On Comparing Reactions To City Commissioner Kori Marra's Tax Woes & The Baseball Team's Trouble Catching Up To The Silly Light Bill...$40,000 A Season...

By PATRICK ALCATRAZ
Editor

HARLINGEN, Texas - Kori Marra must be livid. The City Commissioner was excoriated when word got out that her real estate company had been lax in paying federal payroll taxes. The screaming grasshoppers came out in droves against her, noting, correctly, we'll admit, that falling behind on taxes was not cool for an elected official. But, wow, nothing approximating that has come following news that the local semi-pro baseball team has been, well, slow in paying its utility bills for use of city-owned Harlingen Field.

What's that about?

Is it simply a case of Ms. Marra, shown in photo at right, being the handy & official punching bag for the moment? Or is minor league baseball so big in town, even at this low level, that the citizenry and city officials will not exactly come down hard on the seemingly unsympathetic management of the Rio Grande Valley WhiteWings?

The Tribune has repeatedly asked City Manager Carlos Yerena for details about the existing contract under which the Wingsters use the 60-year-old Harlingen Field, but, as yet, has been given nothing. Admittedly, Mr. Yerena has bigger problems to resolve and accomplishments to celebrate, what with the city still operating without a full-fledged Chief of Police and resting on the joy of pooh-poohing the groundbreaking of that sports retail store seen at City Hall as the answer to all economic problems for the next century. But, as we always like to say in journalism, it's the details in the little stories that often burn you more than the big stuff. So, who knows where Harlingen is in its effort to keep the Wingsters in payment line?

Our info is that the electricity bill runs into the $40,000 range for the season. Just how much the team is paying - or has paid - is anybody's guess. The info is public information and the city could be forced to offer it, but we gather than it simply isn't a priority. Harlingen, we can almost hear Mr. Yerena say under his breath, has the $40,000 to blow.

No biggie. It'll all shake out, perhaps before the first seventh-inning stretch.

We are, however, perplexed by the lack of fire on the part of local taxpayers. They file into the ballpark to root for the hustling Wingsters, buy concessions, root like crazy until the last out, and then go home, not knowing that taxpayers like themselves are paying for the electricity that brightens the lights for that close play at the plate. Yeah, we know, there is something about seeing a towering homerun clear the fence and the lights that ought to be worth the price of admission. The price of admission yes, but not the community's working back for watching a baseball game featuring a full cast of unknowns who likely will never play at a higher level, nevermind the major leagues.

Ms. Marra would have a right to point at the hypocrisy.

Except that, well, she is a city commissioner, and, as such, should be aware of what the city is owed by the ballteam and any other entity availing itself of city property. We feel for her, cause we know how much hate she has felt during the past year. Much of it was not cool, but that's politics. If you can't stand the heat, goes the line, get outta the kitchen.

As for the RGV WhiteWings, losers in last season's league championship series, it would be something similar: If you can't pay the light bill, get outta the damned dugout. Go play in some free pasture.

We will go on record as saying that although Commissioner Marra should have been aware that her company was not paying its employee payroll taxes that eventually totaled some $20,000, well, we believe the debt - or slow payment practices - of the WhiteWings is a worse crime: Ms. Marra's debt was a personal matter between her company and the federal government while the ballteam takes money from the citzenry under false pretenses; that is, that it agrees to pay its bills and then doesn't...

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