City officials running out of excuses for Washington trips. Now it's trains?

As often as our city officials travel toWashington, How about a Laredo-DC shuttle?

The International & Great Northern Railroad reached Laredo way back in 1881. It was their trains that led to the first population boom in the Gateway City's history. They've been an integral part of Laredo, warts and all, for the last 130 years. Now, all of a sudden, city officials are adding "train noise" to their list of excuses for making repeated taxpayer-funded trips to our nation's capitol.

In a veiled attempt to justify the bloated numbers of city officials making this current trip, they have divided themselves into three "teams" : public safety, environment and transportation. The Laredo Morning times lists the Mayor and four others as member of the public safety team. I'm guessing the other two teams also consist of 4-5 members each. That's totals about 15 city officials raiding the taxpayer coffers for this trip. In any event, here's what the LMT had to say about the transportation team's approach to finally fixing Laredo's train problems after 130 years. Don't hold your breath.

During a meeting with the U.S. Department of Transportation (DOT), the Laredo delegation discussed downtown improvements and beautification projects, such as implementing “quiet zones” around the railroad in the most heavily populated areas of downtown, as well as a bus processing facility, and renovating San Bernardo Avenue and Laredo’s all-important riverfront.

“The trains blow their whistles at all hours of the day and night, but even worse, the vibrations from the trains is causing property damage—windows and house walls are cracking,” District VIII Council Member Cindy Liendo-Espinoza said. District VII Council Member Jose A. Valdez Jr. continued with a possible solution: “We would like to treat abatement for train and airplane noise similarly. With federal funding, we are able to purchase noise easements from property owners near the airport, and we are able to purchase damaged property and relocate homeowners. We would like to see a federal program to help us do that for houses close to heavily used train tracks.”

“A lot of great businesses are relocating to Laredo, and in order to encourage shoppers, we want to be able to present an attractive place for everyday patrons to wait in between arriving and shopping,” said deputy city manager Cynthia Collazo. “We want to make the downtown shopping experience memorable, comfortable, and worth writing home about.”

The Laredo delegation remains in our nation’s capitol to meet with several more federal agencies and legislators.

(Translation: They're not done spending our money yet).