Homeboy of the Week / The MP of the Week Award

I wanted the return of the Homeboy of the Week Award to be something important. If you recall I would periodically give out an award for someone who I think did something good and another for someone I think did something bad. The Homeboy of the Week Award was obviously for something good.

The bad award used to be the Douche Bag of the Week Award. Some people have complained about using the word douche bag and requested I use something different. Well I am trying to figure out what else to use not because of their complaints but because I don't think Douche Bag is sufficient.

So after several very good suggestions I came up with the MP of the Week Award. No gringos, its not shorthand for MVP. And as much as I wanted the initials to stand for something else in Spanish, its slang that could be interpreted as a slur so I chose for the MP initials to stand for something else.

The Douche Bag of the Week will now be renamed the Mas Pendejo/a of the Week Award. The "Empe" for short.

Jose Landeros, Homeboy

So I can think of no one better to receive the first Homeboy of the Week Award in Season 2 of the LSB then one of my actual homeboys, Jose Landeros. Landeros, as it is well documented online is a known friend and associate of Jaime Abeytia. Yes, thats an inside joke, but other people's stupidity makes us giggle.

Allow me to be serious for a moment.

He is the Public Policy Advisor for the Precinct 3 Office at Commissioners Court. He successfully developed a plan for commissioners court to allocate $1.325 million to rural parks. There were a ton of obstacles to the success of that plan and Landeros found a way to navigate all the landmines and get the job done.

This is the part where the crazies start losing their mind about how the county shouldn't do parks and its not a mandated service, blah, blah, blah...We get it, you cranky mofo's hate poor brown kids who live in the county. So lets talk how much additional money the tax payers are going to have to pay for that allocation to rural parks.

$0.

The brilliance of the plan was that it used existing dollars that came from the 2007 bonds. That money has just been sitting around doing nothing since 2007. The short of it is that $1.325 million would be offset by a corresponding reduction of $1.505 million from capitol bond savings from the Tornillo Port of Entry project.

But the reality is the parks are an investment in public safety. It gives kids and families a safe and designated location for recreation activities. That is cost avoidance in law enforcement and first responders. But more importantly, it improves the quality of life for people that live in the outlying areas. Ruben Estrella Park, named for a veteran of the last Gulf War who was from Montana Vista is located in Montana Vista. There is no grass there. Kids play on dirt and rocks. Actually mostly sand. Yet dogs in East El Paso have grass, playground equipment, and water fountains.

Dogs!

You remember Montana Vista right? Thats the place some of you go to buy beer on the way out to Red Sands to ride quads. Its also the place that many of you have gone to in the past to shoot fireworks and trash up their community.

Landeros & Agua Dulce Senoras

Miguel Teran park is in Agua Dulce. Let's face it, you don't know where that is, wouldn't know how to get there if I gave you directions, and don't ever plan on going to anyway. I don't blame you, there's not really a reason to go out there unless you live there. Well, there are a lot of families that live out there and in the very near future the moms that set-up the soccer leagues for their children (pictured with Landeros) will get to see their kids play on grass instead of a hardened slab of dirt and rocks. Eventually they will even have shade under trees.

I cannot underscore the amount of work that went in to making this allocation happen and thankfully the electeds on commissioners court voted for the money unanimously. That was the right vote. Landeros will never get the credit he deserves for making this happen. No news story will every be written about it. Ironically the park is named after a guy like Teran and a guy like Landeros will probably never have one named after him.

But he should.

A kid who was probably more interested in books while he was in school than in sports grows up to put that talent to work so that other kids who didn't grow up near a park with grass like he did, will have a nice place to play. Thanks to Landeros' effort and the leadership of the office, kids in the far east and west end of the county will have a place to pretend to be the next Omar Quintanilla, Tim Hardaway, or Don Maynard.

¡Te aventaste Homeboy!


The MP of the Week Award

I know what you're thinking. You're thinking I'm going to talk about his crappy poetry.

Well I'm not. It amuses me, but doesn't frustrate me.

What frustrates me about him is his duality.

Ascarate is almost always in the red. Lewis actually used that phrase, "for the record", himself in yesterday's budget hearing.

Its an albatross for tax payers and every year it takes up the lion's share of the funding for county parks.

Look, I get it. Ascarate is in his district so he's gonna wanna have something to show voters come re-election, oh wait...

But you can't hog all the funding so you can tell everyone what a great job you did and then turn around and act like the buck doesn't stop with you when there are big problems at the park. Sorry Sergio, its the pottery barn rules. You have to take the hits along with the praise.

Don't get me wrong, Ascarate certainly had a very strong advocate in Commissioner Lewis. I give him credit for that. When he wasn't walking around the commissioners court suite trying to figure out how Maxi Pad is (and frequently accusing me of being Maxi), he was nearly relentless in his support for Ascarate. I never argued with him when he said that about me out of respect for my boss and because I really couldn't. But I don't work there anymore, so I don't have that problem anymore. And all joking aside, he deserves recognition for his work there.

However, when fighting off an attempt from another commissioner to reduce the amount of spending at Ascarate in favor of additional funding for the rural parks (last year) Lewis had a fit. Forget the fact that there is plenty of green and park space within the city limits of El Paso. Forget that there are plenty of other recreation activities for people who live in the city limits.

Lewis actually tried to argue that the funding that was being proposed to rural parks at the expense of Ascarate should stay with Ascarate because people out in the county use the park too. He specifically said people come from Fabens to use Ascarate. Thats funny because its a 30 mile trip from Fabens to Ascarate...one way! Lewis actually tried to argue, with a straight face mind you, that people regularly drive 60 miles for a park.

I'm not saying I would drive 60 miles, I'm not saying I wouldn't drive 60 miles. I'm just saying I have questions. For the record of course.

What drove me the most nuts watching the budget hearing yesterday during the discussion was to hear Lewis question the maintenance cost of the parks. I swear I was yelling at the screen worse than I was yelling during the Redskins-Eagles game last Sunday. Lewis questioning the maintenance costs of ridiculously small parks in the rural areas was so duplicitous because all those years he was making sure that Ascarate was living high off the hog of the parks funding I never once heard him mention maintenance costs. Hell, last year when he was voting for increased utility costs, while ultimately voting against the tax rate to pay for the increase he supported, he didn't mention a peep about that issue.

Of course not. He wanted the funding.

I see how he rolls. When its funding for his park, its all good in the 'hood. When it comes to people in the outskirts getting a little crumb, all of a sudden he has questions...