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TRAFFIC METER ORDINANCE LATEST OF CITY'S ABSURD IDEAS
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<div>By<b> Juan Montoya</b></div><div><i>“We are not there to hurt anybody ... meters are not there to make any money. They are there to move traffic around … to keep traffic flowing,”</i><span> City of Brownsville Traffic Director Robert Esparza</span><span></span></div><div><br /></div><div>And so, in his stated quest to make nice with the residents and visitors to Brownsville, Traffic director Robert Esparza and City Manager Charlie Cabler are urging the city commission to pass an ordinance that would allow installation of more parking meters and an increase in parking fees.</div><div>A compliant commission did just that and passed its first reading at their last meeting with the second reading scheduled in a week.</div><div>The ordinance will leave it up to the traffic department director â€" read Esparza, The Benevolent â€" and Cabler, The Magnanimous, to install yet more parking meters in the city and to raise fees in the future as they see fit.</div><div>As a comparison with Brownsville's 50-cent per hour rates, they pointed out that San Antonio, up nawth, charges<span> </span><span>75 cents per half-hour with a maximum fee of $3 per meter.</span></div><img src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgL4OjRvUJhLEBIpRZzZutovQp7AwkqNrenquqbI5BFAy1c5nkpUPRqfDneYL-jFf53OTB0eW7FF4CSuey-7J6-YZuP0Magc3gLLhk-P0RD4niyvCFb7WeGUgvbfTOpHiLIs2LA28PRim0/s400/tickets.jpg" border="0" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5730991675908486434" style="float: right; margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 10px; margin-left: 10px; cursor: pointer; width: 400px; height: 258px; " /><div><span>Under their plan, </span><span>the fee would be raised to 50 cents per hour, compared with the curren</span><span>t 25 ce</span><span>nts an hour.</span></div><div><span>Now, according to Esparza it's not the money, honey, that is motivating the call for the new ordinance. Rather, it's traffic mobility that's the driving force behind this move.</span></div><div><span>Oh, yes, downtown Brownsville and downtown San Wilmas is just about an even comparison, isn't it?</span></div><div><span>Granted, the local citizenry just celebrated the Easter Bunny, but that rationale is best left to parents when they explain the Tooth Fairy and other myths of the culture to their gullible offspring. Even then, that rationale might be a hard sell.</span></div><div><span>With the ordinance well on its way to become law, how will this affect the city's bottom dollar?</span></div><div><span>According to the Brownsville Finance Department, the city racked in a tota</span><span>l of $310,581.49 from parking meters (if all they take is nickels, dimes and quarters how did the 49 cents come about?).</span></div><div><span>Additionally, another $195,054.87 in revenue came from overparking fines paid to the city. Another $2,253 came in through parking administration fees, $6,025.66 in boot fines mailing penalties and another $625 in boot fines booting fees. When you add up the other parking lot rentals, transfers, etc., the grand total from these parking enterprises at the close of the 2011 fiscal year came to the grand total of $544,399.54.</span></div><div><span>That amount is significantly reduced (at least by half) after expenses</span><span> in supervision and labor.</span></div><div><span>The plan, as it is outlined in the ordinance, will be to make downtown parking (and elsewhere) a moneymaker.</span></div><div><span>Now, we know that almost all of the city honchos have exclusive parking spaces (as do city commissioners and firefighter supervisors), and these are almost always empty on the weekends. But don't dare park in one of those on a Saturday because there will magically appear a yellow parking envelope with a citation on your windshield.</span></div><div>And yes, perhaps it is time to increase the parking rates here, but there is always a down side to this move.</div><div>Have you circled the downtown area vainly looking for a place to park so you can dash into a store or run an errand? In most cases, people just give up and do their shopping or chores somewhere else where there is less congestion and a parking space that doesn't have a meter.</div><div>Esparza says that if he increases parking meter rates more people will flo<span>ck to the downtown area to pay more, a kind of "if you install them they will pay" logic.</span></div><div>So what, pray tell, is the purpose of offering free parking during the Christmas holiday to bring in more shoppers? Is this an aberration that occurs only when shoppers are filled with Christmas bliss?</div><div><span></span></div><div><span>There are already parking meters at the Brownsville South Padre Island International Airport. With the new ordinance, it would allow the Traffic Department to install them on the north side of town and other areas if needed, Esparza said.</span></div><div>By his own logic, Esparza (and the city administration) would have us believe the higher rates would generate business for downtown merchants, with motorists scurrying to get out of the area because of the higher meter rates. He also said that the majority of the metered parking spaces are used by downtown employees who take up the meters and prevent prospective shoppers from parking to shop.</div><div>Why don't they just say that they have hit upon parking space increases as a way to fatten the budget? It would be refreshing if they would just be sincere and be done with it instead of thinking we will swallow these fanciful notions of theirs that the public wants to pay more for anything.</div><div class="blogger-post-footer"><img width='1' height='1' src='https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/tracker/6016803033174468094-8552106956867466419?l=rrunrrun.blogspot.com' alt='' /></div>
LINK: http://rrunrrun.blogspot.com/2012/04/traffic-meter-ordinance-latest-of-citys_13.html

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THE PETE SEPULVEDA LEGACY: DROPPING THE BALL ON ROADS
