Aug/13 Stinky ditch causes stink
By ANTHONY GRAY
Herald Staff Writer
#It continues to be one of the hottest issues on the front burner of local
politics; the series of drainage ditches that snake through the Southmost.
The same drainage ditches that are filled with pig heads, mattresses,
refrigerators, washing machines, rats and snakes.
This week at City Hall, a group of La Villita Street residents, whose
backyards are lined with one of those eroding, trash-filled ditches, aired
their complaints before the City Commission.
While Commission members pined about their love of the Southmost, the people
in the commission chambers demanded answers.
Interestingly, the city filmed its crews cleaning the ditch earlier that day
and had the footage ready to confront irritated citizens group. But the angry
mob wasn't buying it. The ditch had not been cleaned in years and a health
hazard was brewing in their back yards.
Person after person railed on the neglect Brownsville's city and county
fathers had historically fostered in the Southmost. But the rhetoric shifted
to who would take the credit for raising awareness about the ditch.
There was Precinct One County Commission candidate Neto Lopez, Precinct One
Crime Prevention Coordinator Joe Paredes and Herminia Becerra, a renowned
politiquera who claimed that State Sen. Eddie Lucio and Secretary of State
Tony Garza were going to solve the ditch dilemma.
Citizens and commissioners alike, everybody wanted to speak, but nobody wanted
to listen. Mayor Henry Gonzalez even had to gavel down the shouting after the
passion began to spew between the various political factions.
The bottom line is that the area desperately needs attention and the only way
to get that attention is to politicize the ditch; politics are all anyone in
office seem to understand.
But don't think for a minute that the move to push the ditch issue is a
benevolent attempt to improve conditions in the Southmost. The Cameron County
Precinct One Democratic primary is less than a year away.
As candidates, Lopez, Tony Garcia and incumbent Commissioner Lucino Rosenbaum
are very interested in the pulse of the Southmost voting community.
City Commissioner Pete Benavides has also been rumored to be a future
candidate in the county race, tossing a wrench into the City Hall voting
blocks. Ralph Cowen and former commissioners Pat Lehmannn and Harry McNair are
reportedly lining up to fight it out as Big Pete's successor.
But with the National Voter Registration Act in place, it is likely that more
Southmost residents than have ever been registered to vote before will be
poised to cast ballots in next year's primary.
In the areas surrounding Linda Lane, La Posada Drive and La Villita Street, a
petition demanding action on the ditch collected 650 signatures. And in an
area where primary elections are usually decided by slim vote margins, a
potential 650-vote carrot should be enough to move any local politician into
action.
An issue-based community petition drive could be a very effective tool; it
would bring the ditch problem to light and position political candidates on
its banks.
Just last week, a group of petition-waiving upscale Resaca de la Guerra
residents demanded their resaca be cleaned. Those 30 signatures were enough to
get commissioners thinking about issuing $4 million in 1991 voter-approved
bond money into circulation to clean the resacas.
But several of the people at Tuesday's meeting demanded to know why the
resacas would take priority over the ditch problem in the Southmost. Why
hadn't money been set aside to address the Southmost ditches too?
It all amounts to who is on the city and county commissions and how many
citizens vote. To the victor go the spoils.
(Anthony Gray covers city issues for The Herald, To contact him call
982-6624.)
