SHAKING UP THE POST-ELECTION BLISS WITH SOME OBSERVATIONS

BPD Chief Felix Sauceda, Border Patrol's Rodolf Karisch,

Mayor Trey Mendez and Congressman Filemon Vela

The City of Brownsville has that first day of school feeling.  Many have new clothes, backpacks and pencils with a few, like Mayor Trey Mendez and Commissioners Nurith Galonsky and John Cowen, enjoying new titles.

Mayor Mendez and the two new commissioners are in that blissful honeymoon period of their service.  Optimism, if not love, is actually in the air.

Still, there are things that make you go hmmm and things we must report or simply quit blogging altogether.(A McAllen blogger regularly encourages doing just that.)

For starters, why was Mayor Trey Mendez noticeably silent on the agenda item to rescind the renaming of East Fronton Street to McNair Family Drive, especially when he's been so involved in preserving our city's downtown historical heritage?  It's true his comment might not have changed things and his "yes" vote for the Neece item would still not have repealed the change, but, at least, we would know where he stood on the issue.

Mayor Mendez's appointment of close friend and business associate Dennis Sanchez to the Greater Brownsville Incentives Corporation is also worth mentioning, especially when Sanchez was one the largest contributors to the Mendez mayoral campaign.  The whole point of separating the 4A economic development and 4B quality of life funds from the general fund is to keep those things out of politics, out from under the control of the mayor and city commission, so an appointment of that nature is not a good look, despite Sanchez's respected reputation.

Of course, the GBIC is somewhat throttled financially being set upon to finance the new airport terminal, but, at least Brownsville taxpayers are getting something for their tax dollars, not just a shacking up arrangement with a Colombian girlfriend for a notoriously corrupt former BEDC director.

Morgan Cisneros Graham,

Cameron County Republican Chair

In another ironic twist, with several apparent campaign violations noted recently, it was Republican Chair Morgan Cisneros Graham who got fined for late filing.  We suspect that fine may have been complaint-generated.