It's All About the Panther Pride!

So most folks know I'm a proud graduate of Austin High School. Graduated in 1989. Just attended my 20 year reunion. The school has suffered in recent years from a vicious cycle of low expectations and poor performance. Parents pick up on that bad vibe and figure out ways not to send their kids there. Nothing is worse for a neighborhood than a neighborhood school with a bad reputation.

But all of that is changing. In ways big and small.

A couple of years ago, Dr. John Tanner came on board as the new principal. He had the big task of turning things around quick otherwise the State would go in and reconstitute the school. He attacked the problem at its root: low expectations. The teachers and counselors didn't expect much from the students. The students didn't expect much from themselves or the school. His crusade is against all the excuses for poor performance, and he is evangelical in his crusade. When he first came on board, the teachers complained that the poor performance was due to the fact that so many of the students were low income. Dr. Tanner went and dug up all the countywide statistics to show the teachers that schools with much poorer students were performing well above Austin High School students. No excuses. Anymore. Just hard work.

And pride. Panther Pride.

That's where Lisa Chavez and Juan Garza and Raul Renteria come in. Lisa Chavez, daughter of Abraham Chavez, is the Director of Piano and Choral Activities at Austin High School. At the beginning of the school year, I was invited to participate in the Freshman induction ceremony at Austin. Lisa Chavez' choir was featured. I was blown away by the performance. Incredible. First class. No one would have expected this from Austin High School.

Front and center was my neighbor Juan Carlos Garza and his buddy Raul Renteria. Seems like Juan Carlos had retired his skateboard and his raggedy skater attire and put on a tie and a suit and decided that he was going to be the best bass vocalist in the State of Texas. Raul Renteria, a tenor, and Juan Carlos have competed and won chairs in the All Region and All Area Choirs. Because they made it to the All Area Choir, they are now eligible to compete for the All State Choir. No one has placed in the All State Choir from Austin since the 1970s. Juan Carlos and Raul are set to make history for Austin High School.

But they need our help. They have been practicing for months. They have been invited to attend an All-State Music Workshop at the University of Texas in Austin, Texas on January 2nd, 2010. This workshop aims to fine tune their skills and prepare them for the audition on January 9th in Midland, Texas. The trip will cost them $900, but the school is unable to cover their costs. So let's all pitch in to make sure that they don't miss this chance for themselves or for Austin High School.

If you would like to make a donation, you can make a check out to Austin High School and add at the bottom of the check that it is for the "Choir Fund." Since school is out, we can collect checks here at the office and deliver them over to Ms. Chavez before the boys head out to Austin. Please let me know if you can donate by emailing me at byrdsm@elpasotexas.gov.

Happy Holidays! We will see you in the New Year!

City 15 to Air Global Public Policy Forum on the War on Drugs

A precedent-setting, two-day conference on the forty-year old war on drugs, hosted by the University of Texas at El Paso, drew speakers of multiple points of view from the academic, government, and advocacy sectors. The consensus reached by many in attendance was that U.S. consumer drug demand fuels profitable organized crime, wreaking havoc on societies and fueling challenges to democracies in the Americas. The situation demands serious consideration of a range of practical alternatives to the currently costly and ineffective prohibition policies.

Residents who were unable to attend the Public Policy Forum are invited to view the panel discussions on Cable Channel 15, Your El Paso Government Information Source. The following is a schedule when the panel discussions will be aired:

• Monday, November 30 at noon: History, Successes, and Failures of the War on Drugs
• Wednesday, December 2 at noon: Reporting on the Drug War
• Thursday, December 3 at noon: Drug War and Violence: Effects on Communities in Mexico and the U.S.
• Friday, December 4 at noon: Exporting the Drug War: Historical and Geographic Perspectives
• Monday, December 7 at noon: Social Consequences of the Drug War
• Wednesday, December 9 at noon: Alternative Strategies and Policy Proposals for the Drug War
• Thursday, December 10 and noon: Based upon his experience as a former federal prosecutor with the U.S. Attorney's Office in Los Angeles, a criminal defense attorney with the U.S. Navy JAG Corps, and a 25-year veteran on the trial court bench, Judge James P. Gray concluded that our nation's drug policy was not working. He offers policy alternatives to the current status quo.

October is here, so get out your calendars and prepare to fill them with several events going on in the El Paso throughout the month.

First, the El Paso Convention and Visitors Bureau has launched its Movies in the Canyon film series. Every Friday and Saturday throughout October, the CVB will show movies at the McKelligon Canyon Amphitheatre. classics such as Grease and E.T. will be shown along with favorites like The Karate Kid, Sixteen Candles, The Breakfast Club, Back to the Future and Rudy.

For a complete list of movies, visit www.elpasocvb.com. All showings are free and begin promptly at 7 p.m. and 9:30 p.m. each evening.

Second, the 4th Annual Great Southwest Book Fair & Sale will be held on Oct. 31 at the Main Library Downtown from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m.

Authors Carlos Fuentes, Claudia Martinez, Xavier Garza and Joe Hayes and others will be present throughout the day to meet attendees and offer readings of their work. Kids are encourage to dress in costume and bring their jack-o-lanterns for the trick-or-treat festival.

For more information, visit www.elpasolibrary.org.

And finally, we will host our monthly District 2 Saturday community meeting on Saturday Oct. 17 at 10 a.m. inside the Memorial Park Library. Rep. Steve Ortega and Commander Mike Austin from the Northeast Regional Command will be this months guests, so make plans to attend and hear great presentations from these two dedicated public servants.

War on Drugs: Is It Working?

I went backpacking this past weekend and managed not to think about work or El Paso or much of anything. My mind quiet, I came home, relaxed and ready for just about anything.

First thing I did was check out the newspaper to see what I missed. A man from Horizon City was kipnapped in front of this home while schoolchildren watched on. Later that week, he was found brutally murdered in Juarez, his hands carved off and laid over his chest. Eighteen people were slain in a Juárez drug rehab center. Maybe the center was a cover for the cartels. Maybe not. But 18 people were dead.

It is strange to live so close to such daily and relentless and consuming violence, just minutes really. And yet I feel safe. There is not one neighborhood in this city that I would feel anxious in walking around after dark. We are the third safest U.S. city of our size sharing a common border, a common culture, a common history with a city that is by most accounts the most dangerous city in the world today.

It wasn't always that way. I miss Juarez. I miss crossing over for dinner, for New Year's Eve at Martino's, a drink at the Kentucky Club, a walk down to the Cathedral, shopping with friends from out of town... My mom and dad used to take the kids over for a special dinner and the Feria. We haven't been in a long while, a year maybe. It was always familiar, like home. Not anymore. Better not to chance it.

