(C) El Paso Matters.org
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Opinion: City government should hear ideas from residents around Duranguito [1]
['Special To El Paso Matters', 'El Paso Matters']
Date: 2023-11-29
By David Romo, Carmen Rodriguez, Monica Garcia and Alberto Mesta
It is rare that a community group requests the opportunity to make a presentation to El Paso City Council to share their data with the city. Project Regeneracion, a recently formed non-profit working to support Duranguito residents and restore the neighborhood, made such a request to the El Paso City Council.
The city’s usual course of action is that it receives presentations from out-of- town consultants, hired at public expense to conduct surveys, focus groups, community listening sessions, etc. These consultants, who are unfamiliar with our city, come up with dubious notions of what El Pasoans want or need. (Recall the infamous Glass Beach Study which informed us we did not want to see “uneducated, dirty” viejitos in our Downtown).
More recently, the poorly attended loteria games in Segundo Barrio were supposed to elicit information for the Downtown and Surrounding Neighborhoods Plan. Inexplicably, the city has continued to hire and pay so-called expert consultants millions of our tax dollars.
Because the Duranguito neighborhood has been in a state of disrepair since the attempted bulldozing of several historic buildings in 2017 and residents have not been consulted or given notice of what will happen, Project Regeneracion decided to find out about their needs and views of the future. We spent many volunteer hours walking the neighborhood streets, knocking on doors, completing surveys and meeting with dozens of residents.
Our presentation consisted of data collected which we call Duranguito Neighborhood Standards, and a PowerPoint presentation of a community vision for the future based on input from both current and former displaced residents.
The proposal calls for rehabilitating buildings to replace low-income housing lost since 2012; a community center; mitigation of traffic and noise from late-night events; and other improvements for Duranguito.
Knowing the city was planning to sell about 18 properties to private parties, we wanted to ask the city to consider offering incentives to prospective buyers and investors to incorporate our proposals into their own plans.
Unfortunately, when our item was called, Mayor Oscar Leeser expressed disappointment and referred to a remark he said he heard in a TV interview. The alleged comment was unclear to us.
A motion was then made to delete our item from the agenda because the city manager had already been tasked to make a presentation on Dec. 5. The mayor then directed us to meet with the city manager.
We were taken aback because an inappropriate remark, about a matter of public concern, is protected by a First Amendment right to freedom of expression. Yet, the voice of Duranguito was stifled that day.
We are looking forward to meeting with the city manager, something we had considered and decided against because we wanted to be more transparent and avoid the appearance that we desired preferential treatment. Thus, we hope our good will efforts to bring Duranguito’s voice to city hall will bear fruit.
And if the city was planning on similar neighborhood standards or maybe even better ones, we will consider it a win-win situation for everyone. Either way, our advocacy work under Project Regeneracion for the benefit of Duranguito and similar barrios will continue.
David Romo, Carmen Rodriguez, Monica Garcia and Alberto Mesta are members of the Project Regeneracion Board of Directors.
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https://elpasomatters.org/2023/11/29/opinion-duranguito-future-planning-should-include-south-el-paso-residents/
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