BRAND LOYALTY: NONE CAN BREAK THE TIES THAT BIND

(Ed.'s Note: More than as few readers have sent us in this new Facebook profile picture of the Harlingen's Convention and Visitor's Bureau's new department head Melissa Landin (previously Zamora). Melissa was formerly the Cameron County District Attorney's  Public Information Officer (PIO) Some pointed out that all Melissa has to is post anything and her former boss Luis Saenz is one of the first – if not the first – to post a like to her submission. At Saenz's shop he didn't call herself a PIO, however. Her bio lists that gig as Spokesperson/Public Information Officer. On the DA's salary schedule, she was listed as a secretary. Before that she served as a Brownsville city commissioner, a vice-president for an ad agency, and VP for public relations with the South Padre Island Convention and Visitors Bureau. In one of her previous lifetimes she was a newspaper reporter wiht the Brownsville Herald. Right before her former boss' reelection, Landin opted to depart for greener pastures as a PIO for the City of Harlingen and has been promoted to her current position since. As head of the Harlingen CVB, she is now working with city leaders to build a much-delayed center for the VCB. Mayor Chris Boswell said the city will borrow as much as $10 million to build the 43,000-square-foot convention center, using sales tax revenue earmarked for economic development and hotel occupancy taxes to pay off the debt. Boswell said the city plans to sell about $8 million to $9 million in certificates of obligation to help fund the convention center, to be built at the growing Harlingen Heights business district’s northwest quadrant. The city plans to pay back the debt through sales tax revenue generated through the Harlingen Community Improvement Board, which operates with a $2.7 million fund balance while generating about $1.3 million a year. Boswell said the city, which generates about $1 million a year in hotel occupancy tax revenue, also plans to dip into that revenue stream to pay back the debt. Brownsville and South Padre Island, which are in stiff competition for the "heads in beds" dollars coming to South Texas, probably don't relish the thought of having Zamora on the other side. But Saenz, even as he still seethes at the 49 percent of the voters who did not vote for him for DA, apparently still ha a soft spot for his former PIO.)