So it is easy to seal ourselves off from the violence in Juarez, not cross over. Bemoan the daily headlines and trust the law enforcement agencies that it will not spill over. But as citizens of El Paso, as citizens of the United States, we should not let our sense of security distance us from the violence in our sister city, from the violence begat from an insatiable hunger for illegal drugs in the United States and the laws that have created irresistible profit margins for greedy thugs with guns. The violence in Juarez is our problem. This region, El Paso and Juarez, have sat perched at the edge of a great renaissance. The insecurity in Juarez has unraveled economic gains in our region. Momentum is lost. Worry sets in.

We can't really afford to just stand by.

It is with this in mind that several UTEP professors and community folks came together to host "A Global Public Policy Forum on the U.S. War on Drugs." The War on Drugs was declared by Richard Nixon 40 years ago. Given the level of violence in Juarez, it is fair to ask whether the war is working and at what costs. The forum brings together thinkers and actors on this issue from all walks of life--government, journalists, academics, law enforcement--to examine the history of the war, its successes and its failures and to ask what options and alternatives we have as a global community to significantly reduce the threat of drug violence and drug use to our communities. The forum is meant as a time to reflect on current policy but its true aim is to develop an action plan for how we pull our region out of this crisis.

I invite you to attend, to participate, to put in your two cents, but most importantly to act.

A GLOBAL PUBLIC POLICY FORUM ON THE U.S. WAR ON DRUGS
When: September 20-22, 2009
Where: UTEP, Juarez and the Plaza Theatre
For more information: http://www.warondrugsconference.utep.edu/
RSVP to warondrugsconference@utep.edu

Community Development Block Grants Available to Improve Low and Moderate Income Neighborhoods

The federal government provides Community Development Block Grants to communities to help them improve low and moderate income neighborhoods. These grants can be used for park improvements, drainage and road improvements, sidewalks and other capital improvements in low and moderate income neighborhoods.

In District 2, we have recently used these grants for park improvements at Grandview Park and to re-design and resurface the tennis courts at Memorial Park. If you have any projects that you would like considered, you can find more information on the Community Development Department's website. Project requests are due November 13, 2009.

End of the Summer.

We've had a grueling couple months of examining and building budgets, debating domestic partner benefits, annexation policy and billboards.

I'm sitting at my desk on a Friday afternoon trying to catch up with emails and projects and things to do. The building is empty, the last day of the four-day work week pilot project.

The summer is ending.

House of Pizza is open again after their much dreaded (at least in Central) annual summer vacation. We all breathed a collective sigh of relief and marched up the street to eat pizza and drink beer.

My kids started school this week. The baby started his first day of kindergarten at Crockett Elementary, the same school that my brothers and I grew up in. The baby's class is populated with a whole slew of kids whose parents went to school with me and my brothers. I walk with the boys, when they will let me, down the same path that I walked to school on growing up.

I guess I should be reporting to you all the latest goings on at the city or the new policy question before us, but mostly I just wanted you to know that I love the neighborhood I live in, the very same neighborhood that I grew up in. I love walking up to House of Pizza on a Thursday night in August. I love summer nights in Newman Park. I love walking my boys to school, waving to my parents as we begin our walk. I love chatting with the parents in the school yard, catching up after the summer, so many of us raised and rooted in this neighborhood. I love walking home towards the Franklin Mountain, daydreaming about the day and thinking about everything that I need to do. My love for this city grew on Louisville Street and that is where my heart still remains. The rhythm of this neighborhood is who I am.

Housing, Transportation, Affordability and Greenhouse Gases

I live in Manhattan Heights. It takes me 10 minutes by car to get to work Downtown. Actually it takes me 5 to 10 minutes to get most anywhere I need to go in a day: grocery store, good restaurants, gas station. My kids can walk to school. We can walk to two parks, the library, the coffee shop in the library, the swimming pool, the House of Pizza, Papaburger and Food Q in five minutes. The bus runs down Piedras and Alabama, just two blocks from my house in either direction.

According to the Center for Neighborhood Technology (CNT), this means I live in a location efficient neighborhood.

While the concept of energy efficiency is a familiar term, locations can be efficient too. Compact neighborhoods with walkable streets, access to transit, and a wide variety of stores and services have high location efficiency. They require less time, money, and greenhouse gas emissions for residents to meet their everyday travel requirements.

Based on this idea, CNT developed the Housing + Transportation Affordability Index. which takes into account not just the cost of housing, but also its location efficiency, by measuring the transportation costs associated with place. Some places cost more to live in not because of the costs of housing but because of the costs of transportation associated with living in that place. Location inefficient places require you to spend more time in your car and more money on gas and car travel.

The City recently contracted with CNT to analyze how affordable El Paso is when you take into account housing costs and transportation costs as a percentage of income. You'll be suprised at the results which can be found at http://www.htaindex.cnt.org/. There are also maps that show the greenhouse gas emmissions associated with car travel in El Paso.

Let me know what you think.

The Woodworkers Club is in District 2

A couple of weeks ago, I was invited to learn more about the Woodworkers Club of El Paso, which is in District 2. I didn't know about it so I figured others might not also. It is a great organization, especially for those that want to learn more about woodworking and need access to the tools and expertise to become capable or even master woodworkers. The club has been at it since 1985. They are located in a City building located at 3228 Sacramento Avenue. They have 130 members.

The Club promotes woodworking through classes, demonstrations and workshops. They also make about 3,000 wood toys a year that they donate to such organizations as Operation Santa Claus, Toys for Tots, the Ronald McDonald House and the Child Crisis Center.

Their center has workrooms open and available to all members, and a small retail center where you can pick out handcrafted wooden toys or other cool gifts. It has a library full of all you need to know about woodworking.

So if you have been wanting to learn more about woodworking, you can get more information about the Club by emailing Crafts30@aol.com or by stopping by the workshop. Tell them Susie sent you.

Why Mexico Matters to El Paso Taxpayers

Every now and then an issue will pop up that reminds me that not everyone is convinced that El Paso gets any real benefit from sitting on the U.S./Mexico Border, and, in fact, some are convinced that the commerce and the travel between the two cities is a burden to residents who live and pay taxes here.

Not long ago, City Council was debating the issue of whether to impound cars in those cases where the drivers do not have car insurance. Many of the phone calls and emails that I received on this issue had less to do with whether it was a good idea or not and were more focused on how we were going to treat Mexican motorists driving in El Paso without insurance. Never mind that the number of accidents involving motorists from Mexico is a negligible percent of the number of accidents where drivers do not have insurance, some were convinced that most Mexican motorists were breaking our laws and leaving us to pick up the tab.

All of this, plus the recent debate about building a new port of entry, got me to thinking that we don't do a good enough job about talking about why Mexico matters to El Paso taxpayers. I think we have gotten better about communicating the economic benefits of our location on the U.S./Mexico border. We have more jobs here and more business opportunity as a result of robust growth in the maquila industry in Juarez. Many of our retail and service jobs are a result of the hundreds of thousands of Mexican shoppers who travel to El Paso to buy our goods and eat in our restaurants. But what about the taxpayers? How do we benefit?

