Susie Byrd is a City representative, Bill Sanders ally and PDNG plan supporter.
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"Controlling the Conversation"
by Peter Viola
A Response to Ms Byrd, District 2 Representative to City Council’s quote:
"Their (Paso del Sur Group) tactics of misinformation and vitriol have made them so that they're not a part of the conversation anymore."
—Susie Byrd, quoted by NPT
YOUR DISMISSAL of a group of concerned citizens as "not a part of the conversation anymore," echoes an unsettling anti-democratic trend displayed in the attitudes of several "progressive" leaders in our City over the past two years. It seems you all very much like to start conversations. You like to hold gatherings and record public input. You like to hand out note cards and game pieces and monopoly boards to hover over. But the problem is that all of your proposed “discussions” have a predetermined end—the winner has been decided. In fact, as I reflect back on the events leading to the adoption the PDNG’s downtown plan I am not sure that any conversation ever took place at all. It all seems more to have been a presentation.
“Conversations” took place in the summer of 2006 when the City of El Paso held forums and meetings to discuss the downtown plan—a plan that was devised behind closed doors and one which tactfully excluded input from the community that it would most impact. I attended all but one of these sessions and I can objectively say that in nearly all of those meetings, people were less than completely satisfied with the plan. While it is a true that some of the same voices of concern resurfaced at each meeting, it was equally noticeable that the passion in favor of the city’s plan was nowhere to be found. Most people wanted to know more- wanted to keep talking, wanted to extend the conversation. Some citizens were duped into thinking that a real conversation was taking place where their concerns would be legitimized and acknowledged. But all that ended on December 21, 2006, when City Council decided the conversation was over and voted to proceed with the plan.
They voted as they had planned to all along. In spite all of the negative feedback regarding eminent domain, the inconsistencies in the layout of the plan, the lack of inclusion in communities to be impacted and the repeated suggestions to involve people at the local levels the plan went forward with nearly every essential elements of REIT redevelopment in place, with minor inconsequential revisions, with eminent domain symbolically delayed but still on the table, and without a mandate from the people in general and once again the glaringly omission of the input people of the Segundo Barrio. And now that the predetermined table of redevelopment has been set, you consider the voices of dissent no longer part of the conversation. According to you, the conversation is over.
More recently “conversations” took place in the Segundo Barrio- between your fellow council member Mr. O'Rourke and a passionate crowd of people, many residents, who wanted to converse and display their frustration with the downtown plan and what they feared might be forcible relocation. But Mr. O’Rourke didn’t seem to be interested in why the voices present at this meeting felt betrayed and worried. O’Rourke blamed outside groups for putting fear into their minds. When confronted with the reality that one resident claimed it was his father-in-law they were afraid of, all he could say muster was, “that’s your opinion.” In other words, you have yours and I have mine: the conversation is over.
What conversations are we allowed to have Ms Byrd? Should we talk about the War in Iraq? Troops along the border? Racial profiling? Immigration in general?—those seem to be broad enough topics to allow for some impassioned fist-pounding from our esteemed democratic progressive leaders. Shouldn’t we instead continue our discussion of the rights of people in our own communities? I think we should keep our eyes open and question whether there may be some connections in the accelerated development occurring on opposite sides’ of the Rio Grande. It is our and should be your responsibility to question the motivations of those with so much to gain and to engage in conversations on behalf of those who have everything to lose.
And while you, Ms Byrd, may feel that you are the authority on who is in and who is out of the conversation, you should know that about two-hundred people gathered at UTEP on Monday obviously unconvinced that the conversations about border development and human rights have reached a conclusion. Many of them feel that there are direct links connecting land developers and relocations on both sides of the border. While they all seem to acknowledge that the physical struggle and threat levels are distinctly different in the two communities, they believe that there are too many coincidences on both sides to deem the projects and players unrelated—they seem to feel the struggle is related. In other words, they feel that the conversation is just getting started. As a representative of this City were you there to listen and be a part of it? Or are the concerns presented in this gathering of 200 people also not part of the conversation?
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