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News of the Middle (Part One):
Not really news, but the Pharr Boys and Girls Club has discovered Valleyites tend to be FAT. They have gotten a grant to try to help. The biggest help would be to get local schools to stop offering junk food like Pizza and to make sure kids participate in rigorous PE. Of course, pizza vendors won’t like losing their cash cow and students won’t like sweating at school, but the kids will slim down.
News of the West:
Mission ISD has announced their tax base has increased for this year, they are raising their tax rate, but they still can’t write a budget that calls for limiting spending to what revenues are coming in. When they run for office, Mission ISD candidates are fiscal conservatives. When they get elected, they just spend like drunken sailors on shore leave.
News of the East:
The winds of change are blowing through the halls of Weslaco City Hall. The new mayor is “buying out” employee’s retirement plans (that is a clever way of saying I’ll pay you now to go away so you won’t sue me for firing you later). With the rumored departure of most upper level management (even police and fire chiefs may be leaving), it looks like Mayor Mike is making the hard decisions to fix years of financial mismanagement.
News of the South:
Has Joe Vera and family gotten caught with their hands in the cookie jar again, or are they just stupid? Rumor has it that tickets for a major charity concert at the BB (the Big Barn also known as State Farm Arena formerly known as the Dodge) were sold and Texas Sales Tax was charged. There seems to be a question as to whether or not the tax should have been charged. Joe Vera answered the question by apparently ordering the taxes not be remitted to the State and not be refunded to the patrons, Who got the money, Joe?
News of the Middle (Part Two):
The community is in mourning over the passing of “Padre” Mike Allen, a long time successful promoter of McAllen’s economic development and an STC Trustee. It seems the PWB (powers that be) has determined Jim Darling is to be anointed as Mike’s successor on the STC Board. It is a shame that a great servant of the community is to be replaced by the likes of Darling. To put a little more salt in the wound, to replace Darling on the City Commission, the PWB seems about to select a man the voters rejected, Pepe Cabeza de Vaca, publisher of Socialife and erstwhile partner in the public nuisance known as McClain’s. I guess pandering to the area’s social elite can be more productive than the hard work of campaigning with ordinary voters.
News of the Northeast:
Even a blind squirrel finds an acorn now and then. While our overcrowded jail has to suffer with inmates sent by JPs like Mary Alice who incarcerate people for inability to pay “failure to appear fines”, the embattled chief of Edcouch/La Villa police has declared amnesty on “failure to appear” fines as long as arrangements are made on the underlying offense. Now, if he would go back to using Elsa’s dispatchers (see last week’s column), he could actually be called “a fiscally responsible public servant”, a sobriquet rarely earned by local government bureaucrats and politicos.
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