Our tax base is made up of all different sources of revenue but the one that most people care about is property taxes. Two significant contributors to our tax base that are directly tied to commerce and travel between El Paso and Mexico are sales tax and bridge revenues. Depending on the source, estimates suggest that Mexican shoppers account for 10-14 percent (Federal Reserve) to 30 percent(local retailers) of retail activity in El Paso. Mexican shopppers pay sales taxes that go to our general fund. They are able to get that sales tax rebated through the manifesto program but estimates are that only about 20 percent of Mexican shoppers take advantage of the rebate. Every time someone crosses our bridges heading north, they pay a fee and those fees go straight to the general fund, paying for a whole range of municipal services.

Our adopted budget this year was dramatically impacted, not by the foreclosure crisis in the U.S., but by the drop in bridge revenues and by the drop in sales tax revenues which our analysts attributed to the peso devaluation. Because of this, I asked our budget analysts to tell me what would happen to our tax base if we didn't have Mexico to count on for revenues. If we had no shoppers from Mexico, we would have to slash $6,694,270 from our budget or make it up by raising taxes. (This assumes a conservative estimate that Mexican shoppers make up only 10% of our retail market. This is very, very conservative.) If no one crossed our bridges from Mexico and paid bridge fees, we would have to slash $9,079,244 from our budget or make it up by raising taxes. So approximately, $15.7 million in revenue, or 5.2% of the total annual projected revenue, can be directly attributed to Mexico.

So this is why Mexico matters to El Paso taxpayers. If we couldn't count on that $15.7 million, we would have to decrease services or increase taxes by 5.5 cents from $0.633/$100 to $0.688/$100 based on the certified valuation received on 7/25/2008 to make up for that shortfall. For a taxpayer, this would be a difference of $55 per every $100,000 of valuation on your property.

This is one of many reasons why we need to concern ourselves as El Pasoans with what is happening in Mexico and what we can do to better facilitate the easy movement of people and goods through our ports.

Midnight Basketball: Need Coaches and Volunteers

The popular Midnight Basketball program is back at Nolan Richardson Recreation Center. A couple of years ago, a neighborhood advocate toured me with the surrounding neighborhood commonly refered to as the Devil's Triangle. The neighborhood has some great assetts--the recreation center, a senior center, a great shady park with lots of trees--but it also has some pretty significant challenges. Drug dealing and prostitution are everyday events. There are large apartment complexes that are in disrepair or boarded up. There is a lot of poverty. There are also a lot of kids in the neighborhood who need fun, safe things to do. The neighborhood advocate complained that there was not enough things to do and that the rec center wasn't open when the kids needed things to do and that some of the programming was out of reach because of the associated fees.

We provided scholarships for kids who could not afford programming and we instituted a Midnight Basketball program. It started off last year but wasn't a traditional Midnight Basketball program. Several sports were offered. It ended at 9 P.M. We got some participation from neighborhood kids but it was clear that they wanted something different. This year, it is just basketball and the program is on Thursday and Friday nights from 9 P.M. to midnight. There are a ton of kids participating and really enjoying it. The competition is fierce.

But we need some more help. We have staff managing the program and we have referees, but we need coaches and folks willing just to come out and hang out with kids. Volunteers can sign up to be a coach for the full length of the program or they can just pop in when they have some time.

Let me know if you are interested. I can be reached by email at byrdsm@elpasotexas.gov.

Meet Oscar Ortiz

Last night, I was sitting on my front porch eating dinner with my daughter Hannah. The boys were off at Cohen Stadium watching the Diablos get beat up. A car pulls up and out jumps Oscar Ortiz. "Are you Susie Byrd?" he asks. "I'm Oscar Ortiz, and I want your help."

Oscar is a senior at El Paso High School. He plays the trumpet, the trombone and the euphonium. He has marched in the Tiger Pride Band for three years and is a principle trombone player in the El Paso Symphony Youth Orchestra. His lifelong dream and the reason he joined band was to march in Drum Corps International, the Marching Music's Major League.

His dream just might come true. Along with 100 other students from across the country, Victor was selected to become a member of the Memphis Sound Drum and Bugle Corps. This summer they will tour the country performing and competing against other drum and bugle corps from throughout the United States and Canada. The season will culminate in early August at the Drum Corps International Championships in Indianapolis, Indiana.

Here's the hitch. Oscar has to raise $2,600 to cover the costs of the program. So he is popping up on people's porches asking for help. I told him I would let you guys know about his dream. I'm including the video that he sent in to convince Memphis Sound Drum and Bugle Corps that he was their guy. Once you see it, you will be convinced, like I am, that Oscar needs our help. Please consider making a donation. Checks can be made to the Memphis Youth Performing Arts Association. If you want to make a donation, email me at byrdsm@elpasotexas.gov and I will give you the address where you can mail Oscar a check.

Club Rec for Central!

Central has some great things going for it: great parks, everything is in walking distrance, great schools, lots of history, great architecture... The list goes on and on. But several years ago, parents working with EPISO (El Paso Inter-religious Sponsoring Organization) said there are some things that Central doesn't have that the City needs to get busy fixing.

One of those things was youth services. As a result of some dedication and some organizing, the parents and EPISO got a commitment from the City and Representative Cushing to fund a Club Rec Summer Camp. (We also do not have a Recreation Center, which we will get to in the next bond election.)

The Club Rec program has had some great summers but more recently the program has dwindled in numbers so much so that City staff decided to scrap it without telling anyone. The first I heard about it was on Tuesday, and I quickly got busy trying to rectify it. So we are proceeding ahead with a Central Club Rec program but we need kiddos, lots of them.

This year's program will be at hosted at the Memorial Park Garden Center at 3105 Grant Avenue. The program will run from June 15 to August 7 from 9 A.M. to 1 P.M. Activities will include sports, arts and crafts, table games and of course trips to the Memorial Park Branch Library and Pool. And nothing can beat hanging out in a Memorial Park, the finest park in the City of El Paso. The program is $40 a week but scholarships are available to families who cannot afford the program fee. If you want to sign up, registration will be held on Friday, June 12 from 9 A.M. to noon at the Garden Center. Questions can be direction to 562-7071 or 544-0753.

My kids have done Club Rec for many many years and have always enjoyed the programming.

Save Neighborhood Schools! Save Houston Elementary!

The El Paso Independent School District is considering closing down several small neighborhood schools to save money. One of the schools is Houston Elementary, an 87 year old neighborhood school on Grant Avenue that serves as an anchor to the Manhattan Heights Historic District. I am including a letter that will be presented to the Board of Trustees tonight. I would encourage all residents of this area and people interested in advocating for small neighborhood schools and better school planning to attend a meeting tomorrow night, Wednesday, May 13 at 6 P.M., at Houston Elementary to discuss the closure of these small neighborhood schools. I would also encourage you to attend the Smart Growth for Schools Workshop that will be on Friday, May 29 from 8:45 A.M. to 3:30 P.M. at the El Paso Museum of Art. Seating is limited so RSVP for the workshop by contacting Melissa Kellum at 915.541.4730 or KellumMA@elpasotexas.gov.

