The Surfrider Foundation South Texas Chapter's "Cite Litter Violators In Cameron County Beach Parks Petitition" (SIGN
AND COMMENT NOW) has definitely taken off and I can't tell you how
stoked we are with the amount of signatures and comments that have been
posted to the petition site. At the time of me writing this, there are
621 signatures of our 2,500 signature goal and hundreds of comments to
go along with them! Our goal is to get to 1,000 by the July 5th, 2012 Cameron County Commissioners Court Meeting at
8:30AM where they will be discussing this important issue. Judge
Cascos has put it early on the agenda for convenience of those that want
to be there!Once again, the problem of actually issuing a litter citation is already being used as an excuse for not aggressively enforcing litter laws. In a response to an email sent to Judge Carlos Cascos from a concerned citizen, Judge Cascos wrote, "We will do all that we can, but at the end of the day, the ultimate responsibility of keeping our beaches clean are the users. However, we should be aggressively monitoring glass on the beach. We need to make sure that our law enforcement officials are enforcing the laws we have in place already, however, every single law enforcement officer I have spoken to have told me that unless they see someone actually discarding trash, they're hands are tied. They cannot make assumptions or speculate as to whom the trash belongs to unless there is some kind of evidence tying the trash to that particular individual."
This mindset of the challenge of issuing litter citations is limited in the way enforcement can be achieved and is a wall that is constantly put up when this debate comes back up. However, as I stated in the Letter to the Editor that was submitted last week, there are solutions to this and ways citations can be written after seeing violators leave trash behind. Simply put; wait until the end of the day, between 5:30 and 7PM and watch as they leave and THEN issue the ticket after they have packed up and left their area for home. It is literally a commitment of just an hour and a half instead of the entire day. Furthermore, if it is a glass violation, that citation can be written on the spot. It just takes actually having officers (Deputy Constables, Code Enforcement or even Park Rangers if need be) on the beach patrolling!
People often think of the trash issue as an environmental and public safety issue by itself and there is no doubt that it is but it goes much further than that and in to a much larger picture. That picture is beach access and the public's right to access and use Texas Public Beaches. Why in the world would decision makers or those that own businesses and homes on the beach want to have large groups of people out there that are going to continually disrespect and trash that beach making it dangerous for them, their families and their customers? Beach litter on the scale that we are seeing in Cameron County is a huge weapon in the movement to continue to gut the Open Beaches Act and privatize Texas beaches. The Rio Grande valley is quite literally shooting themselves in the foot by destroying the beaches that the Surfrider Foundation and Texas Constitution says they have every right to use and enjoy! My Parents and Grandparents taught me to respect what I love or someday I would lose it. I know hundreds of others my age that were taught the same thing. What happened with this lesson in Deep South Texas? Has it been lost? I wrote a post on this last year tying beach trash to the loss of our beach rights and I still believe it is a problem now.
At a time when the Texas Chapters of the Surfrider Foundation are organizing and getting ready to launch a major campaign to get the Open Beaches Act fully restored, the litter on our Cameron County Beaches is actually getting worse and providing literally piles of ammunition for our opponents to use against us!
The big picture is this. If South Texans continue to destroy our beaches and create a public safety risk on the scale that we have never before seen, then the Open Beaches Act is dead in the water before the Surfrider Foundation can even get started helping them preserve their rights to access and use those beaches! We educate the public and we clean up after them every day! The County Parks and Recreation Department does the same thing.
What we need is a real aggressive and concerted effort by Constable Zamora and his Deputies to assist us and help change the attitudes, behavior and culture of some of our beach users now before it is too late!
Take action now! Sign the petition, leave your comments and pass it on to your friends and families so we can present your support for litter law enforcement for cleaner and safer beaches to the Cameron County Commissioners Court on July 5th!
SIGN THE PETITION HERE!
CONTACT YOUR CAMERON COUNTY COMMISSIONER BELOW AND FIND OTHER WAYS TO PLUG IN HERE!
- Judge Carlos Cascos- Carlos.Cascos@co.cameron.tx.us
- Pct.1 Commissioner Sofia Benavides- sofia.benavides@co.cameron.tx.us
- Pct.2 Commissioner Ernie Hernandez- ernie.hernandez@co.cameron.tx.us
- Pct.3 Commissioner David Garza- DAGarza@co.cameron.tx.us
- Pct.4 Commissioner David Sanchez- 956-427-8069 (No email available)
- Pct.1 Constable Horacio Zamora- horacioa.zamora.co.cameron.tx.us
- Parks and Recreation Director Javier Mendez- JMendez@co.cameron.tx.us
- Parks and Recreation Deputy Director Joe Vega- JEVega@co.cameron.tx.us
9 comments:
County Parks cannot afford to clean up since they are spending their budgeted money on fixing vehicle wrecked by that ass-kissing idiot!!!
