Not quite ready-for-prime-time Brownsville Fire Chief Lenny Perez says he is ready to nab the dastardly arsonists who he says may have set three fires within one mile of each other in the span of five days in Brownsville.
The first was at 575 West Jefferson where a vacant home was torched Dec. 20.
The second was the old Parra Grocery that happened just two days before. The Parra Grocery store was said to be of historical significance, but perhaps the restrictions on restoration and renovation proved too costly for potential buyers and it was cheaper to put a match to it. Who knows?
The latest, this Sunday morning, destroyed another vacant house in the 1700 block of West Adams Street.
“We want people to keep vigilant,” Perez said. “If you see someone go into an abandoned building, call the police department so we can go investigate and hopefully we’ll stop this.”
It would be reassuring to hear a fire chief utter those words of concern, but knowing Lenny as we know Lenny, the chief's utterings amount to self-serving speeches that really do nothing to address the problem.
Take for example, the chronic fires at Wilkinson Brothers Recycling Company on 3145 E. 14th St. Neighbors say the fires seem to start suspiciously at about 1 or 2 a.m. when there's no one around, and that the stuff that goes up in flames always seems to consist of foam and molding from cars and other appliances. When the trash pile gets too high behind the recycling yard, it's almost a sure bet that a fire will start one night that will prove too hot or toxic for firefighters to get too close to it and they let it burn. Thick, acrid clouds of toxic fumes choked the night skies and and droplets of chemicals rained down upon the neighboring subdivisions.
"If I wanted to save on landfill charges or on the labor to get rid of the trash, that's the way I would do it," said a neighbor during the most recent blaze. "Notice that nothing of value like copper or aluminum ever gets destroyed, just the trash."
But Lenny, who thrives on good press, can put on his toughest mean look and get int he news columns expressing his concern about the matter.
He is at his best stealing other people's thunder like he did when several firefighters and paramedics risked their lives to help motorists stuck in cars after the Queen Isabella Causeway collapse. When he was told that those firefighters would be recognized with a congressional proclamation, Lenny courageously (and deliberately) made sure that they were never told about the recognition and placed them on duty so he could walk up to the dais before the city commission and receive the plaque and proclamation in front of the cameras. He wasn't even at the causeway when the deeds of bravery were performed by the firefighters and paramedics."I was given my proclamation from the congressman by my supervisor after I arrived from a call for a cardiac arrest," said one of the firefighters. "The chief told the commissioners that they couldn't find me. He was the one who had me assigned to duty that night."
Lenny's forte seems to be the self-appointed union buster with innumerable discipline actions against those he deems a threat to his position or whose knowledge of the profession makes him feel insecure. In almost every instance, his disciplinary acts against the firefighters backfires and are overturned by the civil commission boards. But that doesn't detain Lenny. He is happy having the city's contract lawyers rack up the hours trying to give those pesky union firefighters their just rewards for being so cheeky.
The saddest consequence of his grandstanding happened last year when he ordered the ladder truck and crew at Station Six near the intersection at Price Road and Old Port Isabel to go to Vela Elementary on Paredes by Cameron Park for Fire Safety Week. Instead of sending an inspector to instruct the students on fire safety, the whole crew and ladder truck were sent.
While they were there, a fire call came in from an apartment complex on Coffeeport Road less than a mile from the station. Unable (or unwilling) to interrupt the fire crew, the call went out to another station on distant Old Alice Road to handle the call. However, the length of time that it took them to reach the fire proved to have been the deciding factor that caused a boy to die in an apartment.
We know the city was sued and given the facts, probably settled for a large sum of money with the parents of the unlucky child.
Did Lenny learn a lesson from his folly?
For starters, why not start on a no-brainer arson like the one at the recycling yard on 14th Street?
If and when an arsonist is caught setting fires, it will probably be because of public vigilance and not because of the pronouncements by what we have now passing as a professional fire chief.
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