Help Save the Barrio

Click on picture to read the plaque commemorating where Mariano Azuela wrote the first novel of the Mexican Revolution Los de abajo in 1915. The Pablo Baray apartment complex in Segundo Barrio is on the demolition map.

Please help prevent the destruction of living and historic communities in El Paso! Visit www.pasodelsur.com for more information.

PASO DEL SUR GROUP
Petition

This statement is made on behalf of the Paso del Sur Group and other members of the community who support our efforts. We are composed of academicians from UTEP, the Community College, area high schools, professional people who share our concern for saving the historic Segundo Barrio in El Paso.

The Paso Del Norte plan—with its top-down, secretive, anti-democratic decision-making process and in its illegal provisions—has fundamental flaws. We propose that you scrap this plan in its entirety for the following reasons:

• The Paso Del Norte Plan proposes the destruction of the heart of the Segundo Barrio, both a living community and the oldest neighborhood of El Paso. To replace the neighborhood with upscale boutique stores and service economy jobs is reprehensible. We are long past the mentality that says we had to destroy the village in order to save it. El Segundo Barrio is not part of downtown. El Segundo Barrio is not for sale.

• The use of eminent domain either as a first or last resort to further enrich the already wealthy owners of real estate investment trusts (REIT) is morally repugnant and offensive to the great majority of El Pasoans. It is taking from lower income people to further enrich the wealthy, and will for generations mark this administration as one of the most avaricious in the City’s history. The City's plan should be called the Demolition Plan. This clearly is what it really is.

Please click here for the whole electronic petition.