What will the Future Bring?
by District 8 Rep. Beto O’Rourke

The history of El Paso in the 20th century is one of precipitous rise and slow, steady decline.

By 1925, we were the biggest city in the Southwest and a city on the make, with pretension to regional and national greatness. We were well ahead of U.S. per capita income, ahead of average educational attainment levels. Our city’s master plan was authored by George Kessler; our skyline began to take on the shape defined by the preeminent architect of the Southwest, Henry Trost. The Caples and other prominent Downtown buildings hosted some of the biggest thinkers and actors on the world stage, including leaders of the Mexican Revolution Francisco Madero, Pancho Villa and others. El Paso was, in nearly every way, a vibrant, energetic and essential city.

Only 25 years later, we had lost something. We were becoming little better than average; our per capita income was only 102 percent of the rest of the nation in 1950.

Whatever we’d lost, we were unable to get back. The decline only continued. By the year 2000, we were 58 percent of national per capita income, and only 16 percent of our population had a college degree. In the meantime, San Antonio had become the “Gateway to Mexico,” Phoenix the “Sun City,” and the Rio Grande Valley was quickly becoming a dominant player in U.S./Mexico trade.

The celebrated city plan of 1925, which envisioned a central park, the need to relocate the rail yards and a boulevard to “connect the heart of El Paso with the heart of Ciudad Juárez, crossing the river on a monumental free bridge,” might have also contained a couple of clues to the city’s downfall. First, many of the best ideas of the plan – the need for a city of parks, for well-planned neighborhoods and for relocation of the rail yards – were left unfulfilled. Expectations were set and not met. The other is this ominous sales pitch: “El Paso also enjoys the special industrial advantages of cheap labor, pure water, cheap power, cheap transportation, cheap and healthful living.”

In 1925, we were already setting a course to become a national loss leader, an expectation we unfortunately met by the end of century with the resulting dismal statistics seen above.

And yet here we are in 2007 at the outset of a breathtaking change in fortune. Unemployment has dropped to 6 percent, the lowest rate of this decade. A parks master plan and a plan for the revitalization of Downtown El Paso have been adopted. Companies like ADP are bringing hundreds of high-wage, low-impact jobs to our community, and we are about to close the deal on the first medical school built in the U.S. in more than 30 years. It seems that we have really turned the corner.

Will we meet the new expectations we’ve set? Will we develop a sustainable economy built on how high our citizens can achieve, not how low they will go? Will we learn from our mistakes and really break out into the open this time?

So often, good deeds, good choices and perseverance go unnoticed. It’s the not-so-good deeds, not-so-good choices and non-existent drive that seem to steal the spotlight more often than not. This pattern isn’t just the recurring case for the adult population in our community. This also applies to our youth.

The youth in our community are second to none. Time and time again during the many years I have lived in El Paso, I have crossed paths with youths who hold untold success stories. What cost are we incurring by not telling these stories or instilling a sense of recognition in these youths? As a leader in this community, I felt the overwhelming desire to help in redirecting the community’s focus and to begin bestowing a sense of appreciation upon individuals whose actions, ambition and fortitude may be overlooked by this disheartening pattern we see.

And so, the Mayor’s 100 Teens was created.

The Mayor’s 100 Teens program was developed in order to draw attention to the many ways in which teenagers make El Paso County a better place. The program focuses on heralding the achievements of those youths who do not routinely receive recognition but who nonetheless make a difference in unique, personal ways. Teens who have overcome adversity, provided service to others, achieved something significant and who lead by example deserve to be honored. In recognizing them, the program hopes to inspire more teens to higher levels of service and accomplishment.

In the process of developing this program, I have been privileged to meet amazing teenagers who have overcome obstacles and accomplished feats that some of us could only imagine encountering in our lifetime! From the young woman who has overcome brain surgeries, chemotherapy and radiation for a large, invasive pituitary tumor and still maintains an optimistic, cheerful attitude and good grades despite missing school for treatment, to the young man who made an extremely difficult journey as a refugee from Iran to the United States and is making it in El Paso alone by working two jobs to cover all his expenses and still maintains his grades at the same time— all of their stories are inspiring.

We are now in the second year of this program, and it is my hope that more adults in this community step up and help to recognize the positive qualities of the youth in our community. Information on how to nominate a teen is available on my website at www.elpasotexas.gov/mayor/teens.asp (deadline to nominate is Friday, April 13).

There are youths living in every part of our community – Downtown, Eastside, Mission Valley, Northeast, you name it – whose positive stories of triumph and achievement go unnoticed and untold. Let us change the pattern and focus of our community to foster continued positive progress and actions.

The intention is simple. Focusing on the more positive aspects is not to ignore the reality of the negative; it is to help instill the genuine belief in our youth that when it comes to good deeds, people do notice.