McAllen fights against perception of violence to save local economy

McALLEN — The plea on a public relations website tells the story:

“Our great little city in the southernmost part of Texas is on the border with Mexico, which is having terrible problems now with violence, though we’re fine on this side of the border. But that’s not what people are hearing. How can I turn this situation into something positive — and do it with no budget?”

City officials say there is a common perception around the