Recent editorials from Texas newspapers

Here are excerpts from recent editorials in Texas newspapers:

The Monitor. June 16, 2019.

The Rio Grande Valley -isn’t.

Despite the catchy misnomer, local residents live in a flood plain. And as those living in the Mid-Valley a year ago can attest, that’s the name it lives up to.

The 2018 inundations also remind us that even though we live at the western end of the Atlantic hurricane corridor it doesn’t take a major storm to leave us underwater. Two days of steady rains were enough to overwhelm drainage systems, flooding hundreds of homes and leaving more than 13,000 without power.

It’s only the most recent high-water event. A year earlier similar rains had flooded much of Cameron County. Other parts of the Valley have faced similar fates over the years.

Fortunately, the Valley hasn’t faced an actual hurricane since Dolly hit the area in 2008. It was a Category 1 storm, but it that widespread flooding from Rio Hondo to Edinburg, and from northern Mexico through McAllen.

After a series of major storms including Katrina and Rita devastated much of the Gulf Coast in 2005, a risk assessment study of the area concluded that if a Category 5 storm swept directly through the South Padre Island-Port Isabel area, it would send surges for several miles up the Rio Grande and the several ship channels in the area, leaving much of the land east of Los Fresnos completely underwater. Thousands of residents would be displaced and the cost of damages would be in the billions.

Forecasters predict the current hurricane season will be a little more active than normal, with 13 storms strong enough to receive names. But can’t be denied that storms have been increasing in frequency and strength in recent years, so local officials must always look for ways to mitigate the damage.

That begins with improving drainage as much as possible; winds might create an immediate threat, but flooding often has more long-lasting effects.

Local officials have taken steps to improve drainage as much as possible. Brownsville has tapped into its many oxbow lakes called resacas, and prepares for storms by draining water out of them so they can receive runoff from the rains. City and county officials in Hidalgo County constantly seek to improve the river levees, both to improve drainage and to keep the Rio Grande within its banks. The secured federal stimulus funds from the American Recovery and Investment Act in 2012 to create the Rio Grande Flood Control System Rehabilitation Project to improve and strengthen the levees all along the river. They’ve lobbied federal officials to include levee improvement as part of any border fence or wall project, with some success during the Obama administration.

But such projects deteriorate, and need constant maintenance and improvement.

So while it’s important to invest in the future, Valley officials must recognize the need to spend whatever is necessary to maintain and improve basic infrastructure such as drainage systems. After all, that’s the foundation upon which the future will be built.

Officials should also consider setting standards beyond those required by the state, and require developers to build structures that can survive major storms. The standards will add to the price of new development, but those costs should be offset by reduced insurance rates and lower repair costs if - or when - that major storm does hit.

Because sooner or later the waters will rise again. And the better we prepare today, the better we can address the problem when it arrives.

___

The Dallas Morning News. June 17, 2019.

A couple of hours before a new mayor, Eric Johnson, and a new City Council were sworn in to serve Dallas, a gunman dressed in tactical gear with a black mask pulled over his face opened fire on the federal courthouse downtown.

Federal law enforcement agents and local police raced to take the shooter down, risking their own lives and recalling this city’s nightmare of three years ago, when five officers lost their lives to a gunman who ambushed them in the heart of our city.

The juxtaposition of the shooting Monday morning and the swearing in less than two hours later was jarring and demanding of reflection.

It was jarring in the sense that, this is the world we live in now. A man attacked an institution of law and justice that exists for the very purpose of protecting our lives and liberty, with judging guilt and innocence.

And just a short drive away, another democratic institution was going about the business of the peaceful transfer of power that is the foundation of civil society.

We wish that the new mayor had veered from his prepared remarks to mark, even briefly, the fear, terror and bravery on display at the Earle Cabell Federal Courthouse. We wish he would have thanked law enforcement for, once again, throwing themselves into danger to protect the rest of us.

