You know that when Mayor Oscar Leeser and Borderplex Alliance President Rolando Pablos hit the road trying to entice businesses to move to El Paso, they have talking points.
Mayor Leeser is a salesman. He owns a car dealership. Every salesman on his lot has a sales narrative they employ to close the deal.
“What’s it going to take to get you into this car today?”
So what do you suppose Mayor Leeser and Mr. Pablos tell prospective relocators?
Here’s a quote from the developer of the new Aldea development, from this week’s El Paso Inc.:
Since then, [Albuquerque-based Geltmore LLC, the master developer of the $500-million community called Aldea El Paso] has been spurred on by last year’s opening of the Downtown ballpark and the $473-million quality of life bonds passed by voters in 2012.
“To the rest of the world, you put those two things together, and it was like cannons going off, ‘Hey, look at us. We are going for it,’” [Geltmore CEO Paul] Silverman said.
Do you think that might hint at Mayor Leeser’s sales narrative?
If the ballpark and the QoL bonds are part of Mayor Leeser’s pitch, how do you suppose prospective relocators respond?
Maybe “Triple A baseball? That makes you one of thirty cities in the U.S. with Triple A ball and one of 246 cities in the world with a Major League Baseball affiliated team, not counting the thirty cities in the U.S. with a Major League team. Come back after you’ve got those Quality of Life issues worked out.”
Maybe we need to change our pitch.
Maybe somebody needs to update these prospective “employers” about the current status of those very expensive QoL bonds. And, make sure they get the opportunity to actually visit the city so they can see for themselves just how bad our streets are? After all, if they are going to want to build yet another development, materials will have to be delivered, and workers will have to get to and from the job sites, right?