Plan El Paso Passes!

Plan El Paso Passes!

That should have been the bold front page headline for the El Paso Times this morning.  Instead we got “60-mph gusts to make driving difficult today”. This time of year that can be the headline for just about any day. The excellent Chris Roberts story, Council Oks plan for Smart Growth got shoved to an awkward place on the first page of Borderland overshadowed by Moody’s plan to take on Margo – an important race but one that will not have the long-term impact on El Paso as the new Comprehensive Plan. On the Times web site, you have to search for the Roberts story.

Okay – elpasonaturally is not written to criticize the journalism of the El Paso Times. It is worth noting that probably the most significant event for decades to come hardly got the attention that it deserved in the local rag.  Plan El Paso was facilitated by one the best (if not the best) City Planning consulting firms in the country (or even world) – Dover Kohl. The Plan was developed collaboratively with thousands of El Pasoans working with Dover Kohl and expert City Planning staff over a period of nearly two years in a 100 meetings and 20 hands-on sessions. The Chamber of Commerce took part as true El Pasoans – team members to the end. And, although the powers to be at EPWU tried to be the devil in the details, they were largely unsuccessful. At the end of the day, and it was a very long day especially for very dedicated members of City Council, the Plan was approved unanimously.

There are plenty of people to thank but let me tell you my heroes in all of this: First and foremost the Dover Kohl people led by Victor Dover, Jason King and Bill Spikowski and a cast of very smart, very creative professionals. I got to see firsthand their agonies, their angst and their getting to what was for El Paso a true Yes-Yes-Yes. Through all of this  I have come to respect, appreciate and admire deeply our City Planning staff especially Matthew McElroy, Carlos Gallinar and Fred Lopez. What an extraordinary talent it is to be able to stick to your principles while managing to bring people with differing views on board. El Paso is in good hands with this team.  Cortney Niland – Goddess! She just wouldn’t let go of her insistence that the final document tell the truth – the PSB is a land manager and not a trustee. Words are important and those words should help the current Council and City Councils of the future make right decisions when it comes to our City land. Niland also rightly insisted that the developing industry be rewarded more with park credits when they help to preserve hillsides and arroyos.  My heroes also include Rick Bonart and Steve Ortega (and by extension the great Chuck Kooshian) by keeping the Kooshian 2005 Arroyo Inventory in the Plan. Finally, I want to acknowledge Richard Dayoub,  the President and CEO of the Greater El Paso Chamber of Commerce. I know that as a conservationist, environmentalist, “tree hugger”, I don’t always see eye to eye with the development industry of El Paso. But Dayoub saw to it that the Chamber interact in the Plan El Paso process as a team player. His words at the end of the day yesterday were very fair. The Chamber reserves the right in the future to disagree with some of the planning. He explained the toughest thing for the business community: much of the pace of the progress being made today by City Planners is hard for many businesses to follow. Like any good business person, Dayoub wants to see how changes help not hinder the bottom line. That’s fair and, if Plan El Paso is to be a living document for decades, there must be efforts to learn more and more about the advantages of Smart Growth and how to make that work for all El Pasoans. The conversation and collaboration should continue.

Of course there is a much longer list of people to thank including Larry Nance and all of the people on CPC and CPAC, Charlie Wakeem, Chairman of OSAB, City Council members (particularly Ann Lilly who personally participated in the sessions and my Representative Susie Byrd), Joyce Wilson and many more. Plan El Paso Passes! We El Pasoans should really be proud of ourselves.

Unfortunately, let’s move to the not so good news starring our old friends at EPWU/PSB and, in doing so, transition to the NW Master Plan and Scenic Transmountain Corridor.  At its special meeting this past Monday night, the PSB voted to recommend only one scenario to City Council – the one in which building takes place on both sides of Transmountain. (I’ll get into the details of this more in the next e-letter.) More egregiously, Ed Archuleta via Risher Gilbert and Pat Adauto is crafting a different “conservation strategy” than the tried and true Conservation Easement. They are calling their yet to be unveiled product a “Restrictive Conservation Covenant”.  Seemingly by announcing this “product” on Monday along with their attempts to set their own definitions for arroyos and their own rules for land management was a very clever attempt to torpedo Plan El Paso’s effectiveness when it comes to EPWU control and any real permanent preservation of natural open space in the Scenic Corridor. Archuleta insisted that arroyos will have to be hybridized and concreted and Gilbert acknowledged that their “Restrictive Conservation Covenant” will allow for “changes” on the land. She used horse riding and horse manure as examples although she should have been forthright enough to say that they are really talking culverts and pipes and tanks. (By the way, necessary utility infrastructure in land preserved by a Conservation Easement can be allowed. It is plain that where Risher Gilbert and Ed Archuleta are going is the arbitrary re-taking of land from its natural state over a period of time.  Witness Blackie Chesher Park – another matter to be given its own attention soon.)

Control has always seemingly been the raison d’être for Archuleta’s policies. Now his style of leadership is being seen increasingly as arbitrary and unreasonable by a growing number of people.

Sadly, PSB member, Richard Schoephoerster, revealed an attitude that is too clearly a part of the fabric of a Board with no accountability to the people of El Paso. When discussing the Scenarios presented by Dover Kohl for development (or no development) in NW El Paso, Schoephoerster, the Dean of Engineering at UTEP, stated that those who participated in the charrette had a conflict of interest. What was the conflict of interest? They happen to have been people who care about our environment. In other words, those with whom Mr. Schoephoerster disagrees have a conflict of interest and, therefore, have opinions and interests that should not be entertained when it comes to setting public policy. (If conflict of interest really concerns Schoephoerster, then he should look no farther than fellow board member, Maria Teran, whose business with the EPWU was a huge ethical lapse.)  Remember that it was Schoephoerster who pronounced the Johnson Basin to be natural open space. (See the video with Schoephoerster.) What several people are beginning to ask is whether the Dean of UTEP’s College of Engineering is a bad representative for UTEP as a member of the PSB. Does UTEP’s culture value those who discount the opinions of others in a free debate? Is it good to have the one who is head of engineering be so unconcerned about the facts and details of a piece of land in question and so quickly accede to the claim of another? Attention to facts and details must be critical to an engineer and future engineers must have this trait above all others.

So we head next to the hearings about the NW Master Plan and the Scenic Transmountain Corridor – issues there because of a successful petition. Just to be very clear – no permanent preservation of the land – no deal. Petitioners will begin to get enough signatures to put the matter to El Pasoans whose votes, if not opinions, PSB members cannot discount as a conflict of interest.