Home of Today's Common Sense

 Published – Brownsville Herald April 29, 2007

We are just one week until early voting begins in our local elections. The candidates have given us many opportunities to meet them, hear what they say are the most important issues confronting us for the coming term, and describing how they will deal with the issues. All of them are human beings, subject to all the frailties as the rest of us; some have had direct experience in the same positions, which may or may not be helpful.  Over the next few weeks we must make a decision as to the kind of folks we want to entrust our future with. Once that is done, what can we do to keep our representatives on the track that will benefit the community? The press and radio stations can only do so much to seek out the issues and analyze them, even the representatives themselves may make bad decisions based on faulty or intentionally skewed information. Is it right to expect that regular folks elected to a public office with no salary can act as a Board of Directors over such complex businesses as an airport or a power generation utility without staff support, even though they may be managed by competent folks? 

Many candidates bring the skills of their lifetime to the office and others with managerial skills donate time out of community interest or sometimes for some personal gain. Other elected officials, do whatever they can to learn what their neighbors can tell them or even gain a focus by hearing what other candidates have to say. At the most recent meeting of South Texans for Good Government, I had the privilege of sitting next to our County Judge Carlos Cascos. Though he didn’t say, I expect that he was looking at the potential mayors he would be working with in a few months and listening to what issues were resonating with the folks. His active interest was a definite sign of cooperation that has not been seen for some time in the rarified atmosphere of the County Judge’s chambers. Perhaps Judge Cascos also felt the beginnings of the “Miracle on Jacaranda”.  More »