The El Paso Scene, our city’s premier local publication just handed the El Paso arena and key City players their notorious Gecko of the Year Award for “strangest, dumbest and most outrageous El Paso news of 2017”.
During my run for City Council District 2 last year, I was the only candidate across El Paso running for any office that actively and publicly campaigned AGAINST the arena PERIOD. I didn’t want it built. Not in Barrio Duranguito, not in the railyard, not at Cohen Stadium, not in the Asarco properties now owned by UTEP…not anywhere.
I mentioned that El Paso’s arena fustercluck would be the defining issue for the incoming mayor and city administration. A dead weight wrapped around their necks that will sink them like stones in the lake of political mediocrity.
It was a toxic idea from day one and has left a trail of unraveling damage and financial ruin in it’s path. The sports arena set the tenor for local government throughout 2017 and will continue to expose the levels our city leaders will go to when it comes to undermining their call to serve El Pasoans, all in favor sucking up to the special interests and downtown’s wealthy investors who pull their financial strings and give them their marching orders.
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The sports arena has displaced several dozen El Pasoans who would have admittedly rather stayed in their barrio if given the chance and some help from the City in holding their landlords accountable to providing them with decent and safe shelter. They have been uprooted from the neighborhoods they have spent decades living in and going about their business, having been scattered to the four winds across El Paso, far and away from life as they knew it.
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The sports arena has ended the political careers of one mayor and 3 out of 4 city council reps whom I filed ethics complaints in late December 2016 for deceptively engaging in illegal meetings regarding the arena and it’s placement in Barrio Duranguito. Keep an eye on Peter Svarzbein, the only remaining City Council rep who will run for re-election this year. If he loses his incumbency which is likely, then the ethics complaint massacre will be 100% complete.
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The sports arena blew up the County Historical Commission and it’s highly qualified board members including heads Max Grossman and Bernie Sargent, replacing them with know-nothing seat warmers. Grossman and Sargent along with several other members were our best firewall of protection against the very abuse now occurring against our historical architecture, heritage and culture. They were political casualties that were singled out by venomous county leaders looking for their ouster which in their faulty estimation would have cleared the way for the arena and it’s construction. Then county judge Veronica Escobar and county commish Vince Perez are chiefly responsible for the political hit jobs on 11 key members losing their positions with the historical commission.
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The sports arena has brought us mayor Dee Margo, a tone-deaf and culturally-challenged businessman who sits on his mayoral throne representing his millionaire Borderplex Alliance sidekicks’ financial interests at the expense of the overwhelming majority of El Pasoans, our local history, culture and heritage. He speaks in the language of half-truths and misinformation and began his post by attempting to strip El Paso citizens of the right to address council effectively and continues to do so at every opportunity. Beware of our new mayor who is making a not-so-subtle powerplay over city manager and council rather than fulfilling his simple role as tie-breaker and city cheerleader.
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The sports arena launched a physical attack upon five potentially historic structures less than twelve hours after a legal injunction was filed to prohibit demolition. Mayor Margo, City Attorney Firth and City Manager Gonzalez are fighting off Contempt of Court proceedings for their possible roles in the runup to the demolition. The threat of architectural violence continues to this day as mayor Margo will stop at nothing in his effort to discourage and endanger Duranguito volunteers as they keep round the clock vigil over the buildings. This despite pleas from Bishop Seitz in a letter addressed to mayor Margo asking him “…to take positive steps to guarantee the safety of those who continue to organize in Duranguito and to secure the properties that have been damaged to ensure their structural integrity.”
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The sports arena has revealed unprecedented secrecy and unlimited mediocrity at the highest levels of El Paso government. A mayor so skilled at Trump-like doublespeak as he continues to spread the lie that he and council are just trying to build the sports arena that El Pasoans voted for in 2012, despite the FACT that Judge Amy Meachum has determined and publicly punished city leaders for intentionally engaging in a bait-and-switch and the election booth in 2012. A city attorney so skilled at withholding and suppressing open records requests that she waited until the city was threatened with a lawsuit to release over 400 documents, many containing damning clues to the secret workings between city leaders and arena stakeholders. Sales records that indicate the City overpaid investors up to five times as much as their properties are worth. Contract details that called for demolition of properties before purchase by the city setting the stage for demolition motivated by greed.
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The sports arena has exposed a city leadership hellbent on winning an unwinnable legal battle to green light the arena using millions of taxpayer dollars to fund their ill-advised legal challenges, many of which have already been determined by judges but are not to the City’s liking. Margo and company have lit a match to well over $1,000,000 of our money in a vain attempt to build this arena, after Judge Amy Meachum has already declared it cannot accommodate SPORTS. The City has also spent almost $1,000,000 in real estate purchases, over-paying for properties from investors in Duranguito to include slumlords Alejo Restrepo and Roberto Assael, ex-con and sleazy landlord Billy Abraham and local billionaire Woody Hunt. All purchases made without any guarantee that this arena will ever be built.
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2018 is upon us and we as a community need to fight the governmental and fiscal abuse that we are being subjected to as El Paso’s Arena Fustercluck continues to play itself out. If we care about the future of our city we need to rise up and take an active stand.
The arena is toxic to El Pasoans and the best thing to do with poison is flush it down the toilet before it enters the bloodstream of our history, heritage and culture.
Turn that handle and let’s say goodbye to El Paso’s Arena Fustercluck.
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