IN A CRISIS, PEOPLE, ELECTED OFFICIALS SHOW TRUE COLORS

Special to El Rrun-Rrun

Sometimes, it is said, it takes a tragedy or emergency to show how people will react in a pinch.

Like Trump, many local residents and officials initially refused to take the situation of a microscopic virus invading our backwater sanctuary seriously. Suddenly, they were confronted with an enemy they could not argue with, shoot at, punch, or fight.

Guns, assaults, or public pronouncements were useless. The first cases stemmed from travel-related infection that was brought to the silk-stocking estates in Rancho Viejo and spread to the Spring Breakers on South Padre island. When social media made that public, the culprits who brought the infection from Spain and Ireland turned against the bloggers denying their negligence.

Later on it was learned that Cameron County Judge Eddie Trevino had reached out to the well-heeled infectors and "graciously" assured them of their privacy without letting the public know where they had been and who might have come into contact with them before they proved positive for the virus.

After that Trevino began broadcasting press conferences and issuing edicts and all kinds of warnings on fines and imprisonment for violators. The constables under Abel Gomez started stopping motorists after the curfew was imposed with little results. Most, if not all, had some legitimate reason for being on the road.

Then, when COB MAyor Trey Mendez and Trevino has established the social distancing, face mak requirement and Stay at Home orders and raised the ire of local merchants with their closing of the local economy, Gov. Greg Abbott cut their legs off at the knees and caved in to pressure from the right for "liberating" the state economy.

The duo - both attorneys - in turn caved in despite the fact that Abbott acted outside the strictures of the Texas Government Code.

Cameron County Sheriff Omar Lucio - a law enforcement officer in the old school tradition - was a little more heavy handed in his response.

When six-foot social distancing rules were imposed, Lucio announced that his deputies would enforce the rule aggressively, and would stop and give citations to any vehicle that contained more than one person.

He started assigning patrols to the school meal pickup centers and ended up citing parents who had their kids with them to pick up the lunches. As a result, some kids went without a meal and their parents faced a court hearing for taking them to get fed.

Schools nationwide, including those in Brownsville, allowed families to pick up prepared meals at selected schools. Because the food is intended for students, they were required to be in the vehicles at the pick-up sites. Lucio stopped the patrols when the Brownsville Herald - the incumbent's cheerleader - called him off the overzealous performance.

On the other hand, Brownsville Independent School District board president Minnie Pena thinks it's all a hoax (remember someone using that term somewhere?) by the medical establishment and that the schools should be open at whatever the human cost.

She even persuaded Supt. Rene Gutierrez to host a "soft opening" of the BISD campuses on a "voluntary" basis. Of course, she and her informants will surely know who "volunteered" to please her. The issue between city and county travel restriction vis-a-vis the ISD meals program came to a head with a pissing match  between its legal counsel and the city county virus efforts. Cooperation took a second seat in the turf war.

On the city side, the Stay in Shelter order resulted in scores of the homeless being rounded up in the city and spending the night in jail. Next morning they were out again to wander the alleys during the day and hide from the cops at night.

But the seeds of infection were being sown in the adult day care nursery homes and  centers. Some centers' staff worked in different centers and became the carriers for the virus that resulted in their captive elderly audiences sickening - and dying - as the county health workers scrambled to stem the contagion. Even some of them were infected and tested positive and workers had to busy themselves investigating their personal contacts.

After a time, the response from Congressman Filemon Vela was, at best, muted. He did vote for passage of the stimulus bill to help businesses with the (Paycheck Protection Plan) and workers with extended unemployment benefits and $1,200 payments.

But the unemployment payments were swallowed up by large corporations and crashed under the surge of claims. Now it's back to the drawing board and pull more money out of the kitty and see whether that will trickle down to South Texas, and Brownsville, in particular. It's in the mail.

Many local small businesses or their employees still have not seen a penny of the promised PPP and many, those not documented, simply had to do without income.  Even PUB's SHARE utility assistance hinged on the ratepayers' immigration status despite the fact that citizenship is not a requisite to open a PUB account.