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The second time was not a charm for the proposed Cameron County Arena, initial funding for which was the subject of Proposition A on Saturday’s Constitutional Election ballot.
Specifically, the proposition asked voters whether the county’s existing venue/visitor tax revenue should be used to help pay for construction of a proposed $100,000 million, 10,000-seat mixed-use arena to anchor the 1,300-acre Madeira master-planned community in North Brownsville.
Throughout the night as the votes were tallied, the outcome see-sawed in a nearly 50-50 split, among voters in favor and opposed to the proposition. With the last vote tallied Saturday night, 8,810 voters were in favor of the project versus 9,019 voters opposed—a difference of 209 voters.
The gap was as narrow as 18 votes after early voting totals were announced shortly after polls closed at 7 p.m.
The same proposition was defeated by a narrow margin in November, though voters in 2016 approved a proposition to allow venue/visitor tax — also called Hotel Occupancy Tax (HOT) — revenue to be used for improvements to Isla Blanca Park and construction of the South Texas Ecotourism, which recently opened in Laguna Vista. HOT revenue is generated by a fee on hotel/motel bookings and car rentals within the county.
This time around, the arena proposal was accompanied by a robust public-relations push by Friends of the Cameron County Arena, made up of Madeira’s developers and other proponents, but apparently even that wasn’t enough.
Cameron County Judge Eddie Trevino Jr., who had argued for the arena as an economic driver for the county, said he’d hoped for a better outcome on May 7.
Suggestions that county taxpayers would ultimately be on the hook for the project were wrong, Trevino said late last month, adding that the county has no intention of using general fund or property tax revenues to try and build the project. HOT revenue wouldn’t pay for the whole thing but would provide a substantial amount of money that could be used to leverage additional funds — state and/or federal grants for instance, he said.
Meanwhile, the infrastructure piece that would have been provided by the Madeira project would have been worth $30 million to $35 million, Trevino said.
“We anticipated a close election so can’t say we’re surprised,” the county judge said as totals were being finalized. “We’ll see what the final results say, but one thing to keep in mind, we have over 220,000 registered voters and the likely turnout will be less than 10% of the registered voters so that’s why every election, if you don’t vote, your voice isn’t heard and those that do take the time to vote are the ones making the decision for everyone else.”
RESULTS: May 7, 2022 election tallies for RGV cities, schools
