THE VOTERS HAVE SPOKEN: HANG ON FOR THE RIDE

By Juan Montoya
Now that the voters of the city have given Mayor Tony Martinez the go-ahead to steer the Good Ship Browntown in whatever direction he wishes by handing victories to his allies Estela Chavez-Vasquez and John Villarreal, the ball is in his court to decide which way the city will go.
It's not an easy chore awaiting Martinez and the new city commission.
With a chronic unemployment rate of more than 12 percent leading the state and the country, Martinez is going to have to decide whether it's jobs, the environment, trade with Mexico, making nice with the University of Texas, or simply letting go of the helm and letting the natural flow of events and interests carry us along.
There's no question but that the mayor's overwhelming victory May 14 influenced the runoff results yesterday. Still, one must look at the results with a jaundiced eye and take them in the context in which thehy occurred.
It is ludicrous for any one group to take credit for the results. The candidates worked hard to try to attract voters by the traditional means available all candidates: campaign sings, phone banks, mail-ins, precinct workers, and here and there a newspaper ad.
Only 3,124 ballots were cast in the runoff election, a paltry 4.28 percent of the 73,039 registered voters in Brownsville. If you take into consideration the fact that half of those who voted decided the outcomes of the two races to decide the representation for a city of nearly 250,000 people, then you come to the conclusion that perhaps 2.5 percent of the registered voters decided the political representation of the rest of us.
Chavez-Vasquez was elected Commissioner at Large "A" with 2,075 votes while her opponent
Robert Lopez drew 999. In the race for Commissioner District 4, Villarreal drew 640 to Dr.
Tony Zavaleta's 501.
Now that the dust has settled, we can hardly wait to see what direction this commission will take on a number of issues affecting the city and its political climate.
On the matter of the gagging of public comments during city meetings that was placed into effect at the recommendation of contract attorney Mark Sossi: Will this commission continue to censor the statements of public commenters by not televising the often critical statements from the city's public channel?
On the issue of the continued funding of United Brownsville: Will this city commission continue to use public funds to fund a non-elected (and non-accountable) board of directors to the tune of $25,000 from the city treasury, and another $25,00 each from the Brownsville Public Utilities Board, Brownsville Navigation District, Brownsville Independent School District, University of Texas at Brownsville and Texas Southmost College, Brownsville Community Improvement Corp. and Greater Brownsville Incentive Corporation?
And the new commission will also have to decide whether the $120,000 that the former council approved for Sossi for part-time work will continue. Local gadfly Argelia Miller has already written Martinez and pointed out that city records indicate that Sossi may have been overpaid and questioned his hiring of a law firm to city contracts to which he agreed to pay $164,000 as outlined in a court settlement after he was taken to court.
And city observers are watching closely to see whether this new commission will reopen the PUB impact-fee debate to favor local developers which had been subsidized by utility ratepayers for decades until the former mayor at Ahuamda – riding a mandate the voters gave him four years ago – convinced a recalcitrant city commission to increase fom a ridiculously low $300 to nearly $4,000 per lot.
It goes without saying that whether your candidates won or whether they lost, the new city commissioners bear the responsibility of representing all of us, not just those who supported them. The elections are over and now the commission gets down to the public's business.
As one commenter to a previous post on this blog stated: "We'll be watching."