NEW VIRUS COUNTY ORDER START OF TREVINO REELECTION?

Special to El Rrun-Rrun

So, Cameron County Judge Eddie Trevino, County Emergency Management Coordinator Tom Hushen, and his citizens committee to "liberate" the local economy has laid three foundations.


One, with a nod and a wink to th Harlingen Treasure Hills voting bloc, Trevino and his coordinators have issued a new Amended Emergency Management Order signed April 20 that lift restrictions that prohibited private club members and/or residents from playing golf and tennis at their clubs.

While the county and city parks remain closed for the proletariat, this silk-stocking electorate gets to romp and play in their private reserves far from the unwashed masses.

 The hope is, of course, that they wear masks and practice social distancing as they tee off and tell off-color jokes.

We have seen that furniture stores - like his mother's on Palm Shopping Village - were able to remain open because they have a finance loan company inside and it come under the financial "essential services" category to fight the COVID-19 virus. Aha!

The whopper was the special April 16  memorandum that Treviño issued declaring that car washes may be considered “essential business” under the county’s mandatory shelter-in-place order, based on rules promulgated by the National Cybersecurity Infrastructure Agency, and therefore should be allowed to operate as long as social-distancing and all other precautions are observed.

The what?

The  CISA Guidance on the Essential Critical Infrastructure Workforce: Ensuring Community and National Resilience in COVID-19 Response says nothing of the sort. In fact, the list of critical infrastructure does not even mention car washes. Perhaps a latwr update does, but not the one found on the website.

But City of Brownsville Commissioner Jessica Tetreau said  on her Facebook page that "the county" (read Trevino) had interpreted the document to indicate that her car wash should also be considered "essential" because of its relation to the "Transportation" section of the critical infrastructure categories in the CISA Guidance document. She thanked God for enlightening the powers that be to come to her aid in her time of plight.


And so - perhaps inadvertently - candidate Trevino threw out an incentive to Tereau to jump aboard his reelection campaign by making a special dispensation for businesses like hers to ramp up for business.

Hopefully, her political support in the coming campaign will make it a wash. One hand washes...

Do you have the time to read through the guidance document?

El Rrun-Rrun challenges Trevino, Hushen, or Tetreau to show where the word "private commercial car wash businesses"is listed under the "Transportation" category. The closest it comes - and it's a tenuous reach -  mentions "maintenance" and electric charging stations n passing. We list it here below.

TRANSPORTATION AND LOGISTICS
(Automotive repair, maintenance, and transportation equipment manufacturing and distribution facilities (including those who repair and maintain electric vehicle charging stations).

https://www.cisa.gov/sites/default/files/publications/Version_3.0_CISA_Guidance_on_Essential_Critical_Infrastructure_Workers_3.pdf

We know, Tetreau has to have somewhere to charge her Tesla used car, but is't not at the car wash, is it?  And of course she doesn't repair and maintain a charging station  there.

But is there a fleet of Teslas owners who voluntarily ferry victims to medical facilities that might need the charging service to help in the fight against CODIV-19? No, of course not.

To Trevino's point of view, this is probably a "soft" opening.

But if the businesses can open "as long as social-distancing and all other precautions are observed," she fails miserably since her workers are not required to wear face masks or gloves, even though she said she was taking "every human step possible' to protect them and her customers.

 On the other hand, we are reluctant to mention that here because she might provide the PPE and deduct it from their pay.

All we need now is for the county judge to declare that "politiqueras" provide an essential purpose and "liberates" them to act on his behalf.