Great article. The citizens of Cameron County are far more of an enviornmental problem than SpaceX, wind farms, oil drilling, etc. Citizens regularly dump their trash on the beaches, in drainage ditches, along highways, or just throw it out of their car for their own personal convenience. Changing behavior is not easy, but if folks are ticketed that helps change behavior. Too often here laws are not enforced a) for political reasons...to get votes, b) due to the fact that poor people are the ones who are most likely to litter, or 3) because it is not a task that officials, especially law enforcement want to dirty their hands with. It is time to get serious. Conrado Cantu, as Constable, proved that enforcement can make a difference.
lol, is NOT THAT THEY DON'T HAVE MONEY TO CLEAN UP OUR PARKS, this is what I call LAZYNESS AND LACK OF RESPONSIBILITY FROM THE CITY MANAGERS AND SUPERVISORS!!! Bunch of lazy ass people!!! no wonder all these lazy CITY and COUNTY employees are soooo freaking fat!! they dont do shit for our community!! but yet they do have benefits and get paid lots of freaking money just so that asses can be sitting around and doing nothing!! Thats where my Taxes go!! to the lazy ass people from the city and county!!! you BASTARDS
beach litter laws are not enforced because they are hard to enforce... you have thousands of families or groups out on the beach celebrating. as they enjoy the day, they accumulate drink cans or other trash around their area. you can try to cite them, but they will complain that they are still there, and that they will pick up before leaving. if they cite, they will be accused of being over zealous. the commissioners will get complaints. on the other hand, if they leave and they don't pick up their litter, then they are gone and there is no one to cite. you can't afford to have people watching every group the whole day waiting for them to leave. i guess they could document the site including license plates with a gps enabled camera and then return and take pics of the aftermath and see if there is a resemblence trashwise. then you could use the license info to cite them after the fact. that might work. all that i am saying is that it is harder than is should be to perform that balancing act. i agree that someone needs to figure something out. but i will also note that tons of trash comes out of the mouth of the river, or from ships
Cameron County Commissioners, get out of the PARKS business ! !
Put the project / department up for PRIVATE BUSINESS for PRIVATE BUSINESS ! !
The buildings are in horrible horrible horrible shape and look like Matamores beaches ! !
I dare each of you to go into any of the bathrooms, even in SPI and forget Access # 5 Access # 6.
NO FUKING / NO SHITTING buildings !
Each of you and the PARKS department should be forced to spend time with your family, your kids, your mother some time at each of the beach locations ! !
Commish DAVID GARZA, you and your wife and kids should dare spend a Sunday afternoon at the beaches and
you will know how FUKING bad, UGLY,
dirty, the bad smell of PISS, SHIT
surrounds you ! !
But no. You got your own private pool or beach house and the hell with the citizens who only want to go to the beach with family.
Commish Hernandez, Commish Sanchez, Commish Benevides please go and stop dont just drive by on any Saturday or Sunday and see
how dis-organized, trashy, horrible
YOUR BELOVED PARK is and then tell your PARKS department GREAT JOB ! !
JUDGE CASCOS, dare you even drive by to see what a mess, A SHIT - HOLE you are allowing in your PARKS department ! !
until you do something, like use millions for new buildings, new bathrooms, new rest areas, new covered areas, picnic tables THEN FUK YOU AND raza keep leaving the trash for the asshole PARKS AND COUNTY COMMISH to throw money to pik up after you ! !
KEEP TRASHING THE BEACHES !
Bola de perros huevones y muertos de ambre de dinero, bien que se chingan al publico por pendejadas y mientras ustedes lo unico que hacen es que se estan mamando el dinero y los beneficios que les da nuestra ciudad, Y la comunidad que? que se chinguen con los parques sucios, con las playas sucias al igual que las resacas y canales!!! todo es un mugrero y nadie de las autoridades hace nada al respecto, bola de ladrones y oportunistas, les dan un buen puesto para que lo cuiden y desarroyen bien y lo unico que hacen es explotarlo y dejarlo sin atender, PERROS INFELICES! Ponganse a trabajar y a desquitar el sueldo que se les paga!! Hagan algo al respecto en ves de estarse mamando la verga uno con otro en el condado, oficinas y mas, lo unico que hacen es estar viendo a quien chingados se van a coger y descuidan sus labores. Pero eso si.. Buenos los putos para cobrar checkes y beneficios. PUTOSSS
I have the answer Montoya! Send Ernie and "Miss Piggy" to eat the trash that is on our beaches. They are pigs and pigs eat anything, no?
How about they raise the entrance fee into isla Blanca park by 3 or 4 bucks? Then use that money to hire people to clean up that beach. When the public starts bitching about why it's so expensive...just respond by saying, "when you assholes start picking up after yourselves we'll lower the entrance fee back to what it was". But maybe that wouldn't work since Cameron county leaders are so corrupt they'd just pocket the money for themselves and not do anything.
Mrs Piggy, we all got u this new home for you to enjoy and free food also. :) Isnt our community very thoughtful with you?
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