Mayor Dee Margo, who I believe to be a Republican Trojan Horse with the ultimate goal of Republicanizing liberal-leaning El Paso, has always advocated for the destruction of Barrio Duranguito. As a businessman sitting in the mayor’s seat, he is leading the charge to tear it down and begin building the obscene monument to fiscal stupidity and wholesale historical malpractice on behalf of his wealthy downtown property owning friends.
Margo himself is an integral part of this closed group of powerful influencers who are rarely if ever challenged…the Hunts, De La Vegas, Scherrs, Sanders, Francis, Abrams, O’Rourkes, Fosters, etal.
Make no mistake, El Paso’s mayor and city council have an agenda to fulfill and it has nothing to do with working for the best interests of El Pasoans.
This is an act of financial violence perpetrated upon tax-paying citizens, and a shocking display of willful disregard towards some of our city’s most valuable assets.
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City government took a calculated risk by sending their taxpayer funded high-priced legal dream team to Judge Meachum in Travis County to curry a favorable decision that would allow them to immediately begin the demolition of Barrio Duranguito, setting the foundation for the sports arena. (I’m referring to the multipurpose entertainment complex as a sports arena, because this is the ultimate goal of the city – to build a sports arena).
It boomeranged and the city failed epically. Judge Meachum saw right through the obvious attempt by the city to bait-and-switch voters at the 2012 QOL bond voting booth by intentionally leaving out any references to sports and an arena as being part of the package. She punished city leaders by declaring that they could not legally build a multi-purpose facility that can accommodate sports, nor use outside sources of funds to do so at a later date.
This decision amounted to a cataclysmic defeat which has people in City Hall scrambling to find a way to reverse the death sentence of the sports arena, and possibly their political careers.
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Their decision to target a marginalized group of El Pasoans in a historical barrio was the catalyst that birthed the convergence of various groups and individuals to gather collectively and fight back.
A fight that they never saw coming…a bruiser that’s taking a tremendous toll on them.
Public mistrust continues to breed against our current crop of city leaders, and all because of their white-knuckle, death-grip refusal to give up the sports arena as they continue to work at odds with current public sentiment.
That will be their biggest undoing.
Their ill-fated mission to destroy what we now know is an area brimming with some of El Paso’s most interesting and valuable history…all for a sports arena that El Pasoans are increasingly against.
Our leadership continues to cling to the idea that El Pasoans are complacent, ignorant and toothless. That may have been so a few months ago, but the political climate is heating up to their disadvantage. There was a time when they could carry on and abuse their positions as the regular way of doing business but those days are gone.
At this point there appears to be only one member of city council who has broken ranks and sided with the majority of El Pasoans, while the rest continue to burn their bridges and political futures.
As things continue to devolve and El Pasoans become more familiar with the lies and underhanded tactics employed by city leaders against us, expect to find major faultlines develop among the mayor and city hall. Their current appearance of unity is only a thin veneer that will eventually crack with the mounting pressure. Watch and see.
But for now mayor Margo and city council will continue to attack the very people that are standing in the gap to save El Paso’s irreplaceable heritage and culture with the blind ferocity of a great white shark.
They eat their own.
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On Monday, I will release another blogpost outlining 10 ways city government has bullied and strong-armed El Pasoans as they continue their reckless obsession to build a destined-to-fail “sports arena”.
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