CITIZEN GETS NO RESPONSE FROM 546-HELP, CITY COMMISSIONER OR MAYOR

 Mary S. Rey, a former school board candidate and political advocate of many years standing in our city, is "fit to be tied."  Rey's anger has intensified over the City of Brownsville officials totally ignoring a problem in her neighborhood, that is, the unoccupied, dilapidated house on West 12th Street pictured in the upper left.

Rey, who says she's received no response from Mayor Trey Mendez, District 4 City Commissioner Ben Neece or the city's 546-HELP line, is concerned about fire or hurricane danger posed by the property sitting directly across West 12th Street from her home.

Rey raised the issue again during a zoom campaign forum with just two participants, District 4 incumbent City Commissioner Ben Neece and District 3 City Commission candidate Roy de los Santos.

It was candidate De los Santos who shared a bit of information of dilapidated housing within the city limits of Brownsville.

De los Santos claimed that a board set up to review unsafe and needing-to-be-torn down structures in the city had disbanded "one or two years ago" do to running out of grant money that had kept it in operation.  De los Santos stated that there was now such a backlog of unsafe structures in the city that it would take "several years" to identify and rectify the problem.  

De los Santos also sympathized with Ms. Rey concerning the impotence of the 546-HELP line, saying he'd tried to use it in the past and been "deeply disappointed."

Interestingly, several years ago during the tenure of Commissioner John Villarreal, this blog posted a picture of an extremely dilapidated house in District 4 that posed several dangers to the citizenry.  That home was torn down in a matter of days.