Meeting between community groups from Las Cruces, El Paso and Ciudad Juárez at NMSU to discuss the negative effects of the Verde Group binational development project.
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THE OTHER ALLIANCE
El Paso, Ciudad Juárez and Las Cruces residents discover that they share a common foe
by PDS
December 20, 2007
LAS CRUCES, NEW MEXICO — Activists and residents from Las Cruces, El Paso and Ciudad Juárez met yesterday at the Center for Latin American & Border Studies at NMSU to discuss the negative effects of the Verde Group binational development plans in the region. They included residents of Lomas del Poleo and South El Paso, faculty members of UTEP and NMSU, as well as members of Paso Del Sur of El Paso, La Otra Campaña of Ciudad Juárez and the Quality Growth Alliance of Las Cruces.
The participants at the meeting pointed out connections and common strategies that the Verde Group uses in El Paso and Las Cruces including extreme secrecy, conflicts of interest, influence peddling and forcing public officials to rush their vote before public awareness is built. The issues of displacement, eminent domain abuse, public corruption, human rights violations and the the draining of taxes and other resources to fund these private development projects on both sides of the border were also discussed.
Quality Growth Alliance of Las Cruces activists oppose the Verde Group's attempt to control Doña Ana county taxes to help pay their for its mega-development project in Santa Teresa. They believe these public monies should be spent instead to pay for urgent projects such as the creation of infrastructure and health services in the poorer neighborhoods of the city. They pointed out that the Verde Group has tried to rush the decision at the local and state level and often added certain amendments to the TIDD act at the last minute such as a loophole that would allow the use of eminent domain in Santa Teresa.
They also expressed concern about the power peddling by the Verde Group and the potential for public corruption taking place at both the local and state levels. According to the Albuquerque Tribune, subsidiaries of Verde and a Verde executive contributed about $66,000 to Richardson's gubernatorial re-election campaign in 2006.
Members of the Paso Del Sur Group said they were struck by the similarities between the actions of the Verde Group in Las Cruces and the actions of these developers in El Paso. [The Verde Group creates a number of “shadow organizations” often hidden from the public eye. In El Paso they work under the auspices of the Paso Del Norte Group and the Borderplex Community Trust REIT—both of them organizations headed by Verde Group owner Bill Sanders.] Just as in Las Cruces, the pro-Sander’s political alliance has created a Tax Increment Zone in Downtown and South El Paso that will drain public monies from other uses throughout the city. These tax-payer funds can now only be used to create infrastructure for the new PDNG-dominated redevelopment plan that includes the threat of eminent domain in 2008 to force unwilling property owners to sell their homes and businesses.
The Paso Del Sur group pointed out that the conflict of interest and corruption is similar to what is taking place in New Mexico. In Doña Ana county, at least one of the commissioner’s campaign is heavily subsidized by the Verde Group. In El Paso, not only are several pro-plan politician’s electoral campaigns heavily subsidized by the Verde Group and the PDNG members, but they’re connected to a City Council representative through the bonds of marriage. City rep Robert O’Rourke is the son-in-law of the Verde Group owner Bill Sanders.
The residents of Lomas del Poleo shared personal accounts of the destructive effects of the binational redevelopment plans by Eloy Vallina (who sits on the board of directors of the Verde Group corporation) on their own neighborhood. Since 2003, when Bill Sanders and Eloy Vallina announced their plans for “master - planned binational cities” in Santa Teresa and San Jerónimo, their community has been facing a systematic campaign waged by a powerful group of developers known as the Zaragoza Group to displace them through violence and terror from their lands.
The Grupo Zaragoza is part of a coalition of Juárez developers known as the Plan Estrategico de Ciudad Juárez that was formed around the same time that the Paso Del Norte Group was formed in 2003. Supporters of the Lomas Del Poleo residents said they believe Eloy Vallina, Sanders and the politicians who support these developers on both sides of the border share complicity for the actions of the Grupo Zaragoza and the human rights violations they’re committing in Lomas del Poleo.
Another issue that concerned activists from the three cities was that these binational mega-development projects will drain water from the border communities — specifically, the projects currently being carried out by Bill Sanders, Woody Hunt and Carlos Slim to monopolize and privatize the water aquifers that presently supply water to the El Paso-Juárez-Las Cruces area.
Perhaps the main point that came out of yesterday’s tri-city alliance meeting was the understanding that the negative impact the Verde Group-Grupo Zaragoza binational development project on the Las Cruces, Segundo Barrio and Lomas del Poleo communities differs only in matters of degree.
In Las Cruces, the binational development project threatens the community’s public funds and resources.
In El Paso, it is people’s homes and livelihoods that are at stake.
In Lomas del Poleo, people are fighting not only for their lands that have been targeted by the developers, but for their very lives.
But at the end of the day, it is all part of the same plan. As one of the participants put it, "it's same creature with many tentacles."
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