Rep. Cesar Blanco Uses Political Contribution to Pay Membership in Borderplex Alliance (aka Paso del Norte Group)

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.

Kids First Reform EPISD Now PAC: What’s Wrong and What’s White

 

Kids First Reform EPISD Now PAC: What’s Wrong and What’s White

Where Are All the Brown People: PAC has trouble even attracting Steve Ortega types

by Ben

The recent low-attendance of forums hosted by Kids First Reform EPISD PAC may be a clue how out of touch they are with people of color. Of course you remember, this is Susie Byrd and Elliot Shapleight's PAC trying to put Byrd on the EPISD school board among others.

 

However, a much better clue is their financial report filed with the Texas Ethics Commission.

 

Out of the 52 people listed as donors, only 6 appear to be Latino. Now we are basing this on the number of Hispanic surnames found in their financial report: five (5) which we counted (we counted 47 White surnames), and one surname whom we know the person is Latino despite the last name. So let’s do the math, that’s only 11.32 % of Kids First donors are Latino (out of the more than 80% Latino make up of El Paso).

 

Wow!

 

Kids First huh?

 

Who’s kids?

 

Definitely not 87% of the population of El Paso who are Latino -- not their kids.

 

What is 11.32% closer to? Who? We get it, the 14.2% make up. Which group is that: yes, Whites.

 

What Side of Town do Kid’s First Donors Come from

 

Certainly, Kids First has walked the barrios to make sure their organization is diverse.

 

70.5 % of Kids first donors live on the Westside

 

·         One donor lives south of I-10

·         One donor lives in Memorial Park

·         Eleven donors live in the North East (21.5%)

·         Four live in the Burges area

 

So much for diversity!

 

Gandalf the White

Paso del Norte Group/Borderblex Alliance Membership Cross-References

 

However, if you are trying to get a bigger percentage, look no further than whom the PAC donors are and how many of them are members of the PDNG.

 

Now, we may be using an old membership list. Some we could not find on the roles. But for people like former Assistant City Manager Debbie Hamlyn (known to be a terrific friend of people of color), we know she worked for PDNG or one of its affiliated entities during the stadium debacle (just a few day after her retirement we’ll add). There is also Tracy Yellen of MyrnaDeckert & Associates,* but not found the PDNG lists. We did not find her on the membership list, but she might as well be.

 

Edward Escudero

Perry Fienbert (Stephen)

Carol Glicrease (Paul)

Leanard "Tripper" Goodman (yep, the stadium guy)

Frank Gorman (Patrick)

Jimmy Janack

Frank Gormans

Robert O’Rourke (Beto O'Roarke)

Melissa O’Rourke (daughter of Bill Sanders)

Eric Peirson if he’s the same guy in Peirson and Peirson

Deberah Kastrin

Pearson and Pearson (Eric)

Tracy Yellen

JoAnn Casey

Michael Wenolt

 

That’s 29.4% of Kids First donors are PDNG members.

 

 

* Deckart is a co-founder of the PDNG and former executive director