Special to El Rrun-Rrun
City of Brownsville commissioners on Tuesday declared that their avowed mission to preserve local history has been a farce, refusing to rescind a vote that changed the name name of historic El Fronton Street to McNair Family Drive even though a majority of the residents there were against the renaming.
With that acquiescence, they approved the renaming of the only street in the downtown historical district with a Spanish name for the last 169 years.
We were not at the meeting, but local blogger Jim Barton was and he said that the people who were ready to support giving back E. Fronton Street its historical name were not allowed to voice their opinion. Many left angry, Jim said.
Barton wrote:
"A dozen or more people there to protest the incongruent renaming of a historic downtown street after a local factory owner, did not get their First Amendment rights.
The agenda point they were poised to vent about, an item to rescind renaming E. Front Street "McNair Family Drive" was not included in the Public Hearings that allow comments, but instead among Items for Individual Consideration that do not.
When three dumbasses, Commissioners (John) Cowen, (Jessica) Tetreau and (Joel) Munguia voted against the reversal, the disrespected dozen stormed out, some not even understanding what had just happened.
For the time being, we can forget about Brownsville having an historic downtown or a democratic city government."
This was even after city engineer Carlos Lastra included information in the packet for the previous meeting to commissioners that four letter had been received in support of the name change and that 14 had been received against it. And in a recent meeting, street residents spoke out against the change.
Only Neece, in whose district the street lies, voted in favor of the rescinding. The others - including newby John Cowen - did not stand with Neece and allowed the renaming to stand.
Mayor Trey Mendez, a member of the Brownsville Historical Society, should have been a strong voice to rescind the ill-considered change that occurred under his predecessor's watch. And we expected more from our "new" commissioners.
But maybe Cowen also wants something named after his family and this will set a precedent to make it happen. Or Nurith may yet get a traffic island at the corner of 13th Street and Adams adjacent to La Case Del Nylon to be named the Galonsky Pocket Park.
Could there be plans, as Barton speculated, that Elizabeth Street will be renamed Bill Hudson Way, or perhaps Cardenas Drive?
Former city commissioner Harry McNair is also on the Brownsville Historical Association and in the name of historical preservation should have stopped the ill-considered change. But then again, historical preservation means something different to the landed gentry than it does to us mere mortals.
To them it means glorifying their names and not really preserving the history of the city. It's discouraging to see the new guys in action. It would appear that kowtowing to prominent families and abandoning the preservation of our local history will be the rule of thumb from now on.
It's equally ironic that the commission vote exploded the myth that the city believes in historic preservation on the 74th anniversary of the bombing of Hiroshima.