Fort Bliss Will Change El Paso
El Paso is not alone in pinning a large part of the city's economy to military and federal installations. In fact, nearly every large city in the US Southwest has some part of its current or historical economy based on federal dollars, often in the shape of military installations.
San Antonio is the city it is today in great part to the numerous bases that surrounded it and provided a huge part of that city's money and people. Tucson grew on two major Air Force and Army facilities and still depends on them. Amarillo refines plutonium for nuclear warheads. Houston's growth exploded after LBJ put NASA there.
Albuquerque would be an interstate crossroads without Sandia and Los Alamos Labs (which btw design and build nuclear bombs, if you really want to discuss the morality aspect). These labs give that city the world's largest concentration of science and engineering PhDs in the world, no small distinction.
The federal impact on the entire state of New Mexico represents a very large chunk of the state's economy, anywhere from one-fourth to nearly half, depending on who you talk to.
Going out from there geographically, most of the great cities in this country have a federal component to their success, currently or at some point in their past. Even the spiritual home of the "anti-military" nut-jobs, San Francisco (and it's cross-bay college town Berkeley) owe a great deal of their size and economy to military dollars (but don't remind them.......it may conflict with their leftist-pacifists delusions.)
Of course Ft. Bliss will change El Paso, that goes without saying. It always has. In many ways, Ft. Bliss IS El Paso....... and has been since the 1840s when this territory was purchased from Mexico by the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo and later Gadsden Purchase.
As an American city, El Paso and Ft. Bliss are inseparable. We are fortunate to be considering the problems and challenges and opportunities of present and future growth, as opposed to the alternative that many communities around the country are facing, that of base closures and the shrinking of tax bases as employed, responsible citizens and their well-paying jobs leave town.
To the Army's credit, Ft. Bliss has been coordinating planning and helping to pay for the needs for additional resources and infrastructure for years, with the city and county, with the school districts, with the colleges and universities, with law enforcement and with local businesses. Don't forget that the desalination plant for our future water supply and many other infrastructure upgrades were Army projects.
Those who think they didn't "vote" on this growth are seriously mistaken. Check the newsletters and campaign promises and platforms of every single one of our elected officials for the past decade, from City representatives to our Congressman to our Texas Senators. Ft. Bliss and BRAC stand as the greatest success story of political and civic cooperation in El Paso's history. Hopefully we will take the lessons learned from our success here to make more great things happen, as it's a textbook example of how thing get done. -- DJ
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El Paso presently has the blessing of a cheap water supply that will accommodate the current population for 50 years. We have struck a balance between the available water supply and the number of people who live here. However, that balance will not last for long.
EPWU has raised the price of water by 93% and they are using the money to subsidize growth. They are bringing in more people, not more water. Therefore we will soon be out of balance again.
EPWU projections show an annual demand of 127,996 acre feet compared to a supply of 116,205 acre feet in the year 2010. Demand will exceed supply by 9% in 2010, 20% in 2010, 30% in 2030, 38% in 2040, 47% in 2050 and 57% in 2060. Someday, EPWU will collect at least $675,192,0002 from its’ customers to bring in more water. The EPWU President refers to this event as a “train wreck.”
In 1997, a task force produced a report titled “An Economic Development Strategy for the Sustainable Use of water in the Paso Del Norte Region.” That report says “Water rates should be increased to provide a financial incentive for water conservation.” The task force apparently assumed revenue from the price increases would be used to increase the water supply. However, EPWU is using the money to bring in new customers without bringing in new water. Current water customers are being forced to pay for their own demise.
The report points out that “Economic distress in the region fosters growth-at-any-price attitudes among political leaders concerned with increasing employment opportunities.” The PSB, EPWU and the City Council should take note of the following recommendations in the report:
Policy 5.4-P-1: Promote water policies that allow the free market to function, to create a “pay-as-you-go” economic system whose market pressures, over time, will naturally slow population growth and discourage wasteful practices.
Policy 5.4-P-2: Pay the “real cost” of water by factoring in the cost of research, exploration and development, and exploitation of supply, into the rate structure and eliminating governmental policies that have the effect of subsidizing new development.
Policy 4.1-P-3: Control land development to optimize the use of the region’s water resources.
Action 4.1-A-4: Assess impact fees on new development sufficient to cover the public costs associated with expanding public infrastructure to serve the developments.
The task force would do a great service to the community if they came back together to review this issue and make a recommendation to the PSB, EPWU and the City Council. -- Jimmy Janacek
Mike Wendt
May 12, 2008
I dont know what got Mr. Janacek's shots in a wad but he finds nothing but bad news with the growth we are experiencing with the BRAC and other impacts on Ft. Bliss. If you want no growth and stagnation that El Paso has essentially exerienced for the last 20 years, if you want to continue to not provide jobs for our college graduates, if you want to continue to deny El Pasoans the opportunity of higher wages and opportunities....definitely side with Mr. Janacek's positions.
If however you hope to see this great city of wonderful people have greater economic opportunities and all the ramafications that that brings, you need to understand that we need to invest in our future. the next wonderful impact is going to the build out of the Medical Center of the America's.....more growth....more investment. we complain that we have no jobs for our kids and that we are a low wage town.
Put up or shut up.
DJM
May 12, 2008
I do not understand. We can not get together to re-develop downtown; upgrade our schools; keep our brains in El Paso yet we got it together for Ft. Bliss.
I have a feeling that the military, decided to relocate a lot of their resources to Ft. Bliss, because El Paso proved it was the least capable of interfering with their plans. Ft. Bliss is building a city within the base and while their soldiers will be let out once in a while, the intent is to bring the soldiers here to train them to continue going to war in (i.e, they came here for the desert, not the cooperation).
A true test of our power through cooperation would be to get the military to build the next submarine base in El Paso!
helen marshall
May 13, 2008
Regarding DJ's comments about other cities in the Southwest. Indeed, many have benefited from military and/or federal spending - and let's note that federal spending can be much more than just military. Albuquerque, San Antonio, San Francisco and Tucson are not not driven by miltiary expenditures. They have rich tourism components, and many high-end tech firms. They have moved away from the original military support component.
Meantime, El Paso is now betting its development prospects on Ft. Bliss expansion, at a time when the military as a whole will come under increasing stress due to the un-paid-for wars and the lack of a draft to supply new recruits. The US dollar has sunk to unpredecendented lows against other major currencies, and the manufacturing sector is no longer the mainstay of the economy - rather, the government is the major employer, followed by service workers. This is not a recipe for high-end good jobs....
This set of concerns is not anti-miilitary - my spouse, his dad, and lots of other family members are military, active or retired. I honor their service. The question is simply, now that El Paso has committed to Ft. Bliss as the economic driver, how do we make this work???? What happened to the new restaurants and bookstores and cool art galleries that would folllow expansion of Fr. Bliss???/
Jerry K
May 14, 2008
El Paso has a history of betting its development future on the wrong things: low-cost labor; NAFTA. So, what is the military in this mix?
Well, a defense economy is better than no economy, so we should, at least, take advantage of what the DoD is giving to us. But it is also necessarty to understand that an influx as big as this will change the character of the area.
There will be more congestion, impact on infrastructure, property taxes, environment. Also, a larger proportion of military people in the population will lead to a more socially and (likely) politically conservative culture. Just look at Killeen and San Antonio as examples.
Overall, i wouldn't turn down the DoD opportunity, given what we have had. But neither would I stop my business recruitment efforts in other economic sectors such as healthcare, technology and manufacturing.