water skiing was allowed in the Resaca but the water skiers complained about the vegetation, apparently it fouled their props and felt creepy to swim in, too. So the city poisoned the vegetation to accommodate the skiers. The unintended consequence being that, as it turned out, the aquatic vegetation not only kept the water clear but dampened the boat wakes. Without the vegetation suppressing the wakes they hit the banks with greater force and begin to erode the banks of the Resaca. So power boats were banned. We ended up with a muddy lake with no game fish and no skiing. Each one of the proposed projects will come with unintended consequences.
NEVER FEAR! RUBEN GALLEGOS JR IS HERE! RE-ELECTION GUARENTEED!
Any worthwhile investment takes time to see worthy returns. Only idiots with short term vision can't see it.
I wonder what her level of education is, she had nothing to do with UTRGV, that was a done deal. Regarding Space X, there is lots of talk, job creation is not going to be what they are predicting, furthermore, many of the employees are coming from out of the Valley. Maybe, the yard or maintenance of the the offices, will done by locals.
At times I fell embarrassed when I hear comments from people like sofia, this is what the Valley offers, sad. People who vote for this woman, have to be mentally challenged.
The Hernandez are still trying to get in. Maybe they will one of the Hernandez for office.
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