Paint It Bleak...

By DUARDO PAZ-MARTINEZ
The Paz Files

HARLINGEN, Texas - They say much can be said about a community by the manner in which it practices its neighborhood politics. They say that in Smalltown, USA, every time an issue so small that it takes a microscope to find it makes mush out of local brains.

Such is the case in the recent dust-up at City Hall here between factions seeking to annex or de-annex a small piece of the city's West Side. You'd have thought someone had proposed changing the city's name, or posited the idea that a few local banks needed to be charged and burned to the ground. Not even close.

But there was Harlingen appearing in the form of elected officials at City Hall, some throwing fire & brimstone into the night winds, practically screaming against the idea of losing the acreage in question, lands everyone agrees are not on the so-called better side of town. Equally vocal were the proponents of the idea that this land, poor as Hell worst alleys, but valued just the same, should remain under the city's banner, lack of basic services and all.

It was a community embarrassment of the first order, one that not only made cheap hamburger meat out of the affected residents, but brought out the worst in human beings. If it's true that City Commissioner Kori Marra used the "F" word when addressing older colleague Jerry Prepejchal, then she should resign posthaste. Such barnyard lingo is better suited for the midnight hour at a local bar, at about closing time when the last-second hunt for a horizontal treat requires such words. Ms. Marra is being roasted in town, and it's not the first time. Too bad. Those, too, are dots to be filled-in on that childishly-sad drawing that is today's struggling Harlingen.

The issue is one corporate cities have grappled with since the advent of modern cities. How and when do we annex areas, so that we can grow and prosper, so that the community of haves and have-nots can work toward something better? Here, all of last week, annexation was treated as if fornication. A few wanted it badly; a few did not with just as much vigor. Happens all the time. But they're rarely as contentious as the issue was here in recent weeks. Longtime friendships were torn apart and cut-throat betrayals ruled. It was Harlingen gone wild. But, then, that's what comes of hizzy fits thrown by amateurs, by the ignorant and by the close-minded.

We asked City Commissioner Robert Leftwich a few questions via Email. He did not respond to them individually, but did write this in his reply: "What makes this really bad about this deal is that the recommended fire station that the city did intend to build years back was built to support Marra's Treasure Hills area (Glasscock 2009). As you can tell, the west side is at great risk. By their resistance, it appears the Old Guard could care less."

Leftwich refers to Commissioner Marra, a strong defender of the annexation - with or without police and fire protection. Leftwich opted to de-annex, saying the city's failure to provide basic services left it vulnerable to a lawsuit. The "Old Guard" is that group of locals who in the past decided things for everybody, generally in their overwhelming favor, however.

Leftwich went on: "Between you and me, though state law is just as demanding on providing police and fire services, I erred in my presentation by using the general law section and not the home ruled. I plan on correcting the presentation later."

By all accounts, Leftwich's presentation at the City Commission meeting was a careful defense of the de-annexation posture he and Commissioners Prepejchal and Gus Ruiz took that night, this despite hooting and hollering that lowered the discourse practically to a domestic brawl between an educated husband and an uneducated wife. Life is that way in the Rio Grande Valley, although no one worries too much about it.

Elsewhere in the land, major issues moved the government and the business world. Political candidates seeking the Republican Party's 2012 presidential nomination kept up their relentless attack on Democratic President Barack Obama. In the streets of most major cities, protesters gathered in numbers that grew by the minute to damn the nation's corporate greed culture and its resulting stomp of the Everyman's voice.

Here, in dwarfish Harlingen, the fallout was both laughable and, again, yet another spectacular display of what can only labeled as being immature brains. Selfish remains the region's most popular adjective.

Asked about his future in city government, Commissioner Leftwich said this: "Still two years on my term, so I'm too far out to decide on a fourth term."

It makes you wonder why he would even bother...

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