CITY OF BROWNSVILLE INTRODUCES NEW COMMUNICATIONS DIRECTOR AT MEDIA EVENT

Communication & Marketing Director Felipe Romero, Mayor Trey Mendez, City Manager Noel Bernal

The BTX Future media event held yesterday at the Brownsville Event Center turned out to be a showcasing of the city's new Communication & Marketing Director, Felipe Romero from Laredo.

While a glossy pushcard detailing City of Brownsville 2019 accomplishments was part of the packet issued to attendees,  Romero kept the panel discussion on the light, less substantive side.

"What do you want to be when you grow up?" Romero asked both Trey Mendez and Noel Bernal.  

Both Mendez and Bernal said they'd dreamed of becoming baseball players.

"Well no one asked me," offered Romero, "but I always wanted to be an astronaut."

Bernal spoke of being raised by migrant parents, translating for them, learning to "pay bills" at an early age.  He said he's been on a "career hot streak"  the last ten years, working in city management and was glad to be "back in the valley" near his Weslaco birthplace.

"I may not be here in 5 years, but I hope to have made a difference," Bernal stated.

Communications Director Romero asked his last question in Spanish, allowing Bernal and Mendez to display their fluency in the language.

A brief media Q&A followed the panel discussion, limited by Romero to three questions.

Bernal, as he's often repeated in his 14 month tenure as City Manager, said he'd been focusing on the "culture" of the city's administration, and was proud of department reorganization within the city.

"It's not cost effective to have each city department worried about maintenance and transportation issues within their department.  The city is of sufficient size to have a single department focusing on maintenance issues and the fleet."

After the meeting a local journalist opined:  "Bernal's been working on the culture for fourteen months and it's still as difficult as ever to start a business in Brownsville."