Channel 12 and the Edinburg City Council
The City of Edinburg's ECN channel 12. Aside from having to endure the occasional two and a half hour folkloric dance recitals or Blandina Cardenas' rhythmic, monotone delivery at those never ending alumi functions, it's not too bad as bad t.v. goes.
My main programming interest has got to be, without a doubt, the City Council meetings, especially since the May elections.
Wasn't that first meeting a treat? You could cut the tension with a chain saw. I sat there with my beautiful wife and my step-son and watched in amazement as the new kid on the block, Mr. Gus Garcia, made his presence known. As he tried to table everything on the agenda, I took sheer delight in watching Gene Espinoza's body language. He reminded me of Al Gore in his debates with Bush back in 2000, squirming around and making noise, only Gene's a lot smarter. I would love to have heard what he was saying to Wendy Sturgis. It must have been a hoot, because every time he leaned over, she smiled, then nervously swigged water from the Dasani bottle.
For sheer comedy though, I would have to go with attempt by either Noe Garza or Gene Espinoza's (bad audio) attempt to move to approve one of the items before Ochoa was done reading it. Great move guys! Too bad you got spanked by the Mayor.
In the end, Garza, Espinoza, and Garza figured out that all they had to do was vote down the table motion then move to approve. In the true spirit of sportsmanship they eventually allowed most of the stuff to be tabled.
Fast forward to the next meeting. The "we're all going to get along" banter from the weeks after the last meeting waltzed out the door right after the prayer. Gus Garcia led the Pledge of Allegiance and never stopped talking. In one of the re-zoning requests, he read aloud some quote from a guy whose name sounded like one of the male members of ABBA, about the dangers of polluting the community with commercially zoned areas. I don't take issue with his position, I just wish he would have paraphrased it in his own words. Reading it made him sound like a fourth grader reading from the bible in church.
It's good that Gus hounds like he does, but dude, please, try to keep it brief. I don't need to hear you self depricate every time you debate an issue with the others. Just say your peace and move on. Face it, your out voted anyway. Oh yeah, don't rip on people you don't know anything about (Ornelas), that looked bad.
Now I haven't said much about Ms. Garza, so here it goes. Girl, please don't apologize for disagreeing with anyone. It's not personal, it's business. Besides, you're the best looking one up there and I don't want you to look weak. Give 'em Hell, Alma! Put on your game face and pretend that they're one of those turds you loathe in the juvi court.
As for mayor Ochoa, what's with the pissed off look all the time? You won the election. Smile man. In your first run in the chair you seemed so much more at ease. I know you don't have the rubber stamp thing going, but give us a break. Things will come around.
Before I go, I have one more bit of constructive criticism for Channel 12. Enough with the in-depth interview. Twenty minutes is about 17 minutes more than is needed to inform the public about the particulars of the last annual Texas Cook 'Em thing. (Trust me, I'll bitch about that when it's over.) The odd silence from the generally unwilling and unprepared guests makes my finger shake to the channel up selector on my remote so I can see what's on HBO.
My main programming interest has got to be, without a doubt, the City Council meetings, especially since the May elections.
Wasn't that first meeting a treat? You could cut the tension with a chain saw. I sat there with my beautiful wife and my step-son and watched in amazement as the new kid on the block, Mr. Gus Garcia, made his presence known. As he tried to table everything on the agenda, I took sheer delight in watching Gene Espinoza's body language. He reminded me of Al Gore in his debates with Bush back in 2000, squirming around and making noise, only Gene's a lot smarter. I would love to have heard what he was saying to Wendy Sturgis. It must have been a hoot, because every time he leaned over, she smiled, then nervously swigged water from the Dasani bottle.
For sheer comedy though, I would have to go with attempt by either Noe Garza or Gene Espinoza's (bad audio) attempt to move to approve one of the items before Ochoa was done reading it. Great move guys! Too bad you got spanked by the Mayor.
In the end, Garza, Espinoza, and Garza figured out that all they had to do was vote down the table motion then move to approve. In the true spirit of sportsmanship they eventually allowed most of the stuff to be tabled.
