The San Juan Hotel...Ignacio Almaguer...The call for better responsibility...

"The San Juan Hotel was completed and opened for business in 1920. Its construction reflected the plans of the town's early business leaders to establish San Juan as a Rio Grande Valley commercial center. Originally constructed with little ornamentation, the mission revival details were added in 1928. These included the red tiled parapet along the roofline and the curvilinear parapet over the entryway. Recorded Texas Historic Landmark-1985"-Text to Texas Historic Landmark Plague at location.

San Juan, Texas. The small South Texas town, nestled comfortably between it's two sister cities, Alamo in the east, and Pharr to the west, makes up the heart that is the Tri-City area known as PSJA. According to the U.S. Census Bureau, population estimates as of 2003 record a citizenry of 28,894 inhabitants. As far as towns in the Rio Grande Valley, a community this size is fairly medium ranged when compared to smaller towns like Edcouch, or La Feria, but still lacking in numbers when compared to McAllen, or Brownsville. In spite of it's size, or maybe because of it, this community has grown tight-knit over the last couple of years, and has essentially split into two factions of civic and political power.

On one hand, you have the "old-school" mentality of the majority of the people who hold public office, and perhaps it was that same mindset that got them elected there in the first place. A sort of blind-trust you have on a neighbor who only smiles and waves when he wants something, but hardly knows your name if you come across him at the grocery store, or gas pump when he doesn't. It would be futile to go into a debate of what is "old-school" compadrismo, and what isn't, in the Rio Grande Valley. You have those that believe it still exists, those who say it doesn't, those who think nothing can be done about it, and those who don't care at all.

On the other hand, you have a "new wave", if you will, of second and third generation citizens in this town that are fed up with the status quo, and want to do something about it. A generation, mainly in their thirties, and forties, who have seen and learned enough about how things "work" around town to know things need to change. Their voices are still small, but like all things, if you're relentless enough, the day will come. And that, in my opinion at least, is what scares the old regime of business men who may or may not be looking for the fast buck when it comes to talking "brass tax". Perhaps, the word scare is too harsh. Maybe "worried" would suitably fit, but one things for sure, after the commissioner's meeting on March 28 of this year, there are some on the city council that have pretty much shut the door on any citizen that carries words of dissent in their armory.

At issue is the councils motion to study the viability of purchasing the historic San Juan Hotel from PSJA School Board Member Roy Rodriguez in the amount of $575,000. City commissioners Rick Rodriguez, and Pete Contreras, who are employed by the school district, moved and seconded the motion according to local activist, Ignacio Almaguer. Mr. Almaguer also stated that this action was in total disregard to those citizens in attendance who at the very least questioned if such a study would be ethical in the first place.

Good question.

I did not personally attend the meeting, but I did contact local activist Ignacio Almaguer about the situation. Ignacio Almaguer is president of the local school board watchdog group Grupo PODER, and member of the community watchdog group the SanJuanistas, whose most recent victory came in the form of barring any measure regarding toll roads through the city of San Juan, (link to the site on my sidebar). I asked Ignacio if it was too late for the citizen's of this city to do anything about the motion to study the purchase. He said it wasn't, informing me that "We need to get people to the city meeting on 04-11-06 to voice opposition". When I asked him that as a community leader, what would he recommend the next course of action be, he replied, "Stop all studies and all attempts to purchase the hotel. We need to pay our police officers a decent salary, finish the library and bring in more business to San Juan. I will be the first to push an initiative to purchase the hotel after we have the basic infrastructure stabilized." I agree. It's time to ask our local governments to act on issues they were put in office to do in the first place. We've reached a point in Valley politics where promises of better communities, and better financial opportunities are all but "lip service" agendas set forth by certain politicians just out to hustle your vote, then hope that you either are one of those people who forget very easily, or in the worst case scenario know the whole "song and dance" routine well enough to understand they were bluffing all along. But in my mind, hustling a vote is one thing. Not following through on your promises is another.

And when you've got a city of medium sized population, at least by Valley standards, paying more than half a million dollars for a historic site under what some would call "questionable" circumstances, all the while the police force is hurting, and the local library is nothing more than a portable building with sub-par resources, priorities need to be straightened out around here.