I hate to say it because it’s so inflammatory. But look at it.
Rich people trying to kick poor people out of their homes so rich people can watch concerts from luxury suites.
Look who it is. Millionaires. The Chamber of Commerce. The biggest law firm in the city. Real estate speculators.
You don’t see any poor people saying we need to kick people out of their homes.
I know those rich people don’t think they’re picking on poor people. They don’t care that those people living in Duranguito are poor. Those people living in Duraguito are just in the way of the rich people making more money, and making more money is what’s important to (most) rich people.
And look at the people on City Council who support kicking the poor people out of their homes. They’re the people who pretend, or aspire, to be rich.
They don’t represent the poor people.
It’s a class war. But the poor people didn’t start it. They just want to be left alone.
It is not class warfare except in your and Lily Limon’s minds. When Council decided to put the arena in Duranguito, it wasn’t because they don’t care about poor people. It was because they thought that would be the least complicated decision. The area is close to the convention center and they didn’t want to deal with Union Pacific. Council just wanted to make a decision and take advantage of low interest rate finance. Little did Council know there would be much resistance to building anything in Duranguito, as it should be. Bottom line is, Council did not do their homework and felt is was more important to cross the arena off their list than find a better place for it than one of El Paso’s oldest and most authentic neighborhoods. Thinking of this as class warfare creates a smokescreen for real issue which is Council’s stupidity with a couple of exceptions. I’m glad for the pushback. It woke Council up but showed their stupidity in another area — ignorance of the Open Meetings Act.
If putting the arena in Duranguito were the only instance of classism I could write it off as bureaucratic stupidity, but how about these other moves:
Moving the buses from the Plaza de los Lagartos. Every storefront around the plaza used to house a business, but someone had the idea that we didn’t want a bunch of poor people hanging around the plaza.
The PDNG’s plan to put a big box store in Segundo. That way we wouldn’t have cross-border shoppers penetrating the upscale environs of DWNTWN.
The aborted move to eliminate sidewalk displays on South El Paso Street. Another move to limit the visibility of poor shoppers and the viability of those stores that cater to them.
For a vital, vibrant downtown, you want foot traffic. You want people on the street. Except the people making the decisions in this town want the “right” people.
Have you ever driven through a forest that’s been clear-cut and replanted? Every once in a while, the trees line up in rows.
And the “right” people for DWNTWN look like Penelope Cruz and Matthew McConaughey
It’s always been about pleasing the wealthy, without regard for even oneself. City Council pays, for the most part, the same property taxes that you and I do. Why on earth would anyone want to demolish our City Hall and destroy our historical First Ward? They do it because they’re family to speculators and they want to please their Masters.
Bandidos, Vendidos, Sinvergüenzas !
I agree with you about the previous Council under Cook. The ridiculous “downtown plan” was obviously an attempt to change how El Paso looks. Foster would never have put huge amounts of money into the Mills building if there were buses and poor people across the street. Moving the buses was a Joyce Wilson fiasco. The election of Leeser rather than Ortega sent the message that this way of thinking was (supposed to be) over. You may be right (as well as Wright) but my gut tells me that this Council would be sensitive to the neighborhood. After all, Limon joined the unanimous original vote in October. She knew who was living in Duranguito. She was convinced, as was the rest of Council, that this was the best place to put the arena. Now she and most of Council are back tracking because of the uproar. Call it class warfare if you want, but I think it’s plain stupidity (something this Council has an abundance of).