FUROR ERUPTS IN DISTRICT 4 HOOD AFTER "SELECTIVE" PAVING

By Juan Montoya
The trouble from his neighbors for former City of Brownsville commissioner Ernesto de Leon started about two weeks ago.
At that time, city Public Works crews arrived and patched the potholes in front of his house on Jade Street. Neighbors around the corner on Lewis Street confronted him and asked him why the crews had patched his street and not Lewis, which is the main thoroughfare used by motorists to traverse between Honeydale and Russell streets.

"Is it because elections are coming and the commissioner for District 4 (John Villarreal) wants to get you on his side/," he said neighbors asked him.
"I told them I knew nothing about why the crews had come to my street and not to,Lewis," de Leon said. "And I didn't. It has been way back, probably back in 2002, when they last came out to patch."

Not long after the patching was done on Jade Street all the way to Fairfax Street and his neighbors on Lewis started complaining to the city and city commissioner Villarrreal, crews for a private company – GT Paving – appeared on the scene and began scarifying over the patchwork done by the city  crews. Then they started doing the overlay. They started at the intersection of Honeydale and Lewis, headed east and went south on Jade, and then all the way to Fairfax. (See graphic, click to enlarge.)

The section of Lewis between Jade and Russell was not included in the overlay plans, workers said.
"Our contract only calls for us to pace Lewis from Honeydale up to Jade and then go to Fairfax and include Emerald Street," said a flagman at the corner of Jade and Lewis. "That doesn't include the section between Jade and Russell." (See graphic at right of the intersection looking south on Jade from Lewis Street. The section to the right of the flagman on Lewis all the way to Russell is not included in the paving contract.)

"Now, how can they leave out Lewis from Jade to Ruissell if it's the main thoroughfare used by people to get from Honeydale to Central Blvd.?," a neighbor on the section that was not to paved asked. "Don't we pay taxes, too?"

The section of Lewis from Jade to Russell bears the scars and potholes of through traffic, said a resident of the section.
"People sue it as a shortcut from Honeydale to Central Blvd," he said. "The traffic that passes through here doesn't live in this neighborhood."

The sudden paving of streets just before the start of voting in city elections is not a new gimmick. City commissioners are infamous for pulling out all the stops on paving street just before voting begins. In this case, early voting starts April 24. Villarreal is being challenged by former chief municipal judge Ben Neece.