If there was a way to summarize what happened at Tuesday night's City of Brownsville Commission meeting it would be that nothing really happened.
Commissioner Cesar de Leon didn't resign. A small rain-drenched group of protesters gathered outside City calling for the commissioner's resignation after a secretly-related recording was circulated on social media where he is heard making derogatory remarks and racial slurs against two assistant district attorneys. He later apologized – and he apologized again at the meeting to to strong applause.
At least two speakers – Erasmo Castro and Ricky Cardenas – spoke during public comment urging him to resign. Former Brownsville Independent School District trustee urged him not to. He didn't.
Neither did City Manager Charlie Cabler. Cabler was said to be on the chopping block to lose his $240,000 gig after he had resisted firing or demoting former fire chief Carlos Elizondo for weeks. He finally demoted Elizondo. This followed the firefighters' union filing a criminal complaint against him for taking $8,000 from their political action committee even after the Texas Ethics Commission sanctioned him by removing him as treasurer for not filing required reports.
The commission's Audit and Oversight Committee's audit of the Brownsville Fire Dept. was duly accepted, and commissioner Ricardo Longoria parroting Cabler and asking that an independent audit be initiated was ignored because it as not on the agenda. Apart from the committee's audit, Cabler said that there was an ongoing investigation into private ambulance companies working in the city without a license from the city. He said the city would order a third independent audit on the issue.
And the commissioners failed to pick a new member for the board of the Grater Brownsville Incentives Corporation. Esteban Guerra failed to get a majority vote after he was nominated. And Nick Serafy, said to be Mayor Tony Martinez's choice for the spot did not make it. The commission will bring back the item at a future meeting to determine whether De Leon and Jessica Tatreau – being commissioners sitting on the board – can vote on the item.
They did, however, approve to have non-civil service city employees observe Cesar Chavez Day on Monday, April 02, 2018.
And the item to move the Jefferson David monument was tabled until a workshop or Town Hall meeting could be held. The monument was defaced with red spray paint and anti-KKK, anti-Trump, and anti-fascism slogans. A $2,500 reward has been offered for information leading to the culprits by the Sons of the Confederacy. Petitions and counter petitions were gathered to move it and not to move it.
Oh, yeah. Mayor Martinez congratulated Tetreau on her son's birthday after she announced it in the commissioners' reports section.
