SATIRE: This is parody. Not a real news report.
SAN BENITO — After deliberating behind closed doors for five full hours Monday, the San Benito Economic Development Corporation announced it had reached consensus on exactly one thing: the mayor’s ex-officio, non-voting chair is not going anywhere yet, because removing it would require everyone to first agree on whether the chair currently exists.
“We went in optimistic,” said board member Ruben Fonseca, emerging at 10:40 p.m. with the thousand-yard stare of a man who has personally measured a chair with a half-cent sales tax. “We spent two hours on whether an ex-officio seat is furniture or a concept. Then an hour on whether a chair that cannot vote can, legally speaking, be unseated. Then somebody said ‘quorum’ and we had to start over.”
The seat in question — a folding metal chair placed slightly outside the dais, occupied by Mayor Pete Galvan, who may sit in it, look at it, and under no circumstances vote from it — has become the most contested piece of municipal furniture in Cameron County. The EDC is funded by a half-cent sales tax that San Benito voters approved in 1995, back when, historians note, chairs were simpler.
Board Hires Outside Accountants To Carry The Money Somewhere Else
In the meeting’s one decisive act, the board voted unanimously to hire the CPA firm Carrillo, Buentello and Ingram to take the agency’s books away from City Hall’s finance department, physically, in boxes, before anyone downtown can see the fairgrounds line item breathing at a $858,139 deficit.
“It’s not that we don’t trust the city,” said board President-elect Dora Cavazos. “It’s that the city keeps asking to see things. Receipts. Applications. The location of the money. A fiduciary duty, they keep calling it. We looked up ‘fiduciary’ in the bylaws and it’s not in there, which we found very reassuring.”
The outside accounting firm will now track the half-cent tax from a neutral location, possibly the parking lot of the fairgrounds, where — at current burn rates — the pavement itself is expected to show a positive year-to-date balance by 2027.
Chair’s Future Referred To Committee Of People Sitting In Chairs
The question of the mayor’s non-voting seat will return next month, along with a proposal to study whether the chair could be downgraded to a stool, which the city attorney’s office has already flagged as “somehow more provocative.”
“Look, we spent five hours on this and we’re prepared to spend five more,” Fonseca said, gesturing at the empty metal chair, which was not allowed to comment. “That chair represents everything this EDC stands for: a place at the table, technically, minus the table.”
FAQ
Q: Can the mayor vote from the non-voting chair?
A: No. He may sit, lean back slightly, and experience the half-cent sales tax spiritually.
Q: What did the five-hour closed session cost taxpayers?
A: Roughly a nickel of every $10 purchase since 1995, which is either the point or the problem, depending on which chair you’re in.