May 12, 2009

Dear EPISD Board of Trustees:

When I stand before you I always have to acknowledge the incredible gift of education that EPISD has given me and my children. I grew up attending small neighborhood schools. I walked to Crockett Elementary. I walked to Bassett Middle School. I walked to Austin High School. I graduated valedictorian and was accepted with a hefty scholarship at Emory University, a private university, mostly attended by students from private high schools.

I remember worrying that coming from a public school, I would not be able to compete with my peers. Not only was I able to compete, but I excelled because of my education at EPISD schools. My children are now walking to the same neighborhood school that I walked to when I was little. And I expect that EPISD will offer them no less than what I received—an excellent education in a great neighborhood.

I am here today to advocate for small neighborhood schools, in particular Houston Elementary. Houston has been part of our neighborhood for 87 years. We want it to remain a part of our neighborhood. In 2007, you asked the voters to invest in that school with a new multipurpose center. We want you to continue to invest in that school, rather than abandon it.

Having grown up benefiting from the wisdom of small neighborhood schools, I have been frustrated for some time by new school development by EPISD and other districts. The schools are over-large, having negative impacts on the surrounding neighborhoods and the children that attend them. The schools are not connected to the life of neighborhoods. They are often not even connected to the neighborhoods by sidewalks. Because of the size and location of them, the schools’ service areas are so large that a majority of students have to drive or be bused. This large movement of cars and buses into a school campus causes unnerving congestion and dangerous traffic conditions for surrounding neighborhoods. Not having the option to walk is one less chance to stave off the biggest public health threat to our children, obesity. And most significantly for your mission, many studies have demonstrated a direct and positive link between small schools and student achievement.

As an example, the district closed down a small neighborhood school, Wainwright Elementary, that was easy and safe for most kids to walk to. The district replaced it with Moye Elementary, which sits on Dyer, a six lane highway that is a danger to pedestrians. There were no improvements made to Dyer to address pedestrian safety. The vast majority of students going to that school have to cross six lanes of highway in order to attend that school. Last year, a family was struck and one was killed walking to Moye Elementary for an evening school event. This type of school planning does not serve neighborhoods and it does not serve our children.

On May 29, the City is hosting a session on Smart Schools. We want to work with you to improve education and to also improve neighborhoods through smart school planning. Especially in light of the recent conversations to close Houston Elementary, a small neighborhood school, I would urge all of the board and senior staff to attend this session before you make a mistake that our children and our neighborhood will have to live with.

I want to thank our trustee Carlos Flores and Dr. Garcia for their commitment to slow this process down and include the parents, the neighborhood and the board in a more thoughtful deliberative process that is not solely focused on your bottom line and more carefully considers the hidden costs of this closure on the children, the neighborhood, your budget and the budget of families who attend Houston. Before we move forward, I would like the board to consider and analyze the following in debating this issue:

What hidden costs are you not considering?

• Will new portables need to be built to accommodate new growth at schools that will receive Houston students?


• How much will bussing students to the new schools costs? How much will it cost families who walk their kids to school to instead have to take them by car? What will it cost our kid’s health in terms of lost physical activity?


• What kind of congestion will this cause at the other schools? What will it cost either the district or the city to mitigate this congestion?


• A vacant abandoned building such as Houston will be a blight on our neighborhood. Over time this blight will decrease property values in this neighborhood, a neighborhood that has recently seen an increase in young families and new investment. How much will this blight cost our tax base and your ability to increase revenues?


• What impact will this move have on the classroom size at the schools that will be receiving them? Will it cost children at Paul Moreno and Coldwell who are now benefiting from small classroom sizes?


• This move to close down Houston will also cost you the trust of many voters, who supported you in building Paul Moreno, not knowing it would come at the expense of one of our oldest neighborhood schools. Paul Moreno Elementary is just three blocks from Houston. In 2007, you asked us to vote for a bond that included building a multipurpose center at Houston. We supported you. Now just two years later, you are telling us you want to close this school?

And finally, the most important consideration, what other options does the district have to achieve your goals without harming our kids and our neighborhood? I know this neighborhood and the residents of this neighborhood well. I know that many parents do not send their children to Houston, even though they are in the service area. Many send them to Mesita for the dual language program or to other schools where there is a more obvious commitment to excellence in education from the board and the administration. One of my friends who lives in the Houston service area commented that her whole block is full of young families and not one of those families sends their children to Houston. Maybe one option could be for the board to invest in better programming, such as dual language, as a means to grow the population of this school. Since Crockett has refused to consider this program, I know I would consider sending my son to Houston if there was a dual language program there.

What other options could be considered? Please work with the parents and the neighborhood to find a better solution for our kids and for our neighborhood.

Sincerely,

Susie Byrd
City Council Representative, District 2

Impact Fees or a Higher Water Bill?

It costs the ratepayers of El Paso over $2,000 in water and wastewater infrastructure for every new home that is built in El Paso. That means you and I are subsidizing the developers, to the tune of $2,000 per lot, as they continue to build their subdivisions at the far edges of the city. We do this through our water rates. For example, 35% of the increase in water rates last year was attributable to new infrastructure to support new development.

City Council has an opportunity on Tuesday to make the developers pay for these costs instead of the ratepayer.

If you want to help keep water rates low, if you want more responsible development and if you want new growth to pay for itself, please come to City Hall this Tuesday (5/12) at 6pm and support the imposition of impact fees.

Rail Runner Making a Stop in EP

For those of you interested in expanding El Paso's commuting opportunities, you will have a chance to see just what the future has in store for the Borderland.

On Friday May 8, the New Mexico Rail Runner commuter train will be in El Paso so that city leaders and residents can see for themselves all the benefits offered by the regional rail line. The Rail Runner will be at 805 S. Santa Fe Street, with viewing beginning at 9:30 a.m. and a press conference scheduled for 2:30 p.m. For a map of the location, click

http://maps.google.com/maps?hl=en&safe=off&ie=UTF8&q=805+S.+Santa+Fe+El+Paso+Texas&fb=1&split=1&gl=us&cid=0,0,3545054276128661660&ei=2jECSuDBDILEM5Oe0dUH&ll=31.75169,-106.48814&spn=0.012827,0.019226&z=16&iwloc=A.

The Coolest Project Ever!

On Monday at 5 P.M., we are celebrating one of the coolest projects ever. Please join us.

In 2004, the voters authorized Open Space Enhancement money for District 2. Working with the neighborhood, we decided to use this money to improve two large drainage ponds, one of them the Van Buren Dam on Harrison and Alabama. Through a community design process, we developed a plan that includes a hiking trail around the drainage pond, landscaping, trees, park benches and fitness centers located along the trail.

The pièce de résistance though is the public art. I used to get kids who would come and knock on my door at home and say, "Hey miss, we want a skate park." We didn't have any money for a skate park, and we couldn't use the open space money for this because of the way it was authorized by the voters. What we did have was public art funds and a brilliant local artist named Willie Ray Parish, who doesn't mind kids skating on his art. He created the first ever (at least in El Paso) skate art called "Sky Boulder."

