By Juan Montoya
As the City of Brownsville and Cameron County wrestle with the thorny issue of balancing their budgets by cutting services or raising fees, the once dependable method of raising funds from higher bridge-crossing fees at the Los Tomates International Bridge has ceased to become an option.
Planners from both entities have reported that income from that shared international crossing has dropped precipitously for the current fiscal year by some estimates as much as 44 percent.
"We are projecting that the income from Los Tomates for this fiscal year ending September 30 will be somewhere around $606,500," said Assistant City manager for Finance Pete Gonzalez. "That's a 43.9 percent shortfall compared to cash payments for last year."
Already, there is some talk that of raising property taxes if the continuing cutbacks do not produce the amounts necessary to
balance the FY 12 budget.
Gonzalez and his Cameron County counterpart Pete Sepulveda point to the growing violence in northern Mexico as one reason for the lower traffic counts at Los Tomates. A day doesn't pass that reports from Matamoros, Rio Bravo, Reynosa and northern Mexico in general indicate that a free-fire zone has been created as the battle over turf between rival drug cartels and between the different armed groups and the Mexican military rages there.
But there is another statistic that is aggravating the lower crossings at Los Tomates, although neither man will willingly acknowledge that as a prime reason for the decrease in the truck traffic there.
An Open Records Act request for traffic citations and fines at Los Tomates issued by the Texas Department of Public Safety troopers (zorrillos) yielded some eye-opening numbers. The citations issued at Los Tomates are processed by the Brownsville Municipal Court for administrative convenience, with the city keeping court costs.
So far this fiscal year (Oct. 1, 2010-June 30, 2011), there have been 152 citations assessed and a total of 172 violations issued during that time.
The total for fines assessed to truckers was $42,605.
And, a closer look at the list of citations indicate that they came in spurts. For example, on June 10, 2011, seven citations were issued to truckers, most of them between 12:20 and 5 p.m. On October 26, another 7 were issued, with the majority (4) between 7:30 and 7:40. Just the day before, on Dec. 25 another six citations were issued. Five were issued on October 25, another 14 on October 14, and another four Dec. 9.
Troopers were especially busy in the period between June 6 to June 9 this year, issuing 14 citations within that three-day period.
The fines for trucks are not light. They vary from $150 for defective turn lamps to $409 to brakes out of adjustment. Being overweight by more than 5,000 pounds carries a $540 fine and $315 for brake drums and pads saturated with grease and oil. There's even one for no interstate fuel permit ($165).
All this is leading some truckers to wonder whether it's worth the trouble to go through Los Tomates.
"I know of some truckers who make the longer trip around other international bridges further up river than to go through Los Tomates," said a truck company dispatcher near the bridge. "The word has gotten out that DPS will be at Los Tomates on certain days and they choose to go further upriver instead. It may be a little more fuel, but it comes up cheaper than paying those stiff fines coming and going."
Sepulveda would not venture to comment on whether the county was aware of the crackdown by DPS at Los Tomates, but Gonzalez said that if this was the case, he wasn;t against the enforcement of traffic and safety violations on Mexican truckers, but that the enforcement should be even-handed.
"We wouldn't ask that they stop enforcing the law, but if they're are going to do it to us here, they should do it all up the line," he said. "If that is the reason that our crossings are down, then it has to concern us when we're trying to pass a balanced budget."
As the City of Brownsville and Cameron County wrestle with the thorny issue of balancing their budgets by cutting services or raising fees, the once dependable method of raising funds from higher bridge-crossing fees at the Los Tomates International Bridge has ceased to become an option.
Planners from both entities have reported that income from that shared international crossing has dropped precipitously for the current fiscal year by some estimates as much as 44 percent.
"We are projecting that the income from Los Tomates for this fiscal year ending September 30 will be somewhere around $606,500," said Assistant City manager for Finance Pete Gonzalez. "That's a 43.9 percent shortfall compared to cash payments for last year."
Already, there is some talk that of raising property taxes if the continuing cutbacks do not produce the amounts necessary to
balance the FY 12 budget.
Gonzalez and his Cameron County counterpart Pete Sepulveda point to the growing violence in northern Mexico as one reason for the lower traffic counts at Los Tomates. A day doesn't pass that reports from Matamoros, Rio Bravo, Reynosa and northern Mexico in general indicate that a free-fire zone has been created as the battle over turf between rival drug cartels and between the different armed groups and the Mexican military rages there.
But there is another statistic that is aggravating the lower crossings at Los Tomates, although neither man will willingly acknowledge that as a prime reason for the decrease in the truck traffic there.
An Open Records Act request for traffic citations and fines at Los Tomates issued by the Texas Department of Public Safety troopers (zorrillos) yielded some eye-opening numbers. The citations issued at Los Tomates are processed by the Brownsville Municipal Court for administrative convenience, with the city keeping court costs.
So far this fiscal year (Oct. 1, 2010-June 30, 2011), there have been 152 citations assessed and a total of 172 violations issued during that time.
The total for fines assessed to truckers was $42,605.
And, a closer look at the list of citations indicate that they came in spurts. For example, on June 10, 2011, seven citations were issued to truckers, most of them between 12:20 and 5 p.m. On October 26, another 7 were issued, with the majority (4) between 7:30 and 7:40. Just the day before, on Dec. 25 another six citations were issued. Five were issued on October 25, another 14 on October 14, and another four Dec. 9.
Troopers were especially busy in the period between June 6 to June 9 this year, issuing 14 citations within that three-day period.
The fines for trucks are not light. They vary from $150 for defective turn lamps to $409 to brakes out of adjustment. Being overweight by more than 5,000 pounds carries a $540 fine and $315 for brake drums and pads saturated with grease and oil. There's even one for no interstate fuel permit ($165).
All this is leading some truckers to wonder whether it's worth the trouble to go through Los Tomates.
"I know of some truckers who make the longer trip around other international bridges further up river than to go through Los Tomates," said a truck company dispatcher near the bridge. "The word has gotten out that DPS will be at Los Tomates on certain days and they choose to go further upriver instead. It may be a little more fuel, but it comes up cheaper than paying those stiff fines coming and going."
Sepulveda would not venture to comment on whether the county was aware of the crackdown by DPS at Los Tomates, but Gonzalez said that if this was the case, he wasn;t against the enforcement of traffic and safety violations on Mexican truckers, but that the enforcement should be even-handed.
"We wouldn't ask that they stop enforcing the law, but if they're are going to do it to us here, they should do it all up the line," he said. "If that is the reason that our crossings are down, then it has to concern us when we're trying to pass a balanced budget."
5 comments:
To the idiots that think that DPS is hurting the economy by doing their job??? Remember, they are "to serve and protect!!! I commend their presence to enforce State law and ensure the safety of the citizens of Cameron County!!! That is their job!!! I am sick and tired that a dollar dictates the "right thing to do??? I am sick and tired of this country allowing third world countries do what they want in our country!!! If you are a good driver, then you would know that semi's from Mexico are nothing more than "rolling death traps" driven by illiterate operators. The tone will change when one of these rolling death traps kill somebody???
AMEN!
The laws the law. You can' t have it both ways.Unless you live in Cameron County & are one of the chosen few who can get away with breaking the law by being related or a friend of a friend.
The people that really hurt the county are the members of the Cameron Co. Appraisal District. They have undervalued most of the property in the county....their "probrecito" appraisal. They under-value homes and over-valure property. Its a great scam.....keep the poor people happy by low appraisals and hit the big proterty owners with over-pricing. The Cameron County Appraisal District can't be trusted.
Give everyone a break, anonymous 2:56 pm, your are total confused, but then again who isn't???
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