Throw-Down In Brownsville...

 

By EDUARDO PAZ-MARTINEZ

McALLEN, Texas | They held a local election in Brownsville over the weekend, pitting yet some more largely politically-naive candidates. One, the woman in the contest, arrived claiming fame as a strong, rabid supporter of Republican legal outlaw Donald J. Trump. Her opponent was a private school educator and football coach.

 The verdict went convincingly to the coach.

Nothing will change.

Brownsville, to residents of most other cities and towns in the Rio Grande Valley, fights change. It is often referred to as the "barrio" of the Valley, and not in a nice way. The names of the candidates for the city commission post were Villarreal and Ruvalcaba. Neither is related to Albert Einstein.

When the counting of votes was done, Villarreal had 58 percent of total. He was not in town to celebrate but was across the Atlantic in London chaperoning students from his school on an outing. That may be his greatest accomplishment of the year, although he did issue a statement - a trans-ocean statement - saying he was ready to work for the entire city.

Yes, him too.

Every swinging Charro and Charro maven who has ever sought elected office in Brownsville (and to a large extent elsewhere in the RGV) has campaigned for change, for something new, for the community. Catch up to them a year or two later and they're as flummoxed as they've ever been. A city commissioner has no real power. His or her job is one of negotiation, a trait not often found in our right & wrong, clean & dirty, moral & immoral Hispanics. Tell me who your friends are, and I'll tell you who you are. That old reliable acid test, yes.

So, it was no huge surprise to hear a 60-miles-long yawn swim across the Valley after the latest election in under-achieving Brownsville. We may seem a bit down on the city, but it's only because it rightfully should be the diamond of the Valley. It has the real history of the border's birth and emergence, its good and its bad. History breast-strokes up and down a Brownsville resident's veins. A McAllenite is too much of a Johnny-come-lately to party with a native of Brownsville. And the out-of-towner knows it. But paradox does reside in the Cameron County seat.

I cut my hungering journalism teeth at The Brownsville Herald of the early 1980s. It ruined my marriage, and it also catapulted me to the highest altitudes of the news reporting profession.

Political candidates do play the game in Brownsville, but too-often they fail, or under-perform. Indeed, members of the city commission, including the mayor, rarely spark intellectual discourse on any issue. And more often than not, they play to known failures of the previous administration, which they, predictable, criticize to no end. We could name one or two, but residents of McAllen and Harlingen and towns in between would not care. Indifference also is central to Valley Life.

So, we do congratulate Mr. Villarreal, the winner of Saturday's vote, and we hope he succeeds in fulfilling the campaign promises he made.

At some point, the citizens of Brownsville will lose that 80-pound anvil they carry across their shoulders. All it takes is a little help from downtown.

They've been told that sooooooo-oh many times in the past...

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