Transit Board Meeting Cancelled Again~Downtown Parking Garage Still On Hold After Two Years

The Unfulfilled Promise, No Ground Broken
On the 18 Month Project After 2 Years

The fact that ground has not been broken on the downtown parking garage after two years is not the fault of the Transit Advisory Board,  that, according to City Secretary Estela Von Hatten, meets the third Wednesday of the month at the Multi-modal facility on Adams St.

Mayor Tony Martinez and the City Commission along with Charlie Cabler and the city administration have the charge to see this commitment through to its completion.  Mayor Martinez, of course, currently has no interest in any City of Brownsville projects.  He is going all out to demonstrate his unrequited love for the University of Texas, throwing any city-owned scrap of land or building UT's way to facilitate a satellite of the prematurely named University of the Americas, that will be built here anyway.

We attended last month's Transit Advisory Board meeting on May 15, 2013, fully expecting an update on the downtown garage, but, unfortunately, Andrew Munoz, Assistant Director of Brownsville Metro, who placed the update of progress on the parking garage on the agenda, did not attend.(Andrew Munoz did call me the next day with a personal update, including the appeal to BEDC for increased funding.)

On June 19, 2013, the day of the next scheduled Transit Advisory Board meeting, I called the contact number provided by City Secretary Estela Von Hatten and ended up playing phone tag.  I next called Brownsville Metro Director Norma Zamora, who is also on the advisory board.  My concern was two-fold: Is this month's meeting on?  What is the meeting agenda?  I hate going in flat-footed to board meetings.  An agenda allows an attendee to research all of the agenda points prior to the meeting.  Zamora wasn't sure that the meeting scheduled for 6/19 was a go and said she would call me back.  Later, she called to say that the meeting had been postponed until June 26, 2013.  I took that at face value and Nena and I were there at the multi-modal facility at the prescribed time on June 26.  We were the only ones.  I called Roman Perez, a board member, who confirmed the meeting had again been postponed or cancelled.