NOTHING GOOD ON TV: City Fades Its Long-Running Cable Novela To Black...

By LESTER CANTU
Special to The Tribune

BROWNSVILLE, Texas - It was always the local, low-rent novela most residents here ignored - those long and energy-sapping meetings at City Hall, the ones where the mayor and his coterie of comfortable commissioners sailed through heady issues such as the menace of plastic bags, the headaches born from massage parlor shenanigans, the bitch of stray dogs and, for a little salsa, the rage engendering that anti-immigrant law roiling Arizona.

Really, the only interesting frames came when the citizenry rose to speak in the Public Comments moment of the Brownsville City Commission meetings. Well, no more. Because, now, city leaders, said to be wary of lawsuits, have put an end to televising that part of their meetings. It wasn't unanimous agreement on the often at-odds commission, but it was a done deal - the character actors that filled the cable channel airtime would no longer see themselves addressing the commission, no longer working on scripts that gave them the best lines, the best digs, the best of Chicanoe literature-in-a-hurry.

According to City Attorney Mark Sossi, Brownsville was risking a lawsuit when these speakers lashed-out at non-elected officials, which is a common practice in the Hispanic culture.

Besides, it was also said, the City of McAllen does not televise its Public Comments time. And Harlingen does not televise its meetings at all. So, what the...

Said one regular speaker, identified as Fernando Ruiz: "We don’t live in McAllen, and McAllen doesn’t have a Fernando Ruiz." Well, yeah, that is true. There is only one Fernando Ruiz, like this Fernando, in the entire Rio Grande Valley of Texas.

About the move, City Commissioner Melissa A. Zamora, credited as the proponent of the anti-Arizona law resolution earlier this summer, said this: "If we’re going to televise our meetings, I personally feel it’s poor form to turn off the cameras during public comment. Yes, there are times when misinformation is said by public commenters, and there are times when we get yelled at. It comes with the territory when one becomes a public servant. But there are also times when legitimate issues are brought before us that the community should be made aware of..."

Sossi, meanwhile, acknowledged that the Citizens Blackout was his idea. He said something about people rising to address the commission on faraway issues such as rampant starvation in Africa, and he also bemoaned the fact that many of the residents who arrived to speak usually "ignored" the mayor, when he spoke.

And, oh, sure, we can't have the mayor being ignored. No, no, no. Nuclear war could break out. The goofy international bridge linking lonely Brownsville to renegade Matamoros might be taken-over by cruel, women-beating, drug-dealing thugs while Fernando Ruiz is speaking. A giant, bulbous black spider might descend on the city at just the wrong portion of the Brownsville City Commission meeting. Mr. Amigo could show-up, and then what? Some famous Mexican composer no one knew lived in Rancho Viejo might arrive and start singing, international celebrities like that.

Gimme the remote...

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[EDITOR'S NOTE:...Writer Lester Cantu is the former owner of The Valdez Brothers Tire Shop in Brownsville...]