DA MAYOR ONE OF 18 GIVEN "TRANSPORTATION" PRIZE

By Juan Montoya

By now we've learned in Brownsville that despite all the prizes awarded to the city and its public officials, life basically remains the same.

We may have the headlines in the local daily that world's biggest zumba dance group assembled here, that more kids dipped their fishing lines in one resaca than have any other group of kids anywhere in then Good Ol' US of A, and that there are more second-hand stores per capita here than in any other place in the country. 

And despite the fact that we have paid good public money to organizations and vendors to make us believe that we live in an All-American City, that we are "Igniting Texas" with rocket launches yet to come, the sad fact remains that our infrastructure (drainage and public works like lighting and pock-marked streets) looks and feels like we were in some of the worst colonias in Matamoros.

It wasn't long ago that tribute-queen Julieta Garcia, the former president of the University of Texas at Brownsville, was receiving so many awards from every possible source of admiration that we all expected her to be canonized before Mother Theresa. We even had testimonies from her former gunslinger Michael Putegnat that he had seen her walk on water across the Ft. Brown resaca one misty dawn. And TSC taxpayers remember when she was able to miraculously convert a $68 million bond election into a $120 million spending binge a la Jesus with the five loaves and two fishes.

For a city on the backwaters of U.S. civilization, we do have a knack for reaping awards and recognition disproportionate to our merits.

We lack sidewalks in three quarters of the city. The city landscape resembles a graveyard of Norwegian pine draped with black electric wiring year round. And if you want to use the city's Brownsville Urban System, be prepared to go to  a pole with a bus stop sign and wait either under the torrid semi-tropical sun or huddled in the cold and rain without any shelter.

Meanwhile, the unassembled bus stop shelters remain at the BUS barn.

But to paraphrase Kasey Kazen, the plaudits just keep on coming.

Our Mayor, Da Honorable Tony Martinez, was just notified by the U.S Dept. of Transportation that – despite the sorry state of our mass transit system – he was one of 18 mayors from across the nation to receive an award for the advancement of bicycle and pedestrian safety projects.

“I was very proud of not only my city group that put that application together, but I think it’s a lot of encouragement to the people in Brownsville for them to know we can compete in a forum we hadn’t done before and be successful,” Martinez told the local daily.

It's apparent that the U.S. Dept. of Transportation took the bait on the city's embellished application in giving Martinez this award.

After all, this is the same mayor who had resisted merging the city's Metropolitan Planning Organization with two others in the Rio Grande Valley to leverage millions more funds for the region in competition with other large urban areas in Texas.

Finally, after Martinez saw that he was the odd man out in the entire valley who did not want to relinquish his provincial control of transportation monies, he said he had seen the light. Now he's all for it.

There will be more prizes, we imagine.

How about the only mayor in South Texas who still sports his circa 1960s hair style well into the second decade of the 21st Century? 

Or how about the only mayor who has capitalized on downtown revitalization by urging his colleagues on the city commission to delve into real-estate speculation and approve the purchase of an over-prized hulk of a building (Casa del Nylon) to benefit his buddies?

Or how about the only mayor who beats his chest with his religious fervor while making loose tongues wag about his romantic prowess?

Meanwhile, as our mayor rises to urban star status, city residents can expect for their resources to continue to be funneled to bike trails, health-craze gimmicks, inane Guinness World Records, and an endless parade of resolutions to curry favor with the different niches of the electorate.

That should keep their minds off the sorry condition of our city streets, the Beirut-like appearance of our downtown area, the ineptness of our over-paid city administration, and the old ladies and children waiting for a bus under the blazing sun.