Thursday, March 8, 2012

No Surprise: Lowering the expectations from City's DC trip

"Obviously, we could've met with you in Laredo, but we love traveling."

It's funny how before the trip, the mayor played up the importance of taking a 42-member delgation on the taxpayer's dime up to our nation's capitol. His constant refrain of  "we have to knock on some doors" is old and as LaredoTejas mentioned recently, previous trips have not been very fruitful. Case in point: the city's 2009 trip to DC which came back empty-handed and instead had to rely on a short trip to Austin to secure funding for the Cuatro Vientos Road.

An article appearing in today's Laredo Morning Times seems to signal a lowering of expectations and results. Perhaps this is the mayor's way of breaking the news to his hometown that, once again, their gala trip was mostly for naught.

Laredo Morning Times
(LT's Editors notes appear in red)


At a time when federal agencies are bracing for funding cuts to their already shrunken budgets, all courtesy of the nation’s deficit, Laredo’s officials said they had a difficult time gaining support from federal authorities for some of the city’s proposed capital projects.   DUH !

Still, Laredo officials said, they hope the state’s members of Congress will rally on behalf of the city to see some of the projects completed.  As is always the case, no trip needed!

“We are working in a bipartisan spirit in partnership with other entities at the county, state and federal level,” Laredo Mayor Raul Salinas said. The City failed, now it's up to Richard Raymond and Henry Cuellar to simply do their job- anyone surprised?

1 comment:

  1. so true...thanks for the insight. I'm surprised the mainstream media hasn't addressed this.

    ReplyDelete