EXPLANATION OF "NO REPORT" ON TUESDAY'S CITY COMMISSION MEETING

Ana Adiong

I told fiancée Ana on Messenger that, had I noticed 5 separate issues were to be discussed during Executive Session I would never have shown up in City Commission chambers at 4:45 PM.  It was almost 6 AM in the Philippines and she'd been long awake.

While waiting for the meeting to start, I had an interesting visit with Robert Benavides, Jr. and Maleny Ortega from the UT-RGV school newspaper, who eventually walked out of the City Commission chambers around 6 PM, then came back an hour later.

UTRGV Reporters Maleny Ortega and Robert Benavides, Jr.

The school reporters told me they cover any "student related" news from Brownsville to Edinburg, mentioning stops in Weslaco and Mercedes.  

When they returned to chambers, the room was full, with many standing alongside the walls, sort of par for the course in Brownsville's recent surge of democracy.

Gene Fernandez from the Brownsville Historical Society approached me about videotaping his Public Comment as I'd done two weeks ago, about dying Cypress trees in the city.  He handed me his large cellphone.

"Remember I told you last week we'd lost 9?  Now, it's up to 12!" Fernandez excitedly told me.

I told Ana I was going to take a pic of these retired people with a check from the city.  They were from the AARP, but all likely younger than me, a non-member.

She said "take your time."

Time kept on slipping, slipping. . . . .

5:00 PM, 6:00 PM, 7:00 PM, 8:00 PM.

Finally, around 8:15 PM, after I'd been in chambers 3-1/2 hours, Ana told me:  "Just go home.  You'd don't have to wait hours and hours for this stuff."

I looked picked up Gene's cell phone and made a decision.

"Gene, this is just too long.  I have to go," I told him, handing back his phone.

He seemed to understand.