By Juan Montoya
Somewhere, somehow, someone in Brownsville hit upon the idea that yo
u can fix a problem by making yourself and getting others to believe that the problem doesn't exist.
u can fix a problem by making yourself and getting others to believe that the problem doesn't exist.This "emperor has no clothes" mentality pervades this border city.
Unfortunately, instead of listening to the bare bones truth, our city fathers (and moms) have instead opted to follow the sirens' song to perdition.
The case of "Imagine Brownsville" is such a case.
We all know what the problems are. We live in a poverty-stricken region. Half our population is English illiterate (if not also Spanish). We can't decide whether we want to become a tourist/service attraction or a manufacturing economy. Our infrastructure is non-existent. Our drainage system harks back to the bygone days of agriculture, when we were satisfied with building ditches to bring in water from the river, not drain it out to the sea.
We are content to attract outside industry by giving away our tax base as an incentive and offering our people as cheap labor. And our local university and its administrators live high off the hog by (again) giving up our tax base and dumbing down our students. To drum up the fact that only 16 percent of our students graduate from the local university is downright embarrassing.
Yet, these folks are held up as paragons of our community and live lavishly while the local taxpayer is further burdened not only with subsidizing their lifestyle, but also subsidizing the wealthiest university system fed by the oil and gas royalties of Texas.
So what's our response to these very basic issues?
Instead of biting the bullet and going about fixing the problems such as adopting a massive public works project to institute a true drainage system, we settle for retaining ponds and using the streets as ditches for the water runoff to the antiquated irrigation system we use for drainage.
What do we do to make us feel better about this?
How about massive feel-good public relations campaigns? Want to attract tourism? How about a nice slogan and a Breeden logo:"A History as Big as Texas?" Yeah, that's the ticket.
Never mind that when the tourists come all they'll encounter will be windswept, shopping-bag decorated mesquite scrub land and second-hand stores and tire shops. Look up at the sky and what will they see? A conflagration of utility wires and electric poles on either side of our thoroughfares. And why haven't the smart boys come up with a warm and fuzzy PR campaign like "Adopt a Pothole" so that we can get the citizenry involved in making this town a better place to live?
And how about our unemployment? Are we content to continue using the university as a incubator for "production engineers" for the maquilas across the river? Do you know that half of the welders along the Gulf Coast come from Brownsville? Unless you tap into the corruption and compadrismo either at the BISD, PUB, BND, the county and the city, youse gotta go, bro.
Of course, if you want to be connected, you gotta keep your trap shut. It's just not good form to point out that the emperor (and empress) have no clothes.
Emma over the Holler pointed out that between all these entities we pay close to $500,000 to "public information officers" to make us feel good about the squalor around us.
Now Imagine Brownsville (or whatever new name that Rusteberg-Garcia shadow government
has now adopted) is here to solve our problems.
You don't have to think about dropout and the unemployed and illiterate. Our Imagine Brownsville is going to imagine all that away. For a small, fee, of course.
And once the McAllen-based sleight-of-hand artists walk away with our dough, guess what will remain? How about the same problems we have avoided all along? How long can this go on?
The answer to that question? Until we say enough and put a stop to it. The powers that be have demonstrated they don't really care. The people who are supposed to address those issues instead are satisfied to pay some slick PR guy to make it (imagine it) all go away.
Believe it or not, it's going to be up to us to change it. Are we up to it?
2 comments:
Fine fine piece on the latest scam ... and good job on noting what IS needed, and is NOT discussed by Imagine Brownsville ....
Very good article Mr. Montoya, now if only everyone would read it and demand changes, we be okay. The sad truth is that there is apathy, and you speak and write untill your face is blue. But our uncaring locals refuse to make changes.
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