By the way, we are going to be looking for a name for the park. Van Buren Dam doesn't cut it. If you have any ideas, let me know.

The Celebration is on Monday, May 11 at 5 P.M. at the Van Buren Dam on the corner of Harrison and Alabama.

Calling All Citizens!

If any of you are interested in learning the inner workings of the El Paso Police Department, here is your chance.

The EPPD will host a Citizens' Academy. This will give you a chance to experience what a police officer goes through in his daily work.

Please contact Mr. Dale Baugh at (915) 276-1881 for more information.

El Paso Ranked Among Best Places to Live !

El Paso has been selected by RelocateAmerica.com as one of "America’s Top 100 Places to live in 2009". Steve Nickerson, President and CEO of Relocate America said, "We looked at the local government and the business leadership in each community as we considered this Year’s winners. We selected communities with visionary leaders, improving or thriving economies including housing and realization of "green" initiatives.

In order to be considered for the list a community must have been nominated. The editorial team reviewed nominations and selected the Top 100 cities based on interviews with local leaders, feedback from residents and economic, environmental, education, crime, employment and housing data for the past years.

Scenic Sundays Returns, And This Time It's Year-round!

City of El Paso Launches
Scenic Sundays Event

The City of El Paso, along with the El Paso Police Department, Apache Barricade and the Newman Park Neighborhood Association, is happy to announce the launch of Scenic Sundays, an outdoor special event that allows El Pasoans to enjoy Scenic Drive free of vehicle traffic.

“Last year, Scenic Sundays brought out large crowds of people who walked, jogged and biked on Scenic Drive,” Rep. Susie Byrd said. “This year, we’re extending Scenic Sundays beyond the summer so that families can enjoy the beautiful route year-round.”

Beginning Sunday April 19, Scenic Drive will be closed to vehicle traffic from 6 a.m. to 11 a.m. throughout Spring and Summer. In Fall and Winter, Scenic Drive will be closed from 7 a.m. to 12 p.m.

Officers from the El Paso Police Department will be present throughout the event, and vehicles will be kept off of Scenic Drive with barricades donated by Apache Barricade.

As a partner in Scenic Sundays, the Newman Park Neighborhood Association has agreed to store and transport the barricades before and after the events.

“We want to encourage residents to be more active, and we think Scenic Sundays will give everyone a chance to get outdoors and enjoy the breathtaking views and beautiful weather that El Paso has to offer,” added Byrd.

Welcome to El Paso

An ongoing saga.

Billboards.

Last year, City Council was alerted to the fact that one of the billboard companies had put up 17 digital billboards, even though our current city code does not allow it. This is what I call policy making through the back door.

So we had to answer the question: do we want to allow digital billboards in El Paso, Texas, and if so, under what conditions?

Digital billboards are a new technology that allows sign companies to broadcast many more advertisements from a single board. Many of us, myself included, saw this as an opportunity to open up the debate about how we address billboards in general. We have too many billboards, too much visual clutter, too many roadway distractions. Not great advertisement for our city. Especially when what you want folks to remember is our mountain, our Downtown, our neighborhoods. Having done some marketing in my life, all the sign clutter also diminishes an advertisers ability to effectively reach their audience.

Our current billboard ordinance which has been in place for several years requires billboard companies to take down billboards every time they put up a new one. It is referred to as a cap and trade program. Problem is that it hasn't significantly reduced visual clutter, especially along those corridors that are saturated with signs.

Our planning department looked at what other cities are doing that is effective in reducing the number of billboards but still provides ample opportunities for businesses to advertise. Their research showed that many cities like Houston and Phoenix had effectively reduced billboards with a prohibition on all new sign construction. Based on the City Council direction to look at ways to reduce sign clutter in El Paso, they recommended that we adopt a similar prohibition and allow billboard companies to switch out existing static boards for digital boards in those cases where they were willing to remove 16 signs of equal value.

When the billboard company threatened to sue, City Council (in a vote that I did not support) asked that rather than establish policy through a public process, that we establish the policy through a negotiated settlement. Not surprisingly that negotiated settlement did not do much in the way of significantly reducing sign clutter in our community. It stuck with the cap and trade system and in the instance of digital boards only marginally increased the number of signs that a billboard company would need to remove in order to use a new technology that significantly enhances the value of their signs.

Last Monday at the urging of Representative Lilly, the Planning and Development Legislative Review Committee heard the issue again. We recommended that instead of setting policy under threat of lawsuit that we stick to our guns and go with the prohibition. We also recommended to City Council a cap of 15 digital signs citywide and that in order to trade out a static sign for a digital sign that a billboard company would need to take down 16 billboards of equal value. I added an ammendment that would require that all adjacent property owners and neighborhood associations would be contacted and that a public hearing would be held prior to a permit being awarded.

This issue will be heard by the full council in May. Don't forget to weigh in with your thoughts and ideas.

For more information on what other Texas cities are doing to keep Texas scenic, visit http://www.scenictexas.org/.

The Strangest Thing

Last week I was walking on Portland Avenue up close to the base of the mountain. I introduced myself to a woman who was standing outside of her house. She had been daydreaming and looked a little startled by my "Hello!" "That's the strangest thing," she said. "I was standing here reminding myself that I needed to call you. (Of course, that's the kind of city representative I am, appearing when conjured up in someone's mental "to do" list.)

She and her husband owned the house that she was standing in front of, but rent it out and live on the eastside. She said the alley was a mess, and they wanted to talk to me about what the city could do to clean it up. Her husband appeared and walked me to the alley. Looming across the alley was a mountain of construction debris at least three stories high.

Her husband said that he grew up in the house. Lived there since he was 16 years old. He remembers when he was a teenager, dump trucks coming and dumping the mess on the lot behind the alley off of Cotton Street. He remembers that the building was City Hall or maybe a City County building.

So just like that, a public building (maybe) dumped some 40 years ago in this man's backyard. I told a couple of historians who hustled out there the minute they heard the story. The old city hall was demolished in 1959, which about fits the timeline described by the owner. There are a couple of large pieces from the top of the building at the bottom of the pile which might help identify the exact building that was unloaded in this neighborhood. From first glance, these pieces don't appear to be from City Hall, but it is hard to tell. I'm hoping a local historian or someone who can't stand a mystery is able to figure it out.

In the meantime, I am working with City staff to figure out how to clean this up. The pile is actually on private property and was recently sold through a tax foreclosure sale and then sold again.

So that's the latest from District 2.

The Great American Clean-up

El Paso is one of the most scenic places to live in the United States. Our desert landscapes and soaring mountains give us year-round beauty and breathtaking views. But sometimes we do have some windy days (or months), which often leave trash strewn throughout our streets and across our natural spaces.

