(Ed.'s Note: Following our postings of Mayor Trey Martinez's Sate of the City prepared script and video, we received a response to his pay-to-attend presentation at the Brownsville Events Center. This lengthy contribution will be presented in two parts. The first part follows.)
Special to El Rrun-Rrun
Part I
And the Emperor fiddled while Rome burned.
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The mayor is so completely out of touch with reality, and the proof is in the State of the City speech he delivered.
I don't know who he has as his adviser, but whoever it is, they should be replaced. In one of the poorest communities in the United States, the mayor should NOT be charging $45 s a head to sit in a publicly-owned ballroom to hear him pontificate on the state of our fair city. This event should be open to the public and held in the evening so working stiffs and the majority of the community could attend.
He is right about one thing. The zoo is a critical component to Brownsville's tourist industry. However, the years have taken their toll on the zoo. It is in desperate need of repair and restructuring. I wonder what this "zoo master plan" is. One can hope the details will be released sooner rather than later.
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I'm glad Brownsville's downtown is being revitalized and refurbished, but at what cost? The mayor says there have been 30 new businesses open in the downtown area, but how many of them are upscale bars or eateries? Why is the gentrification of downtown such an important goal for our mayor?
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End Part I
Special to El Rrun-Rrun
Part I
And the Emperor fiddled while Rome burned.
The mayor is so completely out of touch with reality, and the proof is in the State of the City speech he delivered.I don't know who he has as his adviser, but whoever it is, they should be replaced. In one of the poorest communities in the United States, the mayor should NOT be charging $45 s a head to sit in a publicly-owned ballroom to hear him pontificate on the state of our fair city. This event should be open to the public and held in the evening so working stiffs and the majority of the community could attend.
This event should not have been sponsored by the Chamber of Commerce and held at the Events Center. So much for the mayor being a man of the people.
He is right about one thing. The zoo is a critical component to Brownsville's tourist industry. However, the years have taken their toll on the zoo. It is in desperate need of repair and restructuring. I wonder what this "zoo master plan" is. One can hope the details will be released sooner rather than later.
I'm glad Brownsville's downtown is being revitalized and refurbished, but at what cost? The mayor says there have been 30 new businesses open in the downtown area, but how many of them are upscale bars or eateries? Why is the gentrification of downtown such an important goal for our mayor? Is it because he owns a building where his fancy pizza and wine restaurant is located and would like to see his property value skyrocket? Does he have other business partners who are gobbling up sections of downtown in hopes of making money off the new direction downtown is going in?
Brownsville should be more than hike and bike trails, pizza joints, and art galleries. Brownsville should be more than poetry readings and fancy bars.
Brownsville is a community of almost 185,000 people who need things. Tangible, real world, usable things — not pie-in-the-sky farmer's markets and fancy places to have dinner. I'm sorry, but the state of the city is pretty grim.
Brownsville is broken. Instead of worrying about investors and stakeholders and cultural district designations, the mayor should be listening to the citizenry and he should be trying to solve the REAL problems that exist in our city.
Infrastructure and urban planning has to be at the top of the list. I know infrastructure isn't sexy. I know it isn't a fancy wine and pizza place, but infrastructure is a start. If the city is in shambles, nothing else matters. Infrastructure is the foundation of Brownsville, and if we can't spend time, money, and resources to fix that, not a whole lot else is worth fixing.
We need to have a viable, real plan in place to start identifying and analyzing all the infrastructure failures in town; and we need to come up with a plan to start fixing them. We need people with urban planning and city engineering expertise and education to come up with these plans.
Brownsville should be more than hike and bike trails, pizza joints, and art galleries. Brownsville should be more than poetry readings and fancy bars.
Brownsville is a community of almost 185,000 people who need things. Tangible, real world, usable things — not pie-in-the-sky farmer's markets and fancy places to have dinner. I'm sorry, but the state of the city is pretty grim.
Brownsville is broken. Instead of worrying about investors and stakeholders and cultural district designations, the mayor should be listening to the citizenry and he should be trying to solve the REAL problems that exist in our city.
