2013 Year in Review

Hello. I just want to bring you all up to date, as to why I have not been writing in the last few months. As most of you, who have been following my blog know,  I only tend to write when I have a few things to share. This last year, (2013) was a busy year. I became an active member of the San Elizario Incorporations Efforts Group, because the citizens of our town of San Elizario, Texas, were endangered of being annexed by the neighboring City of Socorro Texas. https://www.facebook.com/pages/San-Elizario-Incorporation-Efforts-Group/469749756426494 

This issue was first made public back in January of 2013. The group was formed in February 2013, to fight off the annexation. Little did we, as a group of concerned citizens of San Elizario,  know that we were up against a corrupt City Government of Socorro. Needless to say, we had a long hard battle ahead of us. However, we  had support from the surrounding communities and governments to include the County of El Paso, City of El Paso,  our State Representatives in Austin, and  many concerned citizens of Socorro, who step up and made a stand against the annexation.  I would  like to refrain from all the negative connotations and political aspects of this battle and focus more on the outcome. I am sure you all can look up all the information and media coverage on line via the El Paso Times, and surrounding local television stations in the El Paso area. Our efforts led to the only option to save our Historic Community, would be to incorporate and become a City. An option that most of us, in the group, had never considered in the pass. However,  with this new threat we as concerned citizens felt we had no choice. This would  allow the citizens of San Elizario to have a voice about what improvements and infrastructure could be brought forth to a new city government. 

 

                                              03/18/2013: Members of SEIEG Trip to Austin Tx.

  Our efforts also required a trip to the state capital in Austin to seek support from our representatives, and request from the State Government, to allow the Citizens of San Elizario to become incorporated into an independent city.  As a member of the San Elizario Incorporations Effoerts Group (SEIEG), I learned a lot about how government works. I also learned new and interesting information about our historic community, a  few things I was unaware about, having grown up in San Elizario. Our efforts lead to members of SEIEG meeting with other citizens of San Elizario, and educating them about the incorporation. The biggest challenge was trying to explain the differences between annexation by another city and the Incorporation, becoming an independent city. This included countless hours of Block Walking, public meetings, and fundraising efforts to help pay for the incorporation process. 

Our efforts paid off in November, when a large number of citizens came out to Vote, the results showed that 90% of the voters were in favor of the incorporation. A little more the 600 voters came out to show support, as I understand this was the height voter turnout in the history of the local elections for San Elizario, in El Paso County.

 On November 5, 2013 San Elizario was now a City in the State of Texas.  

With this historical event, members of SEIEG realized that the work was not over, now we had to determine: Who would be the leaders of the community? Who would start the New City? Who would be the first City Government, the Mayor and Five Alderpersons? Of course we had a lot of citizens who approached us as a group to select members of SEIEG to run for office, keep in mind that many of us had never been involved in politics at all.  As a result of our efforts, we also accumulated a few bills for legal advice and a large bill for creating a City Map as required by both the County of El Paso and The State of Texas under Type A Maniciplaty City. In the following months of December 2013, January, Febuary, March and April of 2014, the group SEIEG continued to conduct fundraising events to pay off those bills. All members of SEIEG agreed to make every effort to pay off all outstanding bills before the New City Government was in Office. We as a group did not want the City of San Elizario to take over any outstanding debts.  The  group has also decided to stay active and become a ‘watch-dog” group, to continue to support and work with both the citizens and the City Government of San Elizario to ensure all the citizens continue to have a voice.  As a result of all the hard work in one year period of time to stop the annexation and become incorporated as a City, six members of the group “put our names in the hat”, as they say. Yes, six members include myself are now running to get elected into the New City Government, to make sure the city starts out in a positive light.

 https://www.facebook.com/seiegcandidates

We started the incorporation efforts group and now we want to continue to set the example to everyone around us, that San Elizario can become a model city without making drastic changes to the community, bring about much needed improvements, and preserve the history of San Elizario dating back over 400 years.  (To be continued)