Next month, Keep El Paso Beautiful will hold the Great American Clean-up. On Saturday April 4, we will have the opportunity to get out, enjoy our open space and take pride in our community by helping to pick up some of the trash and debris that gets blown about by the wind or careless litterbugs.

Here is the press release from KEPB. I hope you are able to take part in this effort.

CALLING ALL NEIGHBORHOOD ASSOCIATIONS, ENVIROMENTAL STEWARDS, & COMMUNITY VOLUNTEERS
SPRING IS AROUND THE CORNER
TIME TO CLEAN-UP NOT ONLY YOUR CLOSETS BUT YOUR COMMUNITY TOO!

JOIN THOUSANDS OF VOLUNTEERS ACROSS THE COUNTRY TAKING PRIDE IN THEIR COMMUNITIES ON
SATURDAY, APRIL 4, 2009
FOR THE
GREAT AMERICAN CLEAN-UP (GAC)
CALL THE OFFICE OF KEPB @ 546.6742 TO REGISTER YOUR CLEAN-UP SITE
ALL SUPPLIES FOR THE GAC ARE AVAILABLE AT KEPB COMMUNITY TOOL SHEDS
LOCATED AT FIRE DEPARTMENTS THROUGHOUT EL PASO

FIRESTONE HAS, ONCE AGAIN, JOINED OUR EFFORTS TO KEEP EL PASO BEAUTIFUL ALL EIGHT FIRESTONE LOCATIONS WILL BE EXCEPTING TIRES TO DISPOSE OF THEM PROPERY DURING THE GREAT AMERICAN CLEAN-UP

Keep El Paso Beautiful (KEPB) in partnership with the El Paso Fire Department, Environmental Services Department, El Paso Street Department, Neighborhood Services and Community Volunteers are working together towards a cleaner, healthier, and safer El Paso.
El Pasoans now more than ever want to do their part to improve not only their own community, but our planet. Keep El Paso Beautiful is reminding environmental stewards of all ages and walks of life that Green Starts Here, with each volunteer and group that joins in to participate in the 2009 Great American Cleanup.

The Great American Cleanup in El Paso is scheduled to take place on Saturday April 4, 2009. The 2009 Great American Cleanup reminds individuals and families that a better environment for us all starts in our own communities and the volunteer work we do close to home affects our entire planet. Thousands of volunteers in El Paso will gather during the Great American Cleanup to rid our streets, waterways and public spaces of litter and illegal dumpsites. We’re greening up parks, schoolyards and other public spaces, hosting educational events, removing graffiti and much more.

REDUCE YOUR USE - THERE IS NO EXCUSE
Katherine Gunter- Palafox
Executive Director/Keep El Paso Beautiful
915.472.2985

Calling all teenagers! You are invited to join the MAYOR'S 100 TEENS.

FACT SHEET

Purpose: The Mayor’s 100 Teens draws attention to the many ways in which teenagers make El Paso County a better place. The program focuses on heralding the achievements of youth who do not routinely receive recognition but who nonetheless make a difference in unique, personal ways. Teens who have overcome adversity, provided service to others, achieved something significant and who lead by example deserve to be honored. In recognizing them, the program intends to inspire more teens to higher levels of service and accomplishment.


Nomination Forms: Teachers, counselors, family (but not parents) and any others who recognize an individual’s spirit, drive, and accomplishments may nominate teens currently in grades 9, 10 or 11. It cannot be a teen currently in the 11th grade graduating early. We are requesting that nominators consult with the individual on their interest to pursue this opportunity before submitting the application as the selected teen will have to commit himself/herself to various events and activities. All nomination applications must be typed, handwritten applications will NOT be considered. Preferable method of nomination application submission is via email to nunezdx@elpasotexas.gov. Nomination applications are available at the Mayor’s web site (http://www.elpasotexas.gov/mayor/teens.asp), all city and county high schools at the counselors’ office, libraries, Police Regional Command Centers and a variety of other community locations. Please call Diana Nuñez at (915) 541-4015 for more information. Nomination application period opens on Monday, February 23, 2009 and closes on Friday, March 27, 2009.


Selection Process: Nominations for The Mayor’s 100 Teens are thoroughly reviewed by a committee of educators, community leaders, business people and representatives from youth organizations. Notification is made to selected teens in May.


Public Recognition: Each October, The Mayor’s 100 Teens are introduced and honored in a celebratory public event. A commemorative book that tells the story of each teen is published. Members of The Mayor’s 100 Teens accompany the Mayor to numerous public appearances, participate in community projects and groups and make public presentations throughout the year.

Sunday Meditations

On Sundays, I like to lay on the couch and drink coffee and read the New York Times from the beginning to the end. It's a nice way to relax but also think through what's going on in the world. My dad recently sent me two other items to put into the Sunday mix. I'm passing them along to you. Maybe, like me, you like to spend your Sundays daydreaming and thinking through things.

The first is a music video from a group called Playing for Change. I'm not going to explain it here. It explains itself.

The second is from a radio program called This American Life that airs on NPR. The program is called "The Global Pool of Money," and it takes you through all the forces that came to bear in the recent crisis of the housing and mortgage market. To get to the full episode, click on "Full Episode" on the menu that runs along the left side of the screen. The radio program makes the crisis easier to understand because it introduces you to people who were operating at every level of housing bubble (the borrowers, the lenders, the brokers, the loan bundlers, the Wall Street investors buying bundles and selling them up the chain, etc.)

So some things to chew on on a Sunday afternoon.

Bye-Bye ASARCO

We got word yesterday that ASARCO has decided not to re-open the El Paso Smelter. This is good news and something we--neighborhood advocates, environmentalists, business people and elected leaders--have all been working hard to accomplish for our region. We will work to make sure that the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality operating permit for ASARCO is formally withdrawn and that ASARCO sets aside sufficient funds to clean up their site.

About a year and a half ago, almost 1,000 El Pasoans gathered for a photo called Faces Against ASARCO. Our goal was to send a message to the rest of Texas that our economy, our health and our quality of life depended on ASARCO staying closed. As part of that photo shoot, we waved good bye to ASARCO. It was a hope then. Maybe today, it is something we can depend on.

Photography by Robert Ardovino.

NEIGHBORHOOD: What My Mother Taught Me About Dreaming Big

Note: These are my mother's words. Lee Byrd. She and I spoke at the Ysleta Independent School District Mother Daughter conference last week. My mother is a writer, editor and the co-publisher at Cinco Puntos Press. My speech follows hers.

Maybe you’re one of those people who dream about changing the world. I know I am. I know my daughter Susie Byrd is, too. In fact, when she was your age, she dreamed about becoming president of the United States. She was going to put an end to the death penalty. She talked about it a lot.

She was dreaming big which is a very good thing.

Dreaming big is, in fact, really important. But there are times in your life when your big dreams may get in the way of your seeing the treasure that’s right in front of you. I learned this from my mother, who was one heck of a big dreamer. Let me tell you about her.

My mother was born in 1906, in a little town outside of Boston, Massachusetts. If she were alive today, she would be 102.

