By Catalina Presas-Garcia
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One of the reasons that I am running for District 2 commissioner for the City of Brownsville has been my experience as a certified Realtor.
When you are trying to match a client with a piece of real estate, you're not only selling the property, you are also selling your city. You are selling the place where you chose to work and live, marry, raise and educate your children and hopefully, grow old and retire surrounded by family.
I have done business with prospective clients who wanted to invest and do business here and provide employment for our city's residents. They're interested in the schools, the security and public safety issues, the quality of life, its appearance and the "friendliness" of our city government to their investment.
They are often enchanted with the people's friendliness, the culture, the food, and the weather. But that's where it stops.
You don't know how frustrating it has been to see multi-million dollar investments get discouraged when they have to deal with out city departments. More often than not, our planning and inspections rules (as well as our historical district) seem to be more interested in placing obstacles before potential investors in our city than in helping them set up shop.
Rigid and obdurate, these obstacles cause investors time and money that are often unnecessary and self-defeating to our city's development. In more cases that I want to remember, investors who came to Brownsville ready to do business because of our ports of entry, our airport, deep-water port, South Padre Island and manufacturing opportunities in northern Tamaulipas.
Bu after dealing with our city and the delays unnecessarily imposed by our departments, invariably they look north and west for a more friendly reception.
I have seen the expression in their faces when they see the appearance of our city and its infrastructure up close at ground level. When you have to dodge potholes in the streets to get from one place to another and see the refuse-littered thoroughfares and alleys, I don't blame them for making faces at having their families and staff working here.
We have to establish a different culture in our city, one that says we have pride in our city and seek to put its best foot forward. There's a Mexican saying that if you keep the front of your house clean, you need to keep the inside clean as well. It may come down to something as simple as picking up a piece of trash from the sidewalk if we come up to one and disposing of it in a trash can.
We don't need a tune up of our city's bureaucracy and its treatment of people and corporations who want to come here and do business. We need a complete overhaul.
And we need to reassess the way we do business and the way we practice our form of self government. Unless we do this post haste, we will be relegated to a second-class community which will be bypassed by sustainable economic development because of a rancho mentality that does not fare well for us or for our children who will invariably - like potential businesses - have to seek greener pastures somewhere else.
One of the reasons that I am running for District 2 commissioner for the City of Brownsville has been my experience as a certified Realtor.
When you are trying to match a client with a piece of real estate, you're not only selling the property, you are also selling your city. You are selling the place where you chose to work and live, marry, raise and educate your children and hopefully, grow old and retire surrounded by family.
I have done business with prospective clients who wanted to invest and do business here and provide employment for our city's residents. They're interested in the schools, the security and public safety issues, the quality of life, its appearance and the "friendliness" of our city government to their investment.
They are often enchanted with the people's friendliness, the culture, the food, and the weather. But that's where it stops.
You don't know how frustrating it has been to see multi-million dollar investments get discouraged when they have to deal with out city departments. More often than not, our planning and inspections rules (as well as our historical district) seem to be more interested in placing obstacles before potential investors in our city than in helping them set up shop.
Rigid and obdurate, these obstacles cause investors time and money that are often unnecessary and self-defeating to our city's development. In more cases that I want to remember, investors who came to Brownsville ready to do business because of our ports of entry, our airport, deep-water port, South Padre Island and manufacturing opportunities in northern Tamaulipas.
Bu after dealing with our city and the delays unnecessarily imposed by our departments, invariably they look north and west for a more friendly reception.
I have seen the expression in their faces when they see the appearance of our city and its infrastructure up close at ground level. When you have to dodge potholes in the streets to get from one place to another and see the refuse-littered thoroughfares and alleys, I don't blame them for making faces at having their families and staff working here.
We have to establish a different culture in our city, one that says we have pride in our city and seek to put its best foot forward. There's a Mexican saying that if you keep the front of your house clean, you need to keep the inside clean as well. It may come down to something as simple as picking up a piece of trash from the sidewalk if we come up to one and disposing of it in a trash can.
We don't need a tune up of our city's bureaucracy and its treatment of people and corporations who want to come here and do business. We need a complete overhaul.
And we need to reassess the way we do business and the way we practice our form of self government. Unless we do this post haste, we will be relegated to a second-class community which will be bypassed by sustainable economic development because of a rancho mentality that does not fare well for us or for our children who will invariably - like potential businesses - have to seek greener pastures somewhere else.