WHOSE ROAD IS IT? THE CITY'S, STATE'S, OR THE PEOPLE'S?

By Juan Montoya
In what has heretofore been a lax attitude toward candidates and their supporters campaigning on the sidewalks and state-right-of way on Central Boulevard in front of the public library and veterans memorial park, that ground has now become off limits to local residents exercising their right to express their  political preferences.

Instead, the powers-that-be in the City of Brownsville have decided to enforce an ordinance that one cannot advertise on city property.
On its face, that would seem to be a logical justification, yet not one day passes that you don't see someone dressed in sandwich board or in some other goofy outfit offering to buy your gold or prepare your taxes.

So how was it that all of a sudden this type of commercial speech is acceptable in the city, but protected political speech is not?
We asked the Texas Dept. of Transportation under whose jurisdiction the right to campaign on Central Blvd fell.
Their answer was that Central Blvd, in reality U.S. South Business 77, was the state's.


Take a look at the picture on top of this post.
That shows the campaign of 2014 when candidates for just about every position (except for president) were out in force.

There were other elections in pictured depicted here when no one bothered the campaigners as they congregated n front of the library supporting their candidates.

So why the hoopla on Tuesday – the second day of the early voting this year – when the police came out in force (10 cops, eight vehicles and one police chief) to order the campaigner sand candidates to move across Central Blvd. and onto...another state right-of-way in front of Abraham Galonsky's vacant lot?

Brownsville Independent School District candidates Erasmo Castro, Kent Whittemore, and others were told in no uncertain terms to vacate the premises. In the graphic below from a few years ago, cops only admonished the workers of the city commission candidates Martin Sarkis-Letty Perez-Garzoria not to step out into the Central Blvd, roadway.

In the incident on Tuesday, no one was out in the roadway, but police said that the city's anti-advertising ordinance gave it the right to order the removal of the offending campaigners from in front of the library.

We remember when Da Mayor Tony Martinez was running for office. He and his supporters literally set up camp on the grassy area in front of the library. So what happened now that he is mayor? As far as we know, no one was running out on the road or library roadway disrupting the traffic or causing a hazard for library patrons.

So why the double standard in this election? Is it because there are not city commission candidates in the race? Or perhaps the recent wedding jaunt to Portugal for commissioner John Villarreal and Lynette Benavides' wedding introduce the city entourage to the socialist state where authorities use the full powers of the state to impose their rule?