WE LEARN TONIGHT IF THE CITY COMMISSION LISTENS TO THE WILL OF THE PEOPLE

Mayor Trey Mendez Stands Tall in Fruia Motors Convertible at Christmas Parade

Our little city, where the majority of registered voters choose not to participate in city elections, by default indicating neither their vote or voice could ever make a difference, receives a lesson in participatory democracy tonight at the City Commission meeting.

A group of East Fronton Street residents, led by Juan Rene Hernandez(pictured above), have seemingly complied with a new wrinkle in the City Charter governing the renaming of a city street, obtaining signatures from 75% of the residents of that street to return it to its original name.

The McNair family, represented with some sarcastic pushback in the local newspaper by Harry McNair, are fighting hard against the will of the people, in an effort to retain the recent new designation, McNair Family Drive.

The McNair family, profiting greatly from minimum wage labor for decades at three warehouses on East Fronton, have also cleverly saved tens of thousands of dollars in property taxes by getting those warehouses designated as historical buildings.

The McNairs submitted a petition of their own in favor of retaining the new street name at the August 7, 2019 City Commission meeting, even though there is no provision for a counter petition in the City Code with respect to renaming a street.

City Attorney Rene De Coss discovered that six residents who signed to Hernandez petition to change the street name back East Fronton Street, also signed Harry McNair's counter petitition and suggested strongly to the city that those residents be interviewed as to their exact leaning on the matter.

"I hope all six City Commissioners are in attendance and the vote ends in a tie," confided one of my close friends.

"I want Mayor Mendez to have to break that tie and show the community whether or not he actually values Brownsville's historic character as he's publicly indicated over the years."