State Delegation AWOL at Important Hearing

Yesterday was an important hearing at TCEQ. It was to determine whether or not a medical waste facility, that has plans to be a regional dumping ground for medical waste would be allowed to begin operating in the Lower Valley.

And not a single member of the El Paso legislative delegation attended, sent even a low-level staffer, or even bothered to send a letter opposing the facility.

Had two elected officials - one from the County and one from the City - not shown up, the facility would've likely been approved and we'd have a medical waste facility in the Lower Valley.

Everyone reading this knows that if this facility were planned for the westside, every damn member of the delegation would be leaning on that state agency to make sure a facility like that ever even had a machine start.

Remember the recent "controversy" about the Hoover building on the west? They were building facility to process immigrants and everyone had a heart attack. Some fool even said that it didn't fit the "white collar industry" of the westside. There's no such thing as "white collar industry", but everyone from the Congresswoman on down weighed in.

Westsiders don't even want brown people processed on the westside, much less tolerate processing of medical waste!

The medical waste facility to be operated by MedCare is a facility that disposes of medical waste via a steaming process. The steam generated is released into the air and the remaining liquid material is dumped into our waste water system and the solids go to the Clint landfill.

Nord Sorenson is the guy that owns the company and he's been playing what many in the community view as a con game with the city from the get-go. When he applied for the rezoning in the area it looks like city staff told him it was a no-go because the facility was more like a Heavy Use designation. Somehow he convinced staff that it was more like a recycling facility.

Which it most certainly is not, unless you consider that material ultimately going into our waste water system and the Clint landfill as somehow "recycling".

The state failed to notify residents, which REALLY upset the community.

So once City Rep Claudia Ordaz Perez and Commissioner Vince Perez found out about the facility, which they only found out about because a neighbor mentioned getting a letter about it in passing conversation, they contacted State Rep Cesar Blanco about it.

To be fair to State Rep Blanco, he has set up some key meetings and asked the agency to come to El Paso so that they could answer questions from the community at a meeting set-up collaboratively with his office, City Rep Ordaz Perez, Commissioner Perez, and YISD Trustee Lucero.

So I want to acknowledge that he worked on making meetings happen. But that is his job. He's supposed to do that. In fact, he's the ONLY person that has the authority to make that happen.

But at the hearing that was IN Austin, during the legislative session, not one single member of the El Paso delegation attended.

Obviously the state delegation isn't going to like to hear criticism, but we as community members have an obligation to hold them accountable. That is our job. And I can guaran-damn-tee that as long as I have a platform, an audience, and a voice, I'm gonna hold any elected official accountable when it comes to an issue this important to the community.

I like Rep Blanco and he's thus far has done a good job.

But he should have been at this meeting. If HE couldn't be there, he should've sent a staffer.

If he couldn't send a staffer, he could've sent a letter in opposition to be read at the meeting.

Hell, I would've walked it over from his office to the TCEQ meeting myself if he'd asked me to.

Actually, since the Perez's were in town for the meeting he could've given it to them and had them read it at the meeting.

However, let me be clear about this - it doesn't fall just on the shoulders of Blanco to attend a meeting this important to the community. Hell, when its an issue that affects the community and the delegation thinks its a priority, they all show up whether something directly involves their district or not. That is the whole ever-loving point of having an El Paso delegation in the first damn place.

And mark the date and time because I am about to do something I haven't done in years and vowed I'd never do again - but for all of her many, many, many, many, many faults and failures...if Norma Chavez was in office, I guarantee you she would've have been there personally, had the entire delegation show up if she had to drag them there by their ears, probably had a bus or two full of community members complete with matachines, pitch forks and torches, the Ysleta Del Sur Pueblo Tribal Council and Governor, the Mayor of El Paso, and Mexica dancers lighting sage and blowing into a concha.

Norma Chavez would've raised holy hell.

TCEQ Commission Chairman Jon Niermann said,

"This application demonstrates that there's a potential for equipment failure, there is a potential for accidental spills of medical waste, there's a potential for unauthorized air emissions and specifically odors," he said. "And that potential in my view ... is incompatible with the residential neighborhood that is adjacent to this facility." 

You think a facility like that would even be contemplated anywhere else but the Valley?

And, as I said earlier, this failure by the delegation to show up when the community needed them the to be their voice the most - and the state delegation has a HUGE influence on state agencies - doesn't just fall on Rep Blanco. The Mayor and the County Judge should've been there too. It starts most importantly, with the LEADER of the delegation - Senator Jose Rodriguez.

Senator Rodriguez has had ZERO participation in this process. He's not attended, commented, nor even sent staff to attend, any meetings having to do with this issue. He doesn't even appear to have submitted a letter of opposition to the medical waste facility being located in his district.

Rodriguez weighs in heavily on stuff like Doo-ruhn-gui-toe, but is completely uninvolved in an issue affecting the lives of a significant number of his constituents. This is a facility that has within a one mile radius around it, hundreds of residents, several schools with over 2,000 students, churches, historical sites, and sacred sites belong to the Ysleta del Sur Pueblo.

I mean does a facility like this have to open up in Duranguito to get the Senator's Office to care about it? For God sakes the Senator and his staff were at Duranguito all the time when the conversation of demolition came up, but constituents in the Lower Valley don't get a fraction of the attention form their Senator on an important issue that some building Pancho Villa may or may not have taken a leak on does?

Yeah, I know I sound pissed off and a lot of you are rolling your eyes saying, Oh there goes LionStar bitching about what happens to the Lower Valley again...

I get it.

You don't live here and it wasn't going to open up in your community so what do you care? But for those of us that do, it gets real annoying when the leadership of the community you expect to do their job and advocate on behalf of their community, don't.

Every step of the way this process has pretty much been just City Rep Ordaz Perez and Commissioner Perez fighting the state to keep it out of the community. And thankfully, they took it upon themselves to travel from their home in the Lower Valley to go and advocate for the Valley to keep that facility out.

And thankfully, we won.

For now, anyway.

Sorensen is going to still attempt to open the facility up and we are going to have to fight this again. Its going to mean organizing more meetings with the community, knocking on more of their doors, sending out more notices to constituents, and fighting this fight again.

This kind of crap would just never happen on the westside and one thing is for sure - if this were in any other part of town, the community damn sure wouldn't be left by the state delegation to fend for themselves against a facility that is going to process tons of medical waste near a residential area.

So shoutout to Commissioner Perez and City Rep Ordaz for being the only electeds to show up and advocate on behalf of the Lower Valley. They did a great job and did what I didn't expect to happen - they got TCEQ to turnover the previous approval.

But they should've have been alone. I'm sure the delegation will go and take credit for it now, but its only a temporary victory. This is going to have to be fought out once again.

I hope this time that the senator that was famous for decrying Gringolandia decides to fight a facility that a rich white guy wants to shove in the Lower Valley, actually shows up and leads the opposition of that facility this time.

The Lower Valley constituents deserve the delegation's attention and advocacy as much as any other part of town.