Bobby Is Right! Brownsville's Top Priority Is Not SpaceX, But A New Airport With A 12,000 Ft. Runway

Bobby Wightman-Cervantes

Bobby Wightman-Cervantes, the intermittent, temperamental blogger of the BROWNSVILLE VOICE is absolutely right in his declaration that a new Brownsville airport should be Job 1 for the City of Brownsville, the City Commission and Mayor Tony Martinez.  While the Brownsville mayor and city commissioners amateurishly wore SpaceX insignias on their blazers at a city hearing to announce the environmental study funded by the Elon Musk company, Wightman was calling for a new airport to jumpstart the local economy 

As Bobby noted in his blog:
"When Bill Hedrick came to Brownsville with his plans for Pan Am and South American cargo, everyone from Governor Perry to locals became excited over the business plan. The business plan remains solid. Bill Hedrick was clearly not the man to carry out the business plan. Countries like Peru lodge complaints with the US on a regular basis over our inability to process its perishables on a timely basis. Other South American countries complain their flowers go bad waiting for clearance is US customs. Bill Hedrick new this which is why he started his company. Brownsville with its history, location, port, and rail was the logical location for a new port of entry for South American produce and flowers arriving by air cargo."

The Mean Mister Brownsville blog was also intrigued by Hedrick's plan, particularly as it related to China, it's products and South America.  The sheer geography of planet Earth with a direct flight over the pole making Brownsville the closest connection to Latin America is Brownsville's greatest asset.  Add the rail, sea and road connection to Mexico and beyond, it's not difficult imagining Brownsville as a transportation hub, commercially if not domestically.

Downloading and circulating child pornography is abominable because the objects of those pictures are subjected to inhumanity and life-shattering experience in their production.  If Bob Hedrick, the former Pan Am Airways president was guilty as charged, he is beyond pathetic, but that does not diminish his idea of Brownsville as a transportation hub to Central and South America.  Mealy-mouthed con artist Carlos Quintanilla tried to link me with pedophilia because I saw some wisdom in Hedrick's concept.

Of course, the realization of this concept hinges on Brownsville having an airport capable of handling larger cargo aircraft.  That necessitates 12,000 feet.   Unfortunately, the current Brownsville/South Padre Island Airport is somewhat landlocked.  According to Airport Manager Larry Brown, the city lacked the foresight to retain land that would have enabled extending the runway beyond the current 7,000+ to 12,000 ft.  It would now be somewhat convoluted to extend in the present location.  Of course, available land exists along 511 and Hwy 100 as Bobby has noted.

While Mayor Tony Martinez is busy using the city as a personal political springboard, shuffling taxpayer dollars to cronies with inappropriate, illogical property purchases and placating UTB President Juliet Garcia, Brownsville dies an agonizing economic death.  A new, properly sized airport, accommodating commercial and domestic jets of 21th century size could avert that death.