My mother was a red head, an adventurous kid, full of ideas and experiments, always thinking of crazy things for her friends to do and hanging around with kids who were dumb enough to do them. Her father was from Scotland and made his living as a gardener so there wasn’t a whole lot of money for her to dream big with. But a doctor who lived close by must have noticed that my mother was a big dreamer and that there was something about her that would go far, because he decided to pay for her to go to Boston University. So in the early 1920s, when most women didn’t get past high school, my mother graduated from Boston University with a degree in business.

Ma taught school until 1935 when she met my father Eustace Merrill. They moved to Plainfield, New Jersey, and had us four kids. She raised us. She cared for us when we were sick, fixed our meals, took care of our house, shed tears over us when we failed and told everyone when we did well.

And it was there in that house where I grew up, that my mother taught us about neighborhood, about being a neighbor, about being involved in a community, especially the community that is right in front of you. My mother knew everyone in the neighborhood, she knew their kids. Through Ma, we knew everyone too. She lent things to the neighbors and she turned around and borrowed from them. She invited them over to play Scrabble, or to play cards, or for dinner or for her annual neighborhood Christmas party. And she and Dad went over to visit them, got to know them. The kids in the neighborhood played in our back yard because it was big and had a paved driveway and a basketball net and a long-roped swing underneath a huge oak tree.

Oh, she had her dreams, my mother did. Just like the rest of us, she had big dreams. But those dreams became real in the little things she did, in the very place where she chose to do them, there in our neighborhood.

My mother’s sense of neighborhood has been a blessing to me, a blessing and a legacy. In 1978, after moving from Alamosa, Colorado to Albuquerque and then Las Cruces, New Mexico, my husband and I and our three kids finally settled in El Paso, in a red brick bungalow on Louisville Street, right off Piedras, right down from the House of Pizza. We were so sick of moving that we decided that house on Louisville Street was just fine and we weren’t going to move again. And we’ve been there 30 years.

Almost right away, I wanted a neighborhood like the one I grew up in—not one that looked like my old New Jersey neighborhood, but one that felt like it. A community, a place where I knew everyone and they knew me. But how to go about making friends? I tried one lady across the street, someone about my age with kids about our kids’ age, but she didn’t seem too interested in knowing me. Maybe she hadn’t grown up in a real neighborhood herself—you know, a lot of people nowadays really don’t want to know their neighbors which I think is a real shame.

But there was another person down the street, a woman in her 30s who had mental retardation. Her name was Isabel. She thought she was nine years old. When she saw us unpacking our truck, she came down to visit right away. She saw our kids and decided they were perfect companions. And so she was at our house every day, playing with our kids—and what a treasure they thought she was: someone who looked like an adult but who had fun like a kid.

Through Isabel, I came to know her mother Benita and then her four brothers and two sisters and their families. Isabel’s father Lalo was friends with Mr. Acosta on the corner. Through Lalo, we met the Acosta family.

At night when we sat on our front porch, looking out at the lights of Juarez, we heard music. The Coulahans from across the street were sitting on their porch and listening to classical music.

There was a middle-aged bachelor next door, Art, and he liked to come out on his front porch late at night and sing old Elvis songs and he liked to sit in his living room and curse at the Dallas Cowboys when they weren’t playing very well. We could hear him from our porch.

Mrs. Pino was the neighborhood busybody. She had opinions about everyone’s house and yard, ours included, and she came over to tell us about them.

And so one house at a time, a neighborhood grew up around us. Some neighbors have moved, some have stayed, their children all grown up and coming back to visit us. They always stop in to say hi. The lady across the street who wasn’t interested in being friends with me moved, but not before we became really good friends. In her place came a woman named Terry Martinez who introduced me to Martha Garza on the corner. The three of us walked in the mornings and they taught me how to make friends by sharing all the small details of their lives. And then, the greatest thing of all, Susie and her husband Eddie and our grandkids moved into the house of the middle-aged bachelor Art when he left and so right there in the neighborhood I have all the great treasures of life: family, children, grandkids, dear friends and good good neighbors. When I think of the dreams I’ve dreamed, none could have been much better than watching this neighborhood become a reality.

And so I dream big in a small place, but I’m not constrained. And I want to encourage you to do the same: dream big, but never neglect the life and the people that God has put in front of you.

What My Mom Taught Me

One year, my mom and dad posted their New Year’s Resolution on the fridge for everyone to see. “This year, we will welcome everyone into our home with a glad heart.” This is one of the most important things that have I learned from watching my mom move in the world.

My mom is a great fixer of things, and there is not much that she doesn’t think she is in charge of fixing. On her drive to work, she used to pass a homeless woman on Cotton Street. The homeless woman was bundled up in layers of clothes and had a too small sign asking for help. She sometimes held the sign up side down or turned the words towards her, instead of towards the intended audience. The sign was poorly written. Some words were misspelled. The sign also said that she needed the money for a drink, which my mom thought was a little counterproductive. As a writer and an editor, a person whose life is words, this was much more than my mom could bear. She couldn’t take it anymore. One day, she drove down to that corner with a big sign and some markers and she worked with the homeless woman on producing a more legible sign that better served its purpose.

Turns out that the woman’s name was Jeanne. In her fixing, my mom got to know Jeanne. She would stop by and visit sometimes. She got to know Jeanne’s story. Turns out Jeanne wanted money, not for beer, but for food and water. Mom explained that the sign would lead people to believe otherwise. My mom would fill me in sometimes. I think my mom tried to get her some help, find her a place to stay, but Jeanne was at that corner with her own purpose. She would not be moved. But I bet she was glad for the conversation, glad to have someone stop by and visit and want to know her.

My mom charges in to fix things and fix people. She sees a problem she wants it solved. That is her impulse always. It never quite works out the way she saw it, charging in. But what always happens is that my mom opens up a glad and welcome heart and it is that act of welcome, more than anything else my mom has to give, that helps people, that changes things.

This is my mom’s gift. She did not come by it naturally. She works hard at it. She recognizes in her actions what so few of us recognize: we will probably never have much luck in changing people, but in changing ourselves and making ourselves welcoming of just about anyone, we can change the world.

For the last 30 years, my mom has charged up and down Louisville Street with her fix-it-up spirit. She would like some of the men to quit drinking. She would like the man on the corner to fix up his house. She wants one of our neighbors, a renter, to be able to buy the house from the stingy landlord. She worries over some of the kids in the neighborhood, wants to warn them off of the path they have taken. She would like me to not work as much and spend more time at home. She knows all of our stories, she pays attention to all of us, she worries over all of us. We all depend on her.

This last year was a hard year for the neighborhood. A young boy whose father grew up in the neighborhood was killed in a gang fight. The boy’s dad grew up two houses down from me. His mom and sisters still live there. After his son died, he would often wander over to my mom’s house. He needed to talk to someone. He needed to talk to my mom. He would talk about his anger and his grief and his guilt. My mom would listen. Even after he left the neighborhood, he still needed what my mom had to give: a glad and a welcome heart that he could depend on.

