Uncertainty over election
This is my opinion in the 2024 election. I do not see anyone qualified to head America forward; we continue to sink instead of working on moving forward and out of this ever-sinking quagmire we find ourselves in.
I was listening to a program on TV and the scientist speaking said something that got me thinking. He said, “You know, we don’t dream anymore.”
This came from an astronomy scientist. His words piqued my interest. What does he mean? And he said something interesting I could relate to. He said, this is what I mean and he went on to show a sketch of a futuristic city. The buildings were not on the ground but up above ground hundreds of feet up, a beautiful city in the sky that I compared to an expressways overpasses today but, in a way, larger scale.
Then he asked the audience, can you guess as to when this sketch was made? No one came close to the time. Then he said, this sketch was made in 1960 to reflect how the year 1980 would look like. Then he said, I don’t see any more dreams like in the past, you will never understand unless you lived at that time period to compare.
I no longer see how it will be 10 or 20 years from today because we lost the foresight for the future. If we do not have a future to look forward to, what purpose do we live for?
We need the foresight to drive the desire to be better.
Rafael Madrigal
Pharr
Infrastructure for warehouses
In the Southeastern quadrant of Pharr, including its extraterritorial jurisdiction, there is a tremendous demand for suitable land for warehouse industrial development projects.
Many investors see the area around the Pharr-Reynosa International Bridge as the perfect place to locate their warehousing or importation business.
Agricultural products and finished goods importers as well as manufacturers of various products are attempting to establish their facilities in the area. Millions of square feet of cold storage and dry warehousing facilities are being proposed by a plethora of investors including one investor with 6 million square feet of warehousing space itself.
Hundreds of acres in the area have already been secured by various entities for warehouse and industrial development. Several developers are already preparing conceptual renderings but find themselves facing insurmountable challenges such as the lack of sewer service infrastructure. This is affecting developers’ ability to proceed with current projects and meet client demand.
Certainly, this level of potential investment will be of tremendous economic benefit to our region. If funding is not available at this time for such infrastructure investment, what is preventing the local governments, particularly the city of Pharr, from being more proactive and aggressive in attaining resources to provide the needed infrastructure services?
In the latest Industrial Warehouse Summit, organized by the Pharr bridge, the recurring theme from the stakeholders was the lack of sewer and water services in the areas where industrial projects are being proposed. Business owners and real estate developers perceive this lack of effort or interest from local government as a major setback in their investment efforts.
Eleazar Guajardo
Former city commissioner
Pharr
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