A P.U.B. CREW BATTLES A GEYSER: THREATEN PHOTOG ARREST

(Ed.'s Note: We received this photo in our email from one of our seven readers who just happened to be passing by Sixth Street next to the Brownsville Museum of Fine Arts and across the street from the Gladys Porter Zoo. He said the geyser of water from a faulty connection had been flowing for the better part of half an hour after he went to the Cameron County Courthouse on Harrison Street a block south of the museum.

A three-man crew from the public Utilities Board had been attempting to replace the faulty coupling without much success. Did they cause the crack in the connection with that pickax visible on the left side of the picture? When he alighted at the Linear Park parking to snap a shot, the man in the white safety suit (barely visible behind the palm tree at right), told him that he was not permitted to snap pictures of PUB crews working.

If he did not stop taking pictures, he said, he would have to call the Brownsville Police Dept. and report him for taking pictures from about 20 feet away separated by a ditch, and on a public park as they attempted (unsuccessfully) to fix the problem in the public right-of-way.

Now, we don't blame our contributor for stopping to take the picture. It's not often we get to see PUB crews actually working. Usually it's one guy working and another half dozen watching him leaning on their shovels. But our question is this: If a member of the public is not interfering with their work and he is in a public facility (Linear Park) taking pictures of public employees, does BPD have the authority to take a complaint from the workers and arrest the picture taker?

We understand that it must have been frustrating and embarrassing for the PUB guys not being able to fix the geyser as fast as they might have wanted to, but to threaten a member of the public with arrest for taking a picture seems like a stretch of their right to privacy.

Someone should have a constitutional sensitivity training seminar and take our friend in white aside and inform he that the public has rights just as he does. In fact, if he is getting paid from the public's dollar (or utility rates), and he is on the public right-of-way, his expectations of privacy are greatly diminished. Let's hope they finally got the geyser plugged and their savage breasts are soothed before they impose martial law.)