The rains came as they have come naturally for thousands of years. The only difference is that we have paved over thousands of acres of natural surface soils and blocked natural drainage waterways and we end up with these flood disasters.
May I add that this is just a minimal low pressure storm, not a full hurricane that visited our area. I find it difficult to believe that our geological survey engineers have not provided our politicos with the knowledge to avoid and plan for proper drainage for our valley region.
My opinion is that politicos, superintendents and city managers have been more interested in padding their resumes by providing welfare to multi-million corporations and proposing unnecessary projects. In the meantime, our basic infrastructure and education of our children is crumbling from under us.
While our suffering people all over the valley are trying to salvage what little they have, our
politicos have the audacity to propose more massive projects such as convention centers. Massive projects for which we have no funds and no desire to add more debt onto our properties. My friends and neighbors please understand nothing is free.
Property tax money, state or federal grants, added water bill fees, all is still our money and not theirs to squander.
In our valley, cities have expended funds on convention centers, huge malls, concert stadiums, walking trails on floodways, dumpster towers, buildings for fruitcake loomers, unused soccer fields, racetracks and fish barns for corporations.
In Harlingen, our politicos are telling us that they may need upwards of $50 million to improve our storm drainage system. Wait a minute. Is this not the approximate amount that has already been vaporized on Bass Pro? Does anyone know exactly how much?
By the way, what happened to the $18 million that was to be used to move those nuisance trains from our downtown Harlingen? In my opinion, it was all a fraud, as I tried to inform all of you back then. But, you still voted for the same people.
Our esteemed school districts
are spending outrageous monies on stadiums, scoreboards, swimming pools, dance buildings and who knows what other secret projects they might have in mind.
In the meantime, our schools continue to fail on basic educational standards set by the state.
Our special needs children, in my opinion, are cast off to a closet or corner not to be seen. No plans for them for real competent, specially trained and fairly compensated certified teachers.
We have heard the despair of the shootings in schools. We also learned that many of these young people had long standing autistic or learning deficiency issues. What was not pursued by media was to discover what programs, if any, did those schools have in place to identify and help such a student to avoid such a tragedy in their futures.
I suppose they were busy building stadiums and other wasteful projects with special education funds. Contemplate all of this as you see your hard-earned home treasures floating down the arroyo or when you ask your 18-year-old graduate to read or write a complete paragraph that makes sense.
Elias Torres, Harlingen
