In a rare joint news conference, all four leaders — Hidalgo County Judge Richard Cortez; Starr County Judge Eloy Vera; Willacy County Judge Aurelio “Keter” Guerra; and Cameron County Eddie Treviño Jr. — made clear the unique challenges facing the border region during this COVID-19 crisis.
They also mentioned how federal funding to fight the virus will most likely be tied to census results, likely impacting smaller communities going forward.
“When the governor took away our ability to manage ourselves locally and opened up the economy, as well as ordered more testing, we knew that the number of infections would rise. We also were concerned these restrictions were having a negative impact on our local economy,” Cortez said. “Quite honestly, I don’t want to blame the governor. I don’t want to blame anybody because we know what to do to stop this trend of cases.”
"Quite honestly I don’t want to blame the governor. I don’t want to blame anybody because we know what to do to stop this trend of cases.”HIDALGO COUNTY JUDGE RICHARD CORTEZ“
"We made a huge announcement today. We have four county judges from this area basically telling our communities we have a serious problem and everyone needs to pay attention to it and it’s not going to go away,” Cortez said.
“As the restrictions that were in place in each of our counties were eased by the governor, that also is a possible cause of this increase. What concerns us now is that the community is not taking responsibility for themselves.”
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