B'VILLE ELECTED OFFICIALS: IT AIN'T ALL FUN AND GAMES

By Juan Montoya

Now the fun begins.

The excitement of the campaign faded long ago. The victory party, the glad-handing, the congratulatory calls from people you hadn't heard from in months or years telling you they have been on your side all along.

Suddenly, everyone wanted to be your friend.

And for a while, everything was fun. Workers in the governmental entity treated you like royalty, knowing full well their jobs and careers might depend on one of your decisions. But things have changed.

If you are in the City of Brownsville commission or administration, you are suddenly responsible for the response to a calamity that has befallen very few public officials. Who would have thunk that you would be called to fight a pandemic during your watch?

How to react?

Should you insist or tough measures to address the emergency, or do you just kind of sit back and let the mayor handle everything since he is the municipal spear with the mass and social media? Do you agree with the ad hoc testing effort left in the hands of a physician's assistant who is expecting at any time to be lifted into heaven by the hand of God?

We're talking to the mayor and the city commission: We're talking to Trey Mendez, Nurith Galonsky, Jessica Tetreau, Rose Gowen, John Cowen, Joel Mungia, and Ben Neece. What say you? 

Do you agree that PUB can "lose" $1.3 million by sending it to a fake vendor account and there are no consequences, the PUB execs instead congratulating each other that the receiving bank made good on the lost money?

Do you agree that PUB erred on its strategy of raising $325 million through artificially-high utility rates (36 percent higher for electricity alone) to pay for a non-existing electric plant with private energy provider Tenaska?

Now what to do to help the abused ratepayer, you fellow Brownsville residents? Nothing? Well, what do we need you there for, then?

And if restaurant owners and others who claim they sell more than 50 percent food in their businesses say they won't respect the 25 percent capacity guidelines issued by Mendez and the city and will seek help from Gov. Greg Abbott to defy the city, what will Mendez and the commission do?

Will the city commission back Mendez against Abbott? What say you Nurith Galonsky, Jessica Tetreau, Rose Gowen, John Cowen, Joel Mungia, and Ben Neece?

The fun and games are over. It's time to govern and make the tough decisions. Are you up to it?