Stop unnecessary expenditures when drainage upgrades are needed
It is amazing how completely ignorant our county judge and commissioners are of what is needed in Hidalgo County. I can say that with no fear of contradiction as I watch the floodwaters creep into my garage and onto my back porch.
I can say that with assurances that those in worst shape than I will agree with me. I can say that since I have written countless words to Hidalgo County Drainage District No. 1, the city of McAllen and our commissioners court.
Each of those agencies and individuals has shirked their primary responsibility. That responsibility is keeping our citizens and their property safe and/or informing the public when they don’t.
How can intelligent individuals prefer to build a Taj Mahal county courthouse then turn around and apply for disaster relief because of heavy thunderstorms? The drainage has needed to be taken care of for 40 years. Don’t blame HCDD No. 1.
The money has been available then parceled off elsewhere. Now even those in what were thought to be well-drained areas are suffering due to an antiquated, almost 100 percent manual system. It is time that all the citizens of Hidalgo County demand that any thought of a courthouse or other similar expenditure be stopped until the necessities such as storm drainage are provided.
Ned Sheats, Mission
Trump hurting America one separated family at a time
Trump — the destroyer of family values and this country, as you can see — has separated entire families from Central America calling them criminals and MS-13 gang members, but all I see is mostly women and small children running for their lives from their home countries where they cannot live their children behind to get killed or recruited into criminal gangs or sold into prostitution.
Many times families have to pay protection money to these criminal gangs to be left alone, but as you can clearly see they are not rich people who can pay forever and do not have the means to pay, so they run for their lives.
So please do not blame the families for bringing their kids with them to find a better life, and they will not be taking jobs away from the rest of us, who tend to work in air-conditioned offices or have businesses of our own.
These people will do the dirty work that most Americans do not want to do, like landscaping or clearing houses, or working in kitchens or picking fruits and vegetables in farms across America.
We need them as a labor workforce to keep this economy going. Trump is truly destroying this country as we knew it, as it is slowly becoming a dictatorship and fascist.
Jaime Gonzalez, McAllen