Infrastructure and urban planning has to be at the top of the list. I know infrastructure isn't sexy. I know it isn't a fancy wine and pizza place, but infrastructure is a start. If the city is in shambles, nothing else matters. Infrastructure is the foundation of Brownsville, and if we can't spend time, money, and resources to fix that, not a whole lot else is worth fixing.
We need to have a viable, real plan in place to start identifying and analyzing all the infrastructure failures in town; and we need to come up with a plan to start fixing them. We need people with urban planning and city engineering expertise and education to come up with these plans.
Our streets flood, period. When it rains, there are several sections of the city that are underwater. That needs to be fixed. I get we are close to sea level, and I get that it isn't going to be an easy fix, but we need to be able to get there. There needs to be a way we can solve our drainage problem.
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Also, I understand the soil here in the Lower Rio Grande Valley is unstable and soft, but we need to come up with a way to fix the roads so that they don't break up, shift, and create streets lined with potholes, cracks, and crevices.
Also, I understand the soil here in the Lower Rio Grande Valley is unstable and soft, but we need to come up with a way to fix the roads so that they don't break up, shift, and create streets lined with potholes, cracks, and crevices. There needs to be new technology in the road paving and surfacing industry that can be used to fix the issue. Refilling potholes is not even a temporary fix anymore.
There are so many other issues that go hand in glove with infrastructure.
Road signs, road general maintenance, and a legitimate centrally controlled traffic center with computers and camera monitoring traffic needs to be put in place.
Road signs, road general maintenance, and a legitimate centrally controlled traffic center with computers and camera monitoring traffic needs to be put in place.
Traffic along Boca Chica, Ruben Torres, and Alton Gloor, as well as traffic along the highway is terrible and should all be controlled from one central location where a dedicated team of monitors and engineers can make sure traffic runs smoothly. Emergency management also needs to be addressed. We are very fortunate we have not had a major natural disaster hit Brownsville, but we need to be prepared for something in case it should happen.
Urban planning also needs to be addressed. I know Brownsville was one of the first cities in the Valley to have a public transit system, but that system is mired in the past.
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The Metro needs restructuring and revitalization. I don’t know how many times I’ve heard about bus shelters that don’t exist or bus service that isn’t available on a Sunday.
Urban planning also needs to be addressed. I know Brownsville was one of the first cities in the Valley to have a public transit system, but that system is mired in the past.
The Metro needs restructuring and revitalization. I don’t know how many times I’ve heard about bus shelters that don’t exist or bus service that isn’t available on a Sunday.
These are things that need to be addressed. I don’t see why Brownsville is still stuck in the old mentality of nothing important happening on a Sunday, but that is post-WWII thinking. It is critical that Brownsvillians have access to public transportation every day of the week.
Public safety needs to be high on the list of priorities as well. We have made improvements in securing new equipment and vehicles for the Brownsville Fire Department, but now we have to follow suit with the Brownsville Police Department.
We need more police officers. In addition, we need those police officers to be better equipped with state of the art equipment to be able to combat the increasing threats from the border violence and other issues that plague the city.
Public safety needs to be high on the list of priorities as well. We have made improvements in securing new equipment and vehicles for the Brownsville Fire Department, but now we have to follow suit with the Brownsville Police Department.
We need more police officers. In addition, we need those police officers to be better equipped with state of the art equipment to be able to combat the increasing threats from the border violence and other issues that plague the city.
The Brownsville Police Department is land-locked. It should probably be relocated into a newer state of the art facility. In addition, Brownsville should look into the possibility of breaking up the police department into separate divisions and entities. Brownsville definitely needs a dedicated traffic division.
I understand Brownsville has a uniform services division that runs patrol. However, we probably need a separate traffic division with a deputy chief who reports to the chief of police who is solely responsible for traffic enforcement.
We should also create a park police department, similar to what San Antonio has, that is dedicated to patrolling the public spaces downtown and in the other parks and recreational areas around town.
We should also create a park police department, similar to what San Antonio has, that is dedicated to patrolling the public spaces downtown and in the other parks and recreational areas around town.
We also need to keep updating the EMS arm of the fire department. We may need to look in to the option of having private ambulance companies come in to Brownsville to help with response time, or perhaps we should separate EMS from the fire department and have them be run as a separate public safety entity.