Take the $80 Million and Shove It

Subtitle: PSB Land Is OUR Land not Ed Archuleta's Land

Subtitle: It Looks Like and Smells Like a Closed Door Berry-Archuleta Meeting (Sub-sub title: More of that great transparency we keep hearing about.)

Here's the email going around:

Subject: URGENT ALERT - PLEASE CALL YOUR REPRESENTATIVE on Monday – FLASH – Critical Decision Pending - FORWARD THIS TO OTHERS

PLEASE - Make at least ONE CALL on Monday and ask your City Council Representative to vote NO (AGAINST) allowing commercial zoning along Transmountain Drive from I-10 to the Franklin Mountains State Park entrance (west side of El Paso). This is a 100 million dollar tax give-away including four overpasses to allow roads and development into the remaining natural setting of the Franklin Mountains adjoining our beloved State Park.

See items 14A and B on Tuesday AGENDA (postponed from 8-10-10) that begin: ...to initiate amendments to zoning conditions placed on properties
abutting Loop 375/Trans-Mountain Road located
between Highway 54 and Interstate 10..."

[although reps voted against this earlier this month it was postponed to this coming TUES for ANOTHER VOTE . If this zoning goes through this week, then that entire transmountain road from I10 to the state park entrance will have access roads, bridges and cross-roads to allow several housing developments and other commercial enterprises access through the remaining natural land.]

For more background see the items on the City Council Agenda for tomorrow. Also, here's the El Paso Times Saturday editorial chastising the City Council for not voting to rezone 4 miles of land along Trans Mountain as commercial.

Revise Subtitle: It Looks Like and Smells Like a Closed Door Berry-Archuleta and El Paso Times Editorial Board Meeting

Here are the facts: the land south of Trans Mountain and east of I-10 is zoned commercial. North is residential. (Can't change what is private property zoning.) PSB land as part of the Master Plan is proposed to be zoned commercial although it was Planned Mountain Development - the toughest zoning. Archuleta would like nothing more than to sell that land as commercial to get a higher rate for the utility. To do this the MDA overlay must be changed. (Don't change it, Council.) Note to Archuleta: That land is OUR land and we want to preserve the beautiful NATURAL SPACE. So, re-zone but re-zone as NOS - Natural Open Space. Afterall, (and here is the kicker, folks), 500 feet on either side of Trans Mountain is Mountain Development Area. This also means that, before anything can happen, it needs to be reviewed by the Open Space Advisory Board and others and then go to City Council. (Top staff seems to have missed this one which, as we know, is not exceptional.)

Finally, so what if TxDOT and Chuck Berry have come up with $80 million all of a sudden. Go spend it somewhere else - perhaps on deliberately and immorally over appraised land at Loop 375 and I-10. Besides, in all of those public input meetings (you know meetings where they are supposed to have heard the public) TxDOT never spoke about a high rise freeway from I-10 past the entrance to the State Park. If they want another idea for their $80, build underpasses INCLUDING animal corridors - something they said that they didn't have money for.

Finally, I think I'll file one of those Open Records requests that asks for Archuleta's calendar when he met with Chuck Berry and vice versa and requests any notes, emails or whatever that came out of that meeting.

It's OUR land. Have I said that enough? Perhaps we all need to start saying it more frequently.

So, yeah, call/email - go visit your City Representatives and the Mayor. Tell them to vote for NOS zoning for your public P (as in PUBLIC) SB land and tell Ed to take a hike - one in the Franklin Mountains State Park might do him a world of good. Where it is private property with commercial zoning (even if once PMD) and vested rights, there is nothing that can be done now except get a trade-off: no signs, plenty of trails that connect with open space, protect the scenery, landscape as nicely as the Pat O'Rourke Trail, etc., etc. This can be done. Make the best of this situation.

El Paso City Council Directory

Mayor of El Paso, John Cook
Phone: 915-541-4145
mayor@elpasotexas.gov

District 1 Representative - Ann Morgan Lilly
Phone: 915-541-4151
district1@elpasotexas.gov

District 2 Representative - Susie Byrd
Phone: 915-541-4416
district2@elpasotexas.gov

District 3 Representative – Emma Acosta
Phone: 915-541-4515
district3@elpasotexas.gov

District 4 Representative – Carl Robinson
Phone: 915-541-4140
district4@elpasotexas.gov

District 5 Representative - Rachel Quintana
Phone: 915-541-4701
district5@elpasotexas.gov

District 6 Representative - Eddie Holguin Jr
Phone: 915-541-4182
district6@elpasotexas.gov

District 7 Representative - Steve Ortega
Phone: 915-541-4108
district7@elpasotexas.gov

District 8 Representative - Beto O'Rourke
Phone: 915-541-4123
district8@elpasotexas.gov

P.S. It's good to be back. What a storm to fly into on the way back to Elpasonaturally.