BROWNSVILLE'S RENAISSANCE MAN PROWLS DOWNTOWN

By Juan Montoya

We had an opportunity to go downtown to the bowels of the Brownsville Municipal Court to help a traffic offender come out of the cold for a ticket she had received way back in 2007 when we ran into a familiar face.
There he was, Ted Hasse, the iconoclast candidate for the Cameron County Treasurer's office, screwdriver in hand, in all his splendor.
If you'll remember, Hasse was the guy who said he'd abolish the office if he won. However, his opponent's political connections and family name snuffed out those dreams.
"Can you imagine if I had won?" he asked. "I would have been the only political office holder without any responsibility. I could talk freely without and reservations. Sometimes I wonder how that would have worked out."
Around him, various electronic devices – entrails in the open – cluttered his desk and carpet.
With his able assistant, Tad, officially known as the whiz kids of electronic communications and networks at the city, huddled around a bulletin board scribbled with figures and notes to themselves.
"We have been paying for rental space in storage companies for years because we haven't eliminated some of the old records," he said. "Some of these municipal records go back to the 1980s. Others are more recent, but some can be eliminated without hurting department operations of legislated record-keeping statutes."
In my case, the woman's records were in a box in one of the storage companies. Once Tad had identified the storage company where they were located, he directed me to the appropriate municipal court for her to straighten out her situation.
"We want people to come in from the cold," he said. "It eliminates the need for space in storage and we can save some money."
Being near noon, we headed out to try some of then homemade pizza at Barcelona Nights downtown on 1203 E. Adams Street. The restaurant hadn't opened yet so we talked as owner Daniel Lenz and his waitresses made the place ready.
Now, for the uninitiated, Hasse can switch gears easily from his business rental-subsidy ideas to rejuvenate a dormant downtown business district, to his take on black (sorry, dark) matter and his scheme to lure out reluctant black (again, dark) matter neutrons and expose their existence.
He said he had plans, once he worked out the science, to send his paper to Stephen Hawking for his review.
That was just one project. Another involved the use of a multi-faceted plan to use power generation at the port from old oil and to provide shrimpers with fuel at the same time. All this without pollution.
"Nobody liked it because there was no way for anyone get their hands on money on the side," he sighed as he smoked a fifth or sixth cigarette.
Yet another was his plan to manufacture an energy-efficient automobile for the emerging green market.
Once inside, and surrounded by incredibly good painting by Tony Hudson, we tried the pizza. I ordered the Canadian Bacon and cheese toppings. The stuff was delicious. But you won't find this at Pizza Hut or Dominoes. Lenz uses only the real stuff.
When we left, we had the pizza for two and a drink and paid no more than $15.
"Now, before we talk about what to do with the old El Jardin Hotel and widening Elizabeth Street to draw in pedestrian traffic, let me tell you about these shy neutrons," he said.