Ellen Tyma Calls Out Local Blogger and No-LNG Folk

Ellen Tyma

After our article sharing some details about the Cameron County Commissioners Court meeting held Thursday morning, Ellen Tyma, a local Republican with a Confederate flag as her Facebook cover photo, blasted me as a "yokel" and chastised the movement against the five proposed liquefied natural gas plants to be placed from the Port of Brownsville to the city limits of Port Isabel.

Here's Mrs. Tyma's comment in full:


"I don't understand why the anti's have to make personal attacks about a persons dress or demeanor. It only cheapens your image. Bring cold hard facts to your discussion, not suppositions and the chicken little the sky is falling to your argument and you might be taken seriously. The word yokel comes to mind when petty shallow comments are made about a person's attire."

Since I'm the person Mrs. Tyma calls a yokel, I submit this definition of the term:  "an uneducated and unsophisticated person from the countryside"

That fits, Ellen, except that I lack the survival skills normally associated with country people.  I was born in Renton, the home of Boeing, a suburb indistinguishable from Seattle to those not living there.  To be more precise, my earliest years were spent in Highland Park, a poorer community made up of WWII barracks rented out as duplexes.  Our annual thrill was the Gold Cup, a race of unlimited hydroplanes on Lake Washington.  I always rooted for Bill Muncey, the driver of Miss Thriftway.  Occasionally, he won, but, more often than not, his boat had engine trouble, being lapped repeatedly at the back of the pack.  But, enough about my lack of education and sophistication.

Josh Ballenger During Public Comment

The comment Mrs. Tyma objected to was my reference to the public commenter pictured on the left.  My notes referred to him as "the young man in the ill-fitting suit," but I later learned his name, Josh Ballenger.  Mr. Ballenger is quite an accomplished young man.  His Facebook page declares him the Southern Regional Director of Texas Young Republicans.  During public comment he was seated in the front right quadrant of the court room, along with other suits from Annova LNG.

As for "cold hard facts," those have been difficult to come by with respect to Annova LNG and its parent company, Exelon.  While they made claims that the proposed Port of Brownsville LNG plant would produce 165 jobs paying an average of $70,000 per year, their application committed only to 10 jobs paying $36,197 per year.  The company's claims of having a "near perfect" safety record were contradicted by reports in the Chicago Tribune of 22 leaks, settlements for ground water contamination of $1,000,000 and $11,500,000.  

Commissioner David Garza stated about Annova's request for tax abatement:  “I’ve looked at the details, and I’m still not satisfied with what I’ve seen.”

A More Dapper Josh, Along with the Governor

BTW, we took the liberty of perusing Josh Ballenger's Facebook page, finding this more dapper pic with Governor Greg Abbott.   We're not quite ready to join Josh and Governor Abbott in giving the LNG plants a "thumbs up."  We suspect twenty years from now, when Josh and his future children make the drive from the Port of Brownsville to Port Isabel, passing the discarded scrap metal of abandoned LNG plants, likely containing hazardous waste, he will understand the concerns of the "No-LNG" folk of 2015.