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.