Fast forward to the next meeting. The "we're all going to get along" banter from the weeks after the last meeting waltzed out the door right after the prayer. Gus Garcia led the Pledge of Allegiance and never stopped talking. In one of the re-zoning requests, he read aloud some quote from a guy whose name sounded like one of the male members of ABBA, about the dangers of polluting the community with commercially zoned areas. I don't take issue with his position, I just wish he would have paraphrased it in his own words. Reading it made him sound like a fourth grader reading from the bible in church.
It's good that Gus hounds like he does, but dude, please, try to keep it brief. I don't need to hear you self depricate every time you debate an issue with the others. Just say your peace and move on. Face it, your out voted anyway. Oh yeah, don't rip on people you don't know anything about (Ornelas), that looked bad.
Now I haven't said much about Ms. Garza, so here it goes. Girl, please don't apologize for disagreeing with anyone. It's not personal, it's business. Besides, you're the best looking one up there and I don't want you to look weak. Give 'em Hell, Alma! Put on your game face and pretend that they're one of those turds you loathe in the juvi court.
As for mayor Ochoa, what's with the pissed off look all the time? You won the election. Smile man. In your first run in the chair you seemed so much more at ease. I know you don't have the rubber stamp thing going, but give us a break. Things will come around.
Before I go, I have one more bit of constructive criticism for Channel 12. Enough with the in-depth interview. Twenty minutes is about 17 minutes more than is needed to inform the public about the particulars of the last annual Texas Cook 'Em thing. (Trust me, I'll bitch about that when it's over.) The odd silence from the generally unwilling and unprepared guests makes my finger shake to the channel up selector on my remote so I can see what's on HBO.
posted by Powerslave105 at 10:02 PM
6 Comments:
I enjoy reading your post! Just came across it today. You mean to tell me that Alma is better looking than me? Just joking. What’s up with Texas Cook-Em idea? Opinion?
When it's a success, I'll eat my steak and sing it's praises. Til then I'll wait and see since I've seen so many of these "first annual" things end up being the last annual one. I have to rip on something!
Feel that way too sometimes. We are up to 60 entries signed up and paid. Hope it goes well.
Edinburg Rocks,
As Director of the Edinburg Cable Network I honestly appreciate and welcome the constructive criticism! It's an interesting set-up we have here at ECN12. We're funded by the City but we're housed out of UTPA so we basically have to cover events from both entities. Trust me, it was something of an adjustment for me coming from TV News, where it's "Tell me the whole-story in 90 seconds", to, "We need this event aired in it's entirety." I agree those long interviews can sometimes be a little much. We'll work on keeping them as brief as we're able to. However, many times the mainstream TV stations can't give too much time, if any, to talk about community events. So we (ECN12) have to try to get as much info out to the public as possible through our channel. It might be our only format of disseminating the information. Something else to consider is that we're a 24 hour cable station with a very small staff of photog/editors and reporters (Me and part-timer Monica Vaughan) We crank out as many stories, newscasts, interviews etc. as possible, and we don't want to be any more repetitive than we have to be, but that's sometimes the nature of Cable TV. I have had a great time working for the City of Edinburg/UTPA feel honored to be able to do more "community-oriented" TV these days. We ALWAYS welcome the feedback from our viewers! If you or anyone else reading this has story ideas with an Edinburg/UTPA angle, please email me with more info. (Oh, and no contro or political propaganda please, we stay out of all that... save those for 4, 5, 40, or 48 haha!) Thanks for watching!
escamillae@panam.edu
Evelyn Castellano Escamilla, Director-ECN12
p.s. I posted anonymously because I'm not familiar with this whole blogging thing and didn't know how else to log on. Time to get with the program I know!
Ms. Escamilla,
I'm glad you were seeking input from me in regards to ECN. As I'm finding, some people don't quite get my satirical view of things in this world. Seeing as how I can aptly describe some of the shows on Channel 12, I am sure you can guess that I am a repeat viewer. I know I was a bit gruff when it came to describing the programming, but it is truly informative and as I mentioned in my blog, somewhat entertaining. Except for the Dr. Cardenas stuff, I meant that. She could truly hypnotize a schizophrenic on a six day, eight personality, crack binge.
Anyway, thanks for reading my crap and don't take it to heart. Relax, you're doing a great job, especially considering the fact that you work for the City of Edinburg.
Regards, your pal, Powerslave105.
P.S.: I liked you better when you were Castellano!
oh este vato...
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