El Paso must find a way out Infighting by leaders stymies EP growth

05/06/2007

By Ramon Bracamontes / El Paso Times

El Paso's continued struggle with poverty can be traced to several factors, including city leaders' inability to work together, observers and experts say.

Whether elected officials are filing opposing legislation in Austin, or business leaders are fighting with community leaders in Downtown El Paso, or county commissioners are bad-mouthing City Council, the result is that nothing major has been built in this city in the last 25 years.

Dennis Soden, executive director of the Institute for Policy and Economic Development at UTEP, said, "The one thing that I see here more than anywhere else is that people say, 'It's not my idea, therefore I won't support it.' That more than anything else is what has held this city back."

And experts say that until this changes, El Paso will continue to be mired in poverty.

More than 200,000 El Pasoans live in poverty, according to the U.S. Census Bureau. El Paso's poverty rate is 29.2 percent, while the national rate is 12.6 percent. According to federal poverty guideline, a poor family of four has $14.14 a day to spend per family member; single people living on the poverty line have $27.97 to spend a day.

An additional 100,000 El Pasoans are considered poor by federal standards because they make less than 150 percent of the poverty-level income. For a family of four, that would be $30,975 a family.

The median household income in El Paso is $30,968. Nationally, the median household income is $46,242.

Throughout the years, El Pasoans have come up with economic development ideas -- a Central park built in what is now the Downtown railroads, an expanded amusement park along the Rio Grande, an arena, a high-end retail district, a Rio Grande Riverwalk.

All died because while some business leaders and elected officials worked to make them happen, another group of business leaders and elected officials worked to kill them.

Part of process

Former El Paso Mayor Joe Wardy said this infighting is needed and part of a productive process. While in office, he proposed transforming the vacant Farah building on Interstate 10 into a high-end retail mall.

"There was a very small, singular group of people working against it," Wardy said of the project that died. "But it's OK. If anything, it got the community's juices flowing. And because of projects like that, we are now thinking big and we are in better position to attack the poverty and education problems in El Paso."

Now the city is working on four major economic development projects: the expansion of Fort Bliss, which will have a more than $1 billion economic impact on the city; the Downtown Revitalization Project; the expansion of the Texas Tech medical school into a four-year school expected to have a $1.5 billion impact on the economy; and the establishment of the Regional Mobile Authority, which would use toll roads to raise money to build the city's infrastructure.

Each project is hailed by supporters as a way to get El Paso out of poverty because the project will create jobs, increase the tax base and bring in more business into the city.

Yet three of the projects are pitting elected officials against elected officials, business owners against business owners and community leaders against community leaders because opponents say they are too costly to taxpayers, are an added tax and will cost people their jobs.

"During Unite El Paso, we studied successful cities," said state Sen. Eliot Shapleigh, D-El Paso. "All had three things in common: a shared, consensus vision; 300 or so community leaders dedicated to work on the vision; and, pragmatic get-it-done leadership.

"More than ever, we now have a clear vision built on the (medical school), Fort Bliss, Downtown and a strong technology-manufacturing cluster. But too many ask 'What's in it for me?' instead of 'What's in it for us?' "

In this city, he said, "private gain trumps public good."

Other cities

While infighting is not unique to El Paso, experts say, the difference is that in other communities, leaders come together, reach a consensus and move on.

Roberto Franco, the former director of the El Paso's economic development department, now works for the city of Phoenix. In Phoenix, he said, much discussion occurred about where Arizona State would build a new medical school. Once it was decided where it would go, the fighting stopped.

"They are building the medical school in Downtown Phoenix because it will work well with everything else we have going Downtown," Franco said.

El Paso's medical school, supported by a majority of the community and under construction, is still under attack by county commissioners, who recently pulled $5 million in funding from the school, questioning Thomason Hospital's role and whether a Children's Hospital is needed.

Patti Larsen, vice president of media for the Greater San Antonio Chamber of Commerce, said her community is able to get over a lot of the infighting because the mayor and county judge get along.

"There is a fantastic relationship among the business leaders, the city, the county and the chamber," she said.

El Paso businessman Ted Houghton said opposition to projects in El Paso grows because many business leaders cannot get involved publicly.

"Every engineer and construction company here lives off public agencies and the government buildings," Houghton said. "So they can't take a stand on any major project because they will upset someone. They can't get involved for fear of retaliation."

Houghton said El Paso projects would move along faster if community leaders and business leaders publicly supported the elected officials who are pushing good projects.

UTEP's Soden said that in El Paso, it is easy to oppose major projects and gather support against them because of the area's history and isolation.

Wrong thinking

"Among the larger part of the community, there is a perception that El Paso is an affordable city, and if we mature as a city, the cost of living here will be too high," he said. "That is totally wrong."

It is this thinking that gives power to elected officials and business leaders who choose to oppose projects such as the medical school and Downtown revitalization.

"Another problem is that we are always ill-informed about the benefits of a project and how the benefits will trickle down through the community," Soden said. "We are good at explaining the costs and not the benefits."

Dr. José Manuel de la Rosa, vice dean at Texas Tech University Health Sciences Center in El Paso, said the reality of the medical school is helping this city see that it can accomplish anything despite the fighting that occurred along the way.

"What I see happening now is that there is no more squabbling about who gets the credit," he said. "That's because there are too many people to credit at this stage."