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| Debbie Portillo with Pete Gonzalez, Rose Timmer(on the right) |
The flowery words read by young Ms. Portillo were likely written by Grant Coordinator Roxanna Rosas.
"Roxanna was in the hotel lobby till 1:00 AM writing all our acceptance speeches," Portillo gushed.
Of the delegation of forty or so, 15 had their travel requests approved to the tune of $24,120 at the previous City Commission meeting. Assistant City Manager/Finance Director Pete Gonzalez had to ask for an amended budget to pay for the trip. The taxpayers are likely on the hook for the other 25 as they came from Porter High School and UTB, both taxpayer-supported entities.
Gonzalez, likely conscious of the huge expenditure, was said to have "walked the nine miles from the hotel to the Civic League event, because, according to Portillo, "he didn't want to take a cab." Yes, it was a night of hyperbole.
The members of the delegation were introduced individually to spontaneous applause, as if returning war heroes or winners of the NBA Championship. Rose Timmer, a major player in curbside recycling, was absent, recovering from a "procedure." Portillo promised an event would be scheduled "at a later time" for the city as a whole to join in the celebration.
Just how the city will benefit from being one of ten small towns determined to be "All-America" by the Civic League can be difficult to put in words. We'll leave it to Mayor Tony Martinez, in words quoted in yesterday's Brownsville Herald, to articulate what the plaque means to the city.
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| Mayor Tony Martinez |
Obviously, Roxanna Rosas didn't help the mayor with his remarks.
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We have snother dingbat on the Commission. Portillo just got elected. What acid trip is she on to act like she had anything to do with it? Brownsville got the same recognition 14 years ago and it didn't mean crapola. These elected officials are so full of their own bullshit. They need to come back to earth.
ReplyDeleteThe mayor was right, it is all about the city staff who worked on this insignificant award. It is all about them and their efforts for the city, but most of us don't care. That status brings nothing to the city or the citizens. We remain an "All Mexican City" and no one can disclaim that. Most of us would like to see a city government that plans for the entire city, not just downtown and to protect a few. Tony Martinez is a failure as mayor and yet is willing to strut around like a "cock" (the bird) as mayor.
ReplyDeleteThis award was purchased by the taxpayers of Brownsville. It's more money shuffling by another dismally bad mayor and his cohorts.
ReplyDeleteIt is time to reconsider the election of some of the commissioners.
ReplyDeleteJust come close to elections they remember the people who voted them in, how about that
for taxpayers.
It sounds like the Mayor is "kind of" inarticulate.
ReplyDeleteI'm proud of City Staff, no matter what anti-Mexican Barton writes. And, Jim, what is "speaches"? LOL!!!
ReplyDeleteMr. Brainiac,
DeleteDidn't you mean "What are speeches?"
The title of this story should read "City Comisioner Portillo basking in the afterglow of this award." She took all of the credit and almost knocked down a few participants to receive the award.
ReplyDeleteBROWNSVILLE — Children's faces pressed against glass. Hundreds of young boys and girls covered with aluminum-foil-like blankets next to chain link fences topped with barbed wire. The pungent odor that comes with keeping people in close quarters.
ReplyDeleteThese were the scenes Wednesday from tours of crowded Border Patrol stations in South Texas and Arizona, where thousands of immigrants are being held before they are transferred to other shelters around the country.
It was the first time the media was given access to the facilities since President Barack Obama called the more than 47,000 unaccompanied children who have entered the country illegally this budget year an "urgent humanitarian situation."
The surge in minors, mostly from Central America, has overwhelmed the U.S. government. It also prompted Texas officials Wednesday night to order a surge in state law enforcement resources to the border in an effort to help stop the influx. Details of that surge are still to come.
This appears to be government by what feels good. If the mayor can't define it maybe he shouldn't be spending money on it. Every project like this should include an objective means to measure the benefit to the community. If you then find there was no benefit don't do it again. I will never again vote for a commissioner who votes for a project that does not include an objective means of measuring benefit to the city. I'm not saying that they have to predict the future and positively know what the results will be before hand because you can not always know and sometimes it is worth taking a chance on something. But you should have a way of evaluating on an ongoing basis so you can make changes if they are indicated and you must have a way of evaluating the project when it is done. The means of evaluation should be part of any proposal and submitted with the proposal. If the proposal includes a plan to work out a means of evaluation as the project progresses or upon completion then it should be tabled until the evaluation plan is formulated or it should be voted down. I think the dollar threshold requiring this should be low, maybe just a few thousand dollars. It will require the planners to broaden their view of whatever they are working on and make them think about it in concrete terms. It will also let the know they are going to be accountable. If a proposal's sponsor can not come up with a way to quantify results they should be required to justify why not and be able to defend it to a bunch of skeptical commissioners'
ReplyDeleteThis was a waste of money! We need a businessman to turn this city around. I met Robert Sanchez at Capt. Bob's and he had a lot of great ideas! Let's get him to run for Mayor!
ReplyDeleteYeah, one of his great ideas last time he got political was to close the city libraries as a waste of money because, after all, don' the public schools all have libraries. It didn't seem to occur to him that adults might also use the library, probably because he hasn't finished coloring his first book yet.
ReplyDeleteAlso, didn't he settle a couple of lawsuits, one after posting lies about a political opponent's wife using a pseudonym on his own (Sanchez's) blog?
And I recall that as a PUB board member didn't he accept a gift of a private plane excursion to some sporting event or the like from a provider or lobbiest and then post it on his blog, with photos, with no sense of the impropriety of it all? Or am I wrong? If so please correct me on this.
Oh yeah, he also expressed some very angry anti-gay feelings.
This doesn't seem to be the thinking that will best serve the city. He should stick to serving food.