Ramiro Becomes an Easy Out, Succumbs to Downtown Pitching

City Planner Ramiro Gonzalez

Pinch-hitting for Mayor Tony Martinez at 2014's first town hall meeting, City Planner Ramiro Gonzalez hit a lazy pop fly that was caught in shallow left field at Market Square.  In choosing a baseball analogy, we decided not to say that Ramiro struck out.  That visual image is reserved for City Commissioner John Villarreal who whiffed on several levels at Wednesday evening's conclave of downtown parkers.

John won't understand this, but Wednesday was his moment. Downtown is in District 4, his district. The business owners speaking were his constituents.  He missed an opportunity to hit a home run off a t-ball setup by embracing this issue and listening to the people he pretends to represent.  He even distanced himself further from them when he said:  "Hi.  My name is John Villarreal.  I'm the City Commissioner for District 4.  Of course, I don't live downtown.  I live in West Brownsville."

Then, he went on to chastise, chide and reprimand those who came for not speaking up earlier, as in at

City Commissioner John Villarreal

the first reading of the agenda item to raise the downtown parking meter rates.  What likely went over John's head is the trickiness with which that agenda item was written, disguising its intent.

But Villarreal was not the only city official whose political skill set was exposed.  Forever lost on Mayor Martinez is that this so-called town hall meeting was a near perfect display of an uninhibited, rational public comment segment that could be included in the first class seats at city commission meetings had not Tony chosen to extend the anti-democratic Sossi/Ahumada ban on the broadcast of public comment.

But, with Mayor Tony AWOL and Commissioner John not up to the task,  town hall night belonged to Ramiro and his sidekick Roman McAllen.  The wooden chairs on the ground floor of the Market Square conference room fanned out at angles pointing toward the new interactive video screen just purchased by the city for $7,247.  Ramiro stood to one side of the expensive screen.  A microphone stand was set up in front of the seating, faced so speakers would face Ramiro with their back to the audience, giving the impression that citizens were petitioning the emperor.

Old Pasadena

During Mr. Gonzalez' presentation he read segments from a guidebook entitled "The High Cost of Free Parking" and compared Brownsville to the older sections of once-decaying Pasadena, California.  I anticipated at that point the "Little Old Lady from Pasadena" jumping from behind the screen, holding up three freshly minted quarters for the parking meter.  Towards the end of the presentation, the screen showed a quote from the Reverend Dr. Martin Luther King, possibly a subliminal hint of non-violence to the audience.

As each commenter came forward with ideas, criticisms and personal experiences, City Planner II, Ramon McAllen, standing next to a 6 foot tall flip chart,  acknowledged each original idea with an off-Broadway-worthy "I noted that" gesture, swept around and wrote the words of wisdom on the chart.  It was an overly obvious gesture that citizen input was being recorded for serious later study as if everyone had forgotten that the agenda item nearly passed without any discussion at the last city commission meeting.

The Out-of-Towner

In the end, an uncreative idea met with several expressed creative options.  Any governing entities can simply raise fees, taxes or fines to get revenue, but the city used a rationale for the increases that could be fixed without such a dumb, insensitive, business-killing move.  If downtown workers, taking up parking spaces all day IS the problem, let them use one of the 4 or 5 ALREADY parking-spaced ready lots owned by the city.  Attorney Trey Mendez suggested downtown workers park free, thus freeing up downtown spaces and see what happens.  Daniel Lenz suggested waiting until the downtown parking garage is completed in November, then reassessing the parking situation.  Reynoldo Garza, Jr. suggested imposing a two hour limit on downtown parking and enforcing it.  All of these are common sense ideas not necessitating a tripling of fees, purchasing new meters or the mayor staying "out of town" until the issue is resolved.