Unfortunately, the moment went unremarked upon, and Johnson carried on with what was otherwise a fine prepared speech about the need for greater civility in local government and the need to get things done to move the city forward.

The things he said about building our workforce and enhancing the use of data to improve city functions were all valuable. And things of that nature will almost surely occupy most of his time in office.

But leadership is usually defined in moments of crisis more than it is remembered in day-to-day decisions.

Thanks to the swift actions of law enforcement, Monday morning was not another national tragedy visited upon our city. The shooter was quickly neutralized. He died after being shot.

Johnson will not open his service as mayor attending the funerals of victims killed by a twisted gunman.

We hope that day never comes for him, the way it came for outgoing Mayor Mike Rawlings and the way it has come for other mayors across America.

Leaders are made in such moments. Or those moments wash away those who cannot lead.

Monday wasn’t a defining moment for the new mayor because a brave few did their duty.

Let’s begin by thanking them from the bottom of this city’s heart and recognizing that if not for them, we’d be left unprotected from terrible tragedy.

___

Houston Chronicle. June 17, 2019.

It will be a tough sell for Texas education commissioner Mike Morath to persuade the state Board of Education to update Texas’ sex education curriculum for the 21st century, but it’s good to see he’s trying.

The board over the years has been so rooted in the past that it initially dismissed complaints about textbooks that described Mexicans as lazy and slaves from Africa as immigrant workers. That shouldn’t deter Morath; he’s doing the right thing.

Morath, a Republican appointee, recommended to the board last week that students begin learning about reproductive and sexual health in age-appropriate ways as early as kindergarten and understand “sexual risk avoidance” by the end of middle school. “Merely teaching health literacy is insufficient to result in behavioral change and positive outcomes,” said Morath’s recommendation.

He didn’t criticize abstinence-only classes, but that preferred approach has left Texas with a teen birth rate that ranks fourth in the nation; 31 births per 1,000 teenage girls compared with 20 births nationally. Abstinence-only is likely also a factor in 23% of Texas high school students saying they used no birth control before having sexual intercourse compared with 14% nationally.

Teenage births cost Texas taxpayers $1 billion a year in health care, foster care and lost tax revenue. That’s not to mention health care costs that aren’t associated with pregnancy. The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services says two in five sexually active teenage girls in America has had a sexually transmitted disease that can cause infertility and even death. Effective sex education can reduce that statistic.

More than 80% of Texas schools either teach abstinence-only or have no sex-ed classes, according to the Texas Freedom Network Education Fund. Abstinence can be part of a sex education curriculum, but it shouldn’t devalue the importance of contraception. For example, one abstinence program reviewed by TFN described the use of a condom as a complex, six-step procedure rather a simple method to avoid getting an STD.

Sex education should be about facts, not myths meant to scare teenagers from having sex. Besides, the myths don’t typically work. More than half of all teenagers in the United States have had sex by age 18, according to the National Center for Health Statistics. Schools providing fact-based sex education courses can help students make wise decisions to protect their health and avoid unwanted pregnancies.

Gender identity is another topic that should be part of any comprehensive sex education curriculum. That, too, is likely to agitate some board members. Morath’s report recommends students learn in primary grades to “show acceptance of others by respecting differing perspectives, while resisting prejudice and stereotypes.”

The commissioner’s recommendations will be reviewed by a panel of educators that will make revisions and give that document to the school board for its action. Too often, the board has acted as if its role is to protect students from today’s realities by pretending they don’t exist. That’s reflected in past textbook choices by the board that perpetuate stereotypes that have no place in today’s Texas.

Policies of denial won’t change unless this elected board hears clearly from Texans that they want their children to have as many tools as possible, including abstinence, to avoid sexually transmitted diseases and unwanted pregnancies. Look up your board member at wrm.capitol.texas.gov and let him or her know you support policies based in facts and reality - not myths and wishful thinking.