AT THE PORT, A SHORT MEMORY

By Juan Montoya

We were glancing through the local daily this morning (that's really all it's worth) when we came upon Carlos Masso's tortured ad on his bid for reelection to the board of the Brownsville Navigation District.

There was Carlos with his familiar five-o'clock shadow (now a beard) crowing up the fact that the port has more shipbreakers than any other one in the country.

"They provide many good-paying jobs," his ad states.

Does he not know that the shipbreakers are virtually living hand to mouth nowadays?

The slowdown in the U.S. and world economy has made them scale back on their operations to the point where only the most necessary labor is being used there. Gone are the overtime hours these workers used to count on to survive locally. Instead, only skeleton crews are being employed out there.

While we're at it, doesn't he remember that he was one of the port commissioners who resisted the entry of Bay Bridge Shipbreakers after the existing ones put pressure on the board to maintain the "moratorium" on bringing new shipbreakers to the port?

Everyone from Fr. Jerry Franks with Interfaith, local labor activists, and community members urged the commissioners to allow the new company – who brought full health insurance coverage, wages starting at $10 and hour, and a good environmental reputation – to hire local workers. These wages and benefits were far higher than those offered by the existing companies.

Yet, the majority of the commissioners – Masso included – said "no."

Only Peter Zavaletta spoke out on their behalf.

In the end, the moratorium is still in effect, and the new company had to slow its plans because of the world-wide economic downturn.

Some of us who were involved in the campaign to bring the new company to the port have a slightly better memory than Masso does on this issue and it's still too fresh for us to swallow the campaign swill in his Herald ad.

To be sure, Argelia Miller brings little to the port table as far as having any kind of record in maritime industrial development and management. Given her meager campaign expenditures, she might yet draw a protest vote with those who remember that Masso's boss – Cameron County District Attorney Armando Villalobos – was the only one who got something from Dannenbaum Engineering's sleight-of-hand which made $15 million in unjustified expenditures disappear of the $21 million in bonds issued for the nonexisting port bridge.

Mando got $1 million and Masso was sitting on the port's board when the heist took place. At the very least he might be considered an accessory.

We'll let you take a flip on this one.