Best of Times

Border links

The Paso del Sur group has some interesting videos up. There latest video, which you can watch here, is: Two Doña Ana county commissioners, a priest from the Segundo Barrio, and a group of concerned citizens from Las Cruces, El Paso and Juárez visit a Juárez neighborhood surrounded by barbed wire and armed thugs hired by powerful binational developers.

To see all their YouTube videos, including more from Lomas del Poleo, click here.

And here's an amazing story out of Lubbock. An excerpt:

Resendiz was one of two students who wrote a letter to Tech President Jon Whitmore alerting him that an ideological club, the Young Conservatives of Texas, had played a game called "Catch the Illegal Immigrant" on campus in March.

As part of the game, some Conservatives wore T-shirts that read "ILLEGAL IMMIGRANT" on the fronts and "CATCH ME IF YOU CAN" on the backs, while others tried to catch them for a prize.

Oh, those young conservative jokesters are a barrel of laughs, eh?

Kansas takeover

I didn't work yesterday, but attended a couple of important events.

First, I attended a memorial service for my friend Susanne Gomez, who passed away recently. She was a fun-loving woman who made many friends in El Paso through the years.

My mother-in-law and her stayed friends over 23 years and she was a fixture at all the family parties, usually trying to make one of us dance with her. She will be missed.

Wednesday evening, I attended an alumni gathering for El Pasoans who attended the University of Kansas. There aren't many of us here, but I had a good time talking with Roger Maier of Customs and Border Protection, and Raymundo Rojas of the Las Americas Immigrant Advocacy Center.

We plotted the Kansas takeover of El Paso, but, sorry, it was all off the record.

We may never know ...

Well, I promised more soon on the Theresa Caballero -- Ashlie Hardway dustup, but I lied.

I had big plans to go to a hearing tomorrow and get to the bottom of the whole case, but word on the street is, the hearing has been canceled.

So, we may never know exactly what was going on, but when it comes to where crazy lives, do we ever know exactly what is going on?

Netflix and LionStar

First, just a quick note to those El Pasoans who gave up on NetFlix because the delivery time was too long.

The closest NetFlix location had been in Phoenix, and I almost quit myself after getting tired of waiting more than a week for each new video to show up.

But, good news: NetFlix has now opened a location in Albuquerque, and I've noticed my videos showing up much more rapidly now.

LionStar

The LionStar Blog has moved and has big plans for new stuff, including podcasts. I guess it's time for Best of Times to step up its game!

Eddie Holguin: Why in the next five years?

East-Valley city Rep. Eddie Holguin called me today to clarify his position on the stormwater fee. We had a good conversation, and he made some good points, so let me try to do them justice here.

1. The main thing he wanted to say was that he not against making the fixes. What he is against is trying to finance it all in the next 5-10 years. "We have drainage problems," Holguin said. "But let's finance this over 500 years instead of five years." If this is a 500-year flood, like the city originally said: "I don't know if the world will even exist in 500 years ... why do we have to pay for all of this in the next five years?"

He said he thinks the council is using the storms of 2006 to play on people's emotions to see what they can get away with, but with this latest fee, they've gone too far.

2. Another point that he said is not getting enough publicity is that the fee will be rising each year. Holguin said that the $4.50 monthly fee that a homeowner with less than 3,000 square feet will be paying this year will rise each year under the plan until it reaches $17.50 a month in the fifth year. "The public is not being told that," Holguin said. If he's right, and the fee does go up that much, this fight could get bloody.

3. And if you think that's bad, Holguin said, imagine what businesses will pay. And these huge fees on businesses will hurt the poor the most because each "business owner will pass the cost back to the consumer" and the poor consumer is who can least afford the increased costs of milk, gas, etc.

Those were the main points he wanted to make. But some side comments are worth mentioning.

He said the West Side seems to get treated better than other parts of the city:

"If the Lower Valley had flooded, would they have spent this amount of money on it? I don't know. I'd like to give them the benefit of the doubt and say, yes, but, realistically, no."

He said the council is too worried about keeping up with the Austins and Phoenixes of the world instead of realizing El Paso is El Paso and taxpayers can't face the burden of trying to keep up: "Austin doesn't border Mexico."

There you have it. I appreciated Mr. Holguin calling the fair and balanced Best of Times to set the record straight.

500-year flood? I don't buy it

One of the arguments against having to pay the stormwater fee is, "Why hurry? It won't flood like that for another 500 years?"

(Setting aside the poor way the tax has been levied on some.  Here's the latest breaking news on that part of it.)

So, I'm curious as to your opinion. I mentioned to another editor today that I thought it was ludicrous to think this was a 500-year flood. I pointed out that the number kept changing. First, it was called a 100-year flood, then a 200-year flood, and so on, until suddenly it seemed agreed upon that this was a 500-year flood.

The gentleman said he had lived in El Paso for more than 50 years, and 2006 was the worst rain he had ever seen, so it was at least a 50-year flood.

