For BND, It's Time For Musical Deckchairs...

By Lloyd "Bridges" Rosales

Special to The Herald-Tribune

BROWNSVILLE, TX - Few people outside the world of container freighters and tired-to-the-bone longshoremen grasp the day-to-day doings of the gray and boring Brownsville Navigation District (BND). Why anyone would want to serve on its board is a mystery. Those familiar with the operation say it is nothing short of a heap of bureaucratic mumbo-jumbo that must be overseen and tracked in a manner more like administering a sprawling federal prison than a shipping port.

Yet, here they come again, as Dolly Parton might say.

The latest race for commissioners of that body are on the field and ready to do battle. Two incumbents - Carlos Masso and Martin Arambula - have drawn fire in the form of energetic, but inexperienced opponents. Masso's struggle will come against Argelia Miller, while Arambula has two candidates out to take his place, namely someone named Luis Melendez and the peripatetic Moses Sorola.

The vote takes place in May.

Mrs. Miller, you may recall, launched a bid last year for a seat on the Brownsville City Commission, but tasted defeat at the hands of rosy incumbent Edward Camarillo. Sorola lost in his effort to unseat City Commissioner Carlos Cisneros, a triumph that came to newcomer Melissa Zamora in a knockdown-dragout fight. Sorola distinguished himself by being a sore loser, his petulance in full alert after suffering the demoralizing defeat.

Masso burst out of nowhere from his Assistant D.A. highback chair at the District Attorney's office to win his current seat, a leap so strange for a lawyer more used to courtrooms than docks that it drew a deluge of "What's he up to anyway?" from disbelieving citizens seeing a strange conspiracy in play.

Melendez, himself, comes from the minor league's leftfield. A warehouse and forwarding company businessman, he offers who knows what other than a desire to win election. In a write-up posted on ElRrunRun.com, the ever-whining Sorola again whipped-out at Commissioner Zamora, telling Blogger Juan Montoya this: "If we had known that Melissa was going to enter into a consulting firm with a vendor doing business with the city, we would have gone after her, too. We were so busy dealing with Cisneros that Melissa came in through the back door." That would seem to have been enough for Sorola to know the political door had been slammed on his face.

Miller's unsuccessful run at the city commission post is said to have brought her an immersion course in vote-getting. A veteran of the U.S. Air Force, she portends well for any office she wins. Miller may not be Othal Brand or Eddie Lucio as a campaigner, but that's a positive.

It's early in the game, yet Sorola's giddy camp believes Arambula's ties to Corpus Christi pol Solomon Ortiz may help their cause. Like many in the county, Sorola wants answers from Ortiz and Arambula on the one pocketbook issue that totally exasperates this part of South Texas - the infamous $21 million lost in a mess of a project to do with a bridge into Mexico. The bridge project never happened and those in power never offered an explanation.

When it ventured into the scandal under pressure from the angry citizenry, less-than-enthusiastic County D.A. Armando Villalobos nosed the dynamics of the deal and declared he'd found no criminal wrongdoing. And then, as if some cold-hearted carnival game-handler giving a kid a small price for his troubles, he happily announced a $1 milllion settlement from the BND. To this day, few here are satisfied with the BND's part in the bridge mess.

What change newcomers such as Miller and Sorola might bring is anybody's guess. Miller will arrive with a conscience the BND desperately needs and Sorola's temperament may just be enough of a sparkler to kick-over a few executive chairs belonging to BND's management...

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