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<div>By <strong>Juan Montoya</strong></div><br /><div>He was Mr. Everything.</div><br /><div>From managing the county's three international bridges to its airport, the county<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgFJnVsu8wlAtmD-W8FF2aliC1Vb5o2_OKQrM5C0h1OmjfEXrjF0bEAVhv0mBdCthB9EMIMQbGSv9V3utGIdk8i6JvjxflhlcegdGokiRvmMM61-QT8d7omFrj0lr3lh5IJw-nMEUrHZPs/s1600/pete.jpg"><img style="MARGIN: 0px 0px 10px 10px; WIDTH: 158px; FLOAT: right; HEIGHT: 155px; CURSOR: hand" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5730943603919798370" border="0" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgFJnVsu8wlAtmD-W8FF2aliC1Vb5o2_OKQrM5C0h1OmjfEXrjF0bEAVhv0mBdCthB9EMIMQbGSv9V3utGIdk8i6JvjxflhlcegdGokiRvmMM61-QT8d7omFrj0lr3lh5IJw-nMEUrHZPs/s320/pete.jpg" /></a>'s roads, and even its planning and management department Cameron County Administrator Pete Sepulveda was everything to everybody. Additionally, Pete was also working to built a new international briodge, the second causeway to South Padre Island and even offered to help the Port of Brownsville build the bridge it has been wanting for the last 40 years.</div><br /><div>He even had time left over to moonlight as the director of the Cameron County Regional Mobility Authority, for a slight fee, of course.</div><br /><div>Now that the CCRMA has claimed him as their own, Sepulveda can no longer tap into at least five different county funds to pad his hefty $280,000 salary. Below is a list of the sources of his salary while he was at the county: </div><br /><div>County Airport Manager: $5,602; Planning and Inspection: $53,980; Veterans Bridge: $48,516; Los Indios Bridge: $19,391; Gateway Bridge: $14,151;</div><br /><div>Total (county) $141,580 </div><br /><div>Reg. Mob. Auth.: $75,00 </div><br /><div>Total (Salary): $216,580 </div><br /><div>(Est.)30 percent benefits: $73,190</div><br /><div>(Grand total): $288,770 </div><br /><div>His assistant David Garcia was no different. Drawing from the same sources, Garcia was paid just slightly less, at: Total (Salary) $180,654 </div><br /><div>30 percent benefits (est.): $60,210 </div><br /><div>(Grand Total): $240,864 </div><br /><div>Now, it doesn't take a genius to figure that a mere mortal could not possibly manage all these tasks and not be overstretched. Something, somewhere, had to snap.</div><br /><div>Take roads, for example. When Public Works under the questionable leadership of Sepulveda's supervisor Louis Ara undertook what by now should have been a mundane task of paving Paloma Blanca Road in Precinct 1, they worked on the plan for months, and then sent in the Public Works crew to prepare the base and drainage.</div><br /><div>The crews labored for two months getting the prep work done and had set the drainage culverts in place before the actual overlay was begun when they ran into a snag. Apparently, someone had forgotten to do the property title work and overlooked the fact that the road easement in front of the property of Southern Texas Title Co. owner Guy Huddleston wasn't dedicated to the county.</div><br /><div>When Huddleston protested and demanded that the road crews remove the culverts and drain boxes from his property, a brouhaha ensued and the crews had to go back and remove the offending structures. Someone, apparently, had not done their homework at Public Works, Engineering, Right-of-Way, Supervision, Administration, etc.</div><br /><div>"It sees like someone dropped the ball," Sepulveda sheepishly told the commissioner for the precinct. "The easement doesn't belong to the county. We'll have to remove everything from Mr. Huddleston's property."</div><br /><div>Then, take the recent work done at Cameron Park by the same Public Works crews under the direction of the inept Ara, supervised by Garcia, Sepulveda's high-priced assistant. In that project, the workers were placed under an Ara favorite, foreman Ruben Gonzalez, who showed immediately upon arrival at the project that he didn't know his keister from a bar ditch. He had workers climb into deep trenches without the OSHA-mandated protection for workers in sloping ditches.</div><br /><div>OSHA mandates that entities doing the work may use a trench box or shield that is either designed or approved by a registered professional engineer or is based on tabulated data prepared or approved by a registered professional engineer. </div><br /><div>Timber, aluminum, or other suitable materials may also be used. OSHA standards permit the use of a trench shield (also known as a welder's hut) as long as the protection it provides is equal to or greater than the protection that would be provided by the appropriate shoring system.</div><br /><div>Well, our Mr. Gonzalez knew nothing of this and had the workers climb into the trenches without the required protection. But he was Louis Ara's bud, though.</div><br /><div>One, Javier Mendoza (Nuco), had the misfortune of suffering the predicable: the trench collapsed and trapped him under tons of dirt. He suffered serious injuries including damage to his internal organs and has now been declared disabled and can no longer work.</div><br /><div>As an afterthought, Ara suspended his appointee as foreman Gonzalez and now the county has been forced to pay for all the injured worker's medical and disability payments.</div><br /><div>As the commissioners contemplate replacing Sepulveda, and hopefully his able assistant Garcia, they would do well to take a second look at the pyramid of ineptness that now rules Public Works before someone else gets hurt or perhaps killed as a result of the rampart favoritism that allows compadres of the big shots to have them reign over competent workmen. </div><div class="blogger-post-footer"><img width='1' height='1' src='https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/tracker/6016803033174468094-8105799932240015780?l=rrunrrun.blogspot.com' alt='' /></div>
LINK: http://rrunrrun.blogspot.com/2012/04/pete-sepulveda-legacy-dropping-ball-on.html

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