CITY OFFICIALS SELF-GRADE THEMSELVES AN "A-PLUS"

Special to El Rrun-Rrun

Even after the first four months of dismal COVID-19 testing by one vendor who had been granted a monopoly on testing and "treatment" followed by a byzantine vaccine application process, city officials and administrators say they have been in the "forefront" of the pandemic.

We're not joking.

Starting with Brownsville Fire Chief Jarrett Sheldon – who conveniently disappeared during the height of the infection – and then Mayor Trey Mendez and Health Director Art Rodriguez who implemented an ineffective testing process and approved the one location at the Brownsville Sports Park in the city's distant north side, they all pat themselves on the back for a job well done. (That's a photo of his truck at his home during the pandemic that circulated around the fire house. The real firefighters showed up for work.)

Uh?

Sheldon, Mendez and Rodriguez – perched atop the Brownsville Herald soapbox –  claimed that the city has been on the "forefront" of the pandemic with every member of the fire department, and of the city, undergoing great physical and mental stress. 

Pobrecitos! Their hands are probably shaking as they collect their city checks. If you can't stand the heat...Isn't that part of the job description, Sheldon?

Sheldon said the department learned to overcome the challenges of this “extraordinary” year by modifying the way they operate completely and educating the public.

“Even as the leader of the fire department, I’ve empowered and challenged every member to become a leader as well. This has allowed an accelerated innovation in developing, analyzing and redeveloping our COVID response plan," Sheldon crowed. " All the city members and directors and leadership, really come together to create effective plans that we utilize,” he said.

“To really have the continuity of operations, we never lost fire services, we never lost EMS services. A lot of services continued throughout the whole year, even through the unknown. That really speaks volumes of our most vital asset, which is our people, our personnel within our city and within our fire department.”

Really? 

Tell that to the medical personnel at the local hospitals' emergency rooms who waited – sometimes for hours – before they could get an ambulance to transfer a patient. We would wager that if such a poll were taken from them, Sheldon wouldn't brag about the "empowerment" of the department. 

And for months the real numbers of infected people and deaths was hidden behind bureaucracies as Cameron County Judge Eddie Treviño and Mendez pointed their fingers at each other in a blame game while people died.

Mendez  thinks his performance related to the testing for COVID-19 is a feather in his cap.

“Absolutely. When we saw our first case pop up, I challenged our staff to get a drive thru testing facility up and running as quickly as possible and they did an amazing job. It was in operation within days,” he said when asked on the importance of the drive-thru testing and its impact. 

“The city prioritized the health of our residents and was willing to undertake the expense of running the testing site. We were the first city in the valley to do it and continue to do it.”

Prioritize, indeed. Why is it then that numerous city workers have told us that many of the city's top administrators – including some elected officials – were first in line to get the vaccine while elderly above 65 and others with underlying conditions have waited in line and some still have not gotten theirs? 

Mendez did not say that he and the city administration handed Valley Urgent Care and its pious booster P.A. Eder Hernandez,a monopoly on testing based on what can only be classified as political connections and until they claimed exhaustion, contracted with three other medical outfits to lighten the load of Martyr Eder.

You almost feel sorry for Hernandez and his staff until you realize that a physicians assistant with a dozen staff members raked in close to $850,000 in four months with their monopoly before their meager resources were overwhelmed and other firms had to step in and handle the crush.

Meanwhile, instead of adopting the system that took testing to the people, the testing site chosen was the Brownsville Sports Park which lies miles from the city's barrios and neighborhoods. If you were one of the vulnerable groups – the elderly with underlying conditions like obesity, cancer, diabetes or heart problems – and had no car, internet access, or a relative who had the time to sit with your for four to five hours, you were out of luck. Just another statistic, hey Trey?

Are they serious?

Rodriguez, who should have said something about the testing site and the lack of testing personnel for four long months while Hernandez had his monopoly, said his biggest challenge this year has been trying to compete with the likes of Texas Gov. Greg Abbott who rushed to open the state. Poor Art. That meany Abbott is drowning out his message. 

Kind of like trying to preach against obesity while he and other commissioners – like Rose Gowen, for one – are the walking poster children of la buena vida.

Rodriguez also mentioned that Brownsville has had four times the death rate when compared to other parts of the country due to a high number of residents being overweight and diabetic. He said things could have been worse if the city would not have been as "proactive."

"When you look at Laredo, El Paso, and other border cities, the impact they’ve had, Brownsville could have been the same story, but the collective work that we’ve done with the Fire Department and the partnership for the vaccines, with communications and partnerships to communicate and then with the hospitals to learn and get together every week.

“...We have managed through the pandemic in a way that I feel the citizens still feel safe, they still look at us as the subject matter experts and I think that’s very important.”

What did we do with that barf bag? "Oh, Jeez, it's full!"

Mendez said Brownsville is resilient and does the best to take care of its family.

How resilient? There have been 19,752 COVID-19 positive cases confirmed in the city and 750 deaths. How much more resilient can you get? 

Brownsville, according to State of Texas statistics, has tallied the majority of positive cases and deaths. Is this a testament to the outstanding performance by Sheldon, Mendez and the embattled Rodriguez fending off that pesky Abbott? 

"We do our best to take care of our family, our friends and our neighbors," Mendez summed up with a flourish. 

Apparently, their best has never been good enough.