So, remember this:

1. Our moms have a lot to teach us.
2. We should be the change we want in the world.

Note: This is from a speech that my mother and I delivered at the Ysleta Independent School District Mother Daughter Conference.

A New Year, A New Meeting Location

I am pleased to announce the new schedule of community meetings for 2009 through the month of May. The meetings will be held every first Thursday and third Saturday of the month, and each meeting will feature a guest speaker to give you insight and information on what is happening throughout the Sun City.

Between now and May, you will have the opportunity to hear from several community leaders. Mayor John Cook, City Manager Joyce Wilson, PSB Vice President of Marketing Cristina Montoya, Environmental Services Director Ellen Smyth, County Commissioner Veronica Escobar, and County Sheriff Richard Wiles are all scheduled to speak at upcoming meetings.

The location of the Thursday morning meetings has changed, and they will now be held at Tierra del Sol Restaurant, 4201 Alabama, at 7:30 a.m. This move was done to make the meetings more accessible to a wider range of District 2 constituents. The Saturday morning meetings will continue to be held at the Memorial Park Library, 3200 Copper, at 10:00 a.m.

Be sure to include the District 2 community meetings in your calendars as I hope to reach out to and hear back from as many residents as I can so that we can continue to make District 2 one of the best places to live and work in El Paso.

Juarez and the Drug War

Note: This editorial was written by my friend and colleague City Representative Beto O'Rourke about the action that we took last Tuesday as a response to the violence in our sister city Juarez. The Mayor vetoed the item and so it will be back for consideration on Tuesday. It will take 6 of 8 votes to override the veto. I encourage everyone to participate in this debate by emailing and calling the Mayor and city representatives and showing up to put in your two cents. We've been getting a ton of emails, thoughtful responses both in support and against. One of my constituents ended his email on the subject with the following quote from Mark Twain which I think is perfect for this moment in our history: "Loyalty to a petrified opinion never yet broke a chain or freed a human soul."

From Beto: The civil government in Ciudad Juarez has collapsed. In our sister city of 1.5 million people murders, mutilation, torture, kidnappings and extortions are committed with impunity. Beyond the cost in human lives and safety, it also threatens to imperil the nascent economic rennaissance in this region and the over $2 billion spent by Mexican nationals in our local economy. And there is the very real national security threat, recently articulated by retired Drug Czar Barry McCaffrey, that this brutality and lawlessness could extend throughout Mexico and lead to a flood of refugees who would overwhelm our border, our city and our country and make today's undocumented immigration problem seem insignificant by comparison.

A crisis of this magnitude requires different thinking. We can't assume that continuing, or slightly modifying, a 40-year "Drug War" policy is going to produce anything better for Juarez or El Paso or our two countries. That is why this past Tuesday the City Council added an important amendment to a resolution brought to us by the Committee on Border Relations.

The Committee's original resolution was a strong, positive statement of support for our beleagured sister city and it contained a number of important policy recommendations, including stepped up enforcement of gun-trafficking in the U.S. and more funding for and focus on prevention and rehabilitation. However, we did not feel that the resolution went far enough in demanding a more comprehensive review of what is clearly a failed policy, one that has cost us billions of dollars, allowed drugs to still reach the U.S. consumer in an affordable and accessible manner, and one that has empowered the thugs and criminal organizations to the point that they, not the democratically elected government, now control the city of Juarez.

We felt that the resolution had to take one more step critical to rethinking what has been a failed policy. And so the unanimously adopted resolution contained the added request that our national lawmakers have an open, honest dialog about the prohibition of drugs.

This past December marked the 75th anniversary of the repeal of the prohibition of alcohol. In the midst of the Great Depression, while crime gangs ruled the streets of Chicago and other major cities, the American public realized that the millions of dollars spent to wipe out alcohol had done nothing to limit demand or supply and had only enriched and empowered gangs of murderous criminal entrepreneurs. On top of that, the U.S. was unable to regulate, control or tax the alcohol that was being consumed in greater quantities than before prohibiton. It is worth noting that the U.S. now averages over $7 billion a year in alcohol related tax collections.

Our current drug policy does not work. Ending prohibition on one or more illegal drugs may be part of the answer. But we will never know if we aren't willing to talk about it. That's all we're asking for, and I think it's the least we can do as we try to help change a tragic situation that has serious consequences for the future of our region.

Please consider helping

I received a note yesterday from a young woman named Paloma Gonzalez Rio, who has received a scholarship to attend the California College of Arts. The only thing preventing her from getting there is the plane fare to San Francisco. Is there anyone that might be able to pitch in to get her there? She can be contacted at: paloma.gonzalezrios@gmail.com.

I asked her to tell me a little bit about herself that I could share with you. Here are some of her words:

Despite financial and personal hardships, I have always considered myself to be very fortunate. I deeply believe that every single minute is to be lived with passion and force. This is my personal philosophy and the main reason behind my outgoing and positive personality.

My name is Paloma Isabella, I am 20 years old and I grew in a family of four. My mother, a single parent has always worked very hard and even with us helping in every way possible, we still live from day to day.

I was the victim of abuse but I have moved on with the help of my family's love and the strength of my mother's teachings. I have learned to turn the bad experiences into life lessons and as the years pass I continue acquiring the knowledge to search for opportunities and to take full advantage of them. All the everyday small victories have made me a hard working and focused individual that strives to find the precise equilibrium between her and the world around.
Due to my economic situation the chances of having an education past middle school were very few, more so aspiring to attend college. Despite all the odds I obtained a scholarship to the most prestigious private preparatory school in Mexico (ITESM/SACS).

This was a key experience in my academic life since it opened another window on my life, showing me an ample range of possibilities for a successful future as a human being and a professional. The abilities I developed as a student at ITESM enabled me to pursue a college education and gave me the desire to obtain every academic tool available to become a professional and to fulfill my goal of making a difference in world society.

My deep instilled moral values have always provided me with the understanding to defend the rights of others as well as my own. After surmounting so many daily difficulties I find almost any kind of obstacle is conquerable and that no matter what other trials I encounter in my future , I know for certain that through discipline and hard work I will be able to overcome them and achieve my goals.

More information:
I´m the eldest one and I´m going to be the first one in my family to pursue a higher education. My mother is the only support of my family (four dependants) and has seriously health problems. My single mother can not provide me with the possibilities to attend college.That is why after 3 long years searching, finally I obtained a great opportunity to go to College; I won the Gates Millennium Scholarship that will make possible for me to pursue a Major in Architecture, the one I love.

My mother works very hard to make ends meet and she does not have the financial means to contribute in anyway to my education-related expenses. Our economical situation is not very easy,that is why my brother, sister and I have had to win scholarships to attend school and worked independently (selling and making crafts,selling candies,etc) to contribute financially to our home.
I hope this is helpful,
Thanks in advance!!!
Paloma Gonzalez