Rep. Cesar Blanco Uses Political Contributions to Pay Membership in Borderplex Alliance (aka Paso del Norte Group)
Oppressive Group Well-known for Involvement Corruption
by Ike and Ben
If any organization in El Paso has hurt people of color
and the poor more, it has been the Borderplex Alliance (aka Paso del Norte
Group).
Texas Representative Cesar Blanco has used contributions to pay for membership in this organization.
Even taking it out of that realm, every taxpayer in El Paso who has a
complaint against the City of El Paso’s mounting debt, lack of transparency,
rising property taxes, the Borderplex Alliance has a connection to it.
Beto O’Rourke’s father-in-law William Sander founded
the Borderplex Alliance, then known as the Paso Del Norte Group.
Its first executive director was Myrna Deckert, whose
emails to Joyce Wilson and Steve Ortega during the Downtown Ballpark scandal showed
the influence of the Paso del Norte group in pushing this money pit on El Paso
taxpayers. These emails were exposed in the Chucoleaks cache of email obtained
via the Texas Open Records Act.
According to the Downtown Scam
timeline, the Paso del Norte Group was founded by in 2003: “In El Paso, Bill
Sanders founds the Paso Del Norte Group, using the Commercial Club of Chicago
as his model. The PDNG is made up of more than 350 business and political
leaders from both sides of the border. On the El Paso side the group includes
his son-in-law City rep Robert O’Rourke, Army housing developer Woody Hunt, and
Chris Balsiger who was indicted by the FBI for an alleged $250,000,000 coupon
fraud scheme.” El Paso Downtown Scam 2003. See Timeline for more information information.
On February 15, 2005, the City of
El Paso contracted with the Paso del Norte Group: “City of El Paso votes
approves contract with PDNG to create downtown redevelopment plan. City Council
grants them $250,000. Some of this is federal money in the form of HTGB grants.
The El Paso City Council, under
mayor Joe Wardy, voted to approve contract with Paso Del Norte Group to create
a downtown redevelopment plan. Before the vote took place, however, a series of
questions emerged about the scope of the project.”
The exploits of this oppressive organization
are well known, but the focus of this article is Representative Cesar Blanco
using political contributions to pay for membership in this organization.
The least would have been for Blanco to use his own money to pay for this membership. But maybe the $1000 membership dues is a bit steep on a Texas representative's salary.
The most egregious is the Paso
del Norte Group push to demolish Segundo Barrio as part of the Downtown Plan,
their support of the Downtown Ballpark, and the demolition of Duranguito.
Blanco should be ashamed to be a
member of this organization.
This is truly unfortunate as
Blanco has been seen has a rising star in politics in El Paso, being outspoken
for many causes for the poor.
In looking at Blanco’s
contribution report more closely, Blanco is increasingly being funded by PACs. We
will focus on this in another article.