Then I mentioned An Inconvenient Truth taught me that global warming likely means we'll be getting many more of these floods than in the past.

He then decided I was crazy.

So am I? I couldn't find much in the Times archive that talked about the possibility that global warming means more flooding for El Paso. I did find this mention in a March, 2007, editorial supporting the stormwater fee:

Tax- and fee-burdened El Pasoans certainly don't want to be stuck with another payment, but this one is worth it. For one thing, the fee would help to take care of storm-related projects that have been relegated to the back seat in the past because of costs.

But with the city facing at least $115 million in storm-related repairs -- a figure likely to go much higher -- and other water and drainage projects that have been languishing, money is needed -- money that wouldn't be diverted from other city projects.

The city is growing. There are indications that weather patterns could be changing. The effects of global warming have yet to be fully understood. This uncertainty coupled with past experience necessitates a storm-water utility so that El Paso can recover from Storm 2006 and be as prepared as possible for the next one, whether it's tomorrow, next year, or ...

A KVIA story also raised the possibility of more frequent flooding caused by global warming.

I think we better get the work done, but I could be wrong.

Appraisals

But what I'm not wrong about is that only a fool would blame the Central Appraisal District for high taxes. But letter writers, talk-show callers and many others still do.

Listen folks, I'll try to explain this as slowly as possible. The CAD does not set your taxes. The school board, city and county governments do. The CAD only decides what your house is worth. You WANT the value of your house to go up.

Only in El Paso do people sit around complaining that the value of their house went up.

If El Paso home values go up too much, then the governments should lower your tax rate. And they HAVE several times recently. In fact, El Paso governments have been so good about this recently, that my tax bill has barely increased despite the fact that my home value has jumped 10 percent every year. (10 percent being the max jump they can tax on.)

Every year my home value goes up, I smile knowing I'll get to sell the house one day. You should, too.

Give the CAD a smile instead of a frown.

KVIA responds

KVIA has discouraged Ashlie Hardway from commenting on the Theresa Caballero blog.

(Wise advice, I might add. As an editor here once told me when trying to discourage me from taking on TC, "When you wrestle with a pig, you both get muddy, but the pig enjoys it." Obviously, I'm not too good about taking wise advice.)

BUT, Brenda De Anda-Swann, the news director at KVIA, e-mailed me this comment on the situation:

Jay,

On the advice of legal counsel, Ashlie didn't show up in court but was standing by. She didn't ignore the subpoena. She was represented there, and as expected, she didn't have to testify.

("Hardway on the run from the law" is far from an accurate headline. C'mon. If you know her, you know Ashlie doesn't run from anything).

So, there's a bit more of the real story. Not surprisingly, it's not the scandal TC would have you believe. More to come.

Stay tuned

I wish I had an update for you on the Theresa Caballero-Ashlie Hardway fun, but rest assured, I'm working on it, and there is more to come.

Also rest assured, the little I've learned confirms what we all already suspected: TC has gone off the deep end again. Stay tuned.

But for now, head over to Luis Carrasco's Cinerama blog and read about what movies make El Paso Times journalists cry. Including a contribution from yours truly.

Hardway on the run from the law

Well, the long-promised entertainment site theresacaballero.com is still "under construction."

But don't worry folks, you can't keep a great entertainer down for long. Theresa has a new post over at her old blog accusing KVIA reporter Ashlie Hardway of flouting the legal system.

And Hardway's lawyer is apparently Luther Jones. I can't make this stuff up, folks.

Theresa doesn't say why Hardway was needed in court. The PDF just states she was supposed to "speak on behalf" of Theresa's buddy Stuart Leeds.

Oh, good times.

Complainers

I'm getting awful tired of people complaining about the new stormwater fee. Today's Letters to the Editor added to the outraged chorus.

Of course there was also a lot of outrage when we had flooding all over El Paso. "We need to do something!" But it turns out, by "do something" a lot of people just meant talking about doing something. When the council actually does try to do something, folks are outraged to find doing something actually costs something.

Lewis Green of East El Paso even has the gall to ask, "Why should I pay for flooding problems in other parts of the city?"

Wow, Green, good point. And why should you pay for roads in other parts of El Paso? Or pay to educate children in other parts of El Paso? I guess all the taxes they collect from you must be spent in your square block?

Also in the letters, Charles Fish blames the "welfare state" for these high taxes. I have a feeling he's not talking about all the welfare for the rich we have going on in America right now. Again, he expresses the wish to choose where his money will be spent. None of his money better be spent on anybody he doesn't like, by golly!

And in the original story East-Valley city Rep. Eddie Holguin said, hey, why bother with this, it probably won't rain like that again for a while.

Of course, that's what got us in this mess. First the complainers say, don't spent any money on our water drainage, we're a dry place. Then the rains come and they say, "Something has to be done!" Then they complain when something is done.

I'm tired of it all. It makes me wonder if civics is being taught in school at all any more.