PEOPLE TAKE BACK AIRWAVES: COMMENTS TO BE BROADCAST

By Juan Montoya

You won't be able to shout "fire" in a crowded City Commission meeting, slander or libel another person, or incite a riot.

But with the unanimous vote by the new City of Brownsville Commission at the tail end of Tuesday's regular meeting, you – Joe Public – will be allowed to express your opinion and it will be broadcast on the city's Channel 12 cable television station. The agenda item was placed for consideration and action by new city commissioner Ben Neece and commission Cesar de Leon.

So what, you say?

This right to expression on a public forum bought and paid by city taxpayers has been denied for the last six years based on a self-serving legal opinion by ethically-challenged contract city attorney Mark Sossi. As others have pointed out, Sossi made that determination after comments were made about his settlement with his former law firm were aired by a commenter. Apparently, it irked the lawyer for the city channel viewers at home to learn that had a judgment from his previous employer, the Willette & Guerra Law Firm for pocketing $167,363 belonging to the firm.

And despite Sossi's continued presence advising the city commission  – but now a full time city employee – a unanimous city commission approved the rebroadcasting of the public comments section pending the formulation of new guidelines for speakers. That is about par for the course. The Brownsville Independent School District, Cameron County and the Brownsville Navigation District all have guidelines for public commenters.

All of us were disappointed that Mayor Tony Martinez when he was a candidate promised to bring the public comment section back only to go back on his word once he got elected. That deception only grew once he started speculating in downtown real estate to the detriment of the public treasury and the benefit of his cronies or outside institutions such as the UT System. The people's voice protesting such usurpations of power was sorely missed when that happened.

One would expect that those of us who exercise our craft under the umbrella of the First Amendment would be the first to defend others' rights. Democracy is not a neat system. The struggle of ideas – however unpopular – in a public forum sometimes skirt the edge of civility. But as long as practitioners stay within the parameters of the Bill of Rights and recognize that everyone is entitled to an opinion and that unpopular ideas and criticism of public officials are a necessary leaven of a free society, public discourse will shape – and one hopes, improve – our government.
But we have to watch the fox in the henhouse because it was the same Sossi who justified gagging the public's voice to drafted the new guidelines to broadcast the comments section. Its proponents, Neece and De Leon, should not let down their guard and let Sossi curtail this exercise within constitutional parameters.

Below is a rebuttal to those elitists who think their take on any issue is the exclusive one to logic and who heap disdain on some of our fellow citizens who have had the pluck to make their opinions public in the past. Some, alas, are no longer with us to see the day that the public took back the people's airwaves. The post below as published in the Brownsville Observer published by blogger Jim Barton. 

By Jim Barton
http://brownsvilleobserver.blogspot.com/
From the editor: Those critical of public commenters at city commission meetings frequently used the word "crazy" to describe the participants. City Attorney Mark Sossi, who Mayor (Tony) Martinez asked to make a case against including citizen comments in the Brownsville TV broadcast, used the word "grandstanding" in reference to the taxpayers who signed up for public comment.

Yet, public comment is a feature of participatory democracy, so much needed in a city where only 7% of the registered voters participated in the last city election. To stifle, stymie and squelch the broadcast of public comment is an anti-democratic move, actually cowardly.

It's admirable and courageous for public officials to open up to hard questions in a public forum. Mayor Tony Martinez and the most recent manifestations of the city commission lack that strength and courage.

Let's go back a few years to the time before the broadcast ban of public comment and analyze the type of comments made by the most frequent commenters:

Letty Perez-Garzoria

Letty Perez-Garzoria, always respectful, low-key, carrying herself like a retired schoolmarm, may have inadvertently triggered the exclusion of public comments on the city commission broadcast when she revealed that City Attorney Mark Sossi had a judgement from his previous employer, the Willette & Guerra Law Firm for pocketing $167,363 belonging to the firm. If that wasn't a big enough bombshell, Ms. Garzoria hinted that the City of Brownsville had now engaged Willette & Guerra for some of the city's legal work so as to help "pay" back Sossi's debt.

One would think the mayor, city commission, even city manager would be grateful to Ms. Garzoria for uncovering such an obvious breach of ethics, Brownsville's version of Watergate, or even, Trumpgate, but the city's response was to institute a ban of the broadcast of public comment from that point on.

Roberto Uresti Sans Usual Ballcap

Perhaps the most prolific of public commenters, typically with a viewpoint to express on agenda items as well, is Roberto Uresti, a Viet Nam vet, retired school teacher, who worked past retirement age at an automatic car wash.

Uresti, no grammarian, despite working in education, was always full of ideas and specific suggestions.
Uresti has fought for flood control, tearing down dilapidated housing, street repair and brush cleanup. Actually, he has been a de facto city commissioner without having a portrait hung along the wall of hallway leading to the commission chambers.

Several years ago, as the city proposed raising taxes, City Finance Officer Pete Gonzalez lamented that he had exhausted every possible way to reduce the city's budget. Uresti stepped up in public comment and quickly rattled off four or five ways the city could save money instead of always taking money from P.U.B. or raising taxes.

Dagoberto Barrera

Dagoberto Barrera typically brought a manuscript to public comment, reading it in an old-fashioned oratorical style.
His prevalent theme was that the city, county or school district "live within its means!" Who could successfully argue with that?

His dress shirt was always matched by his necktie, with obvious pride in impeccable dress.
Mr. Barrera also took pride in amplifying his own voice without the microphone.
He expressed in graphic terms a strange, racist view of Mexican Nationals, strange because of his own ethnicity and marriage to his longtime maid from Matamoros.


Fernando Ruiz (RIP)

There are many notable others, certainly Fernando Ruiz, now deceased, a learned man, who I often encountered at the public library researching some legal issue relevant to the city. Mr. Ruiz, a tall man, used sweeping gestures, sometimes a little intimidating. My favorite Ruiz line: "If I took a leak on Elizabeth Street, the police chief would arrest me. What the city commission is doing is just as illegal!"

Interestingly, none of these folks were crazy enough to use taxpayer money to buy buildings the city had no need for, taking them off the tax rolls. None of these people were crazy enough to pay $2.3 million for Casa del Nylon, triple its actual value. None of them were crazy enough to raise utility rates over 30 percent for a utility plant that will not be built.

It would make more sense to ban the broadcast of comments by the mayor and city commissioners than these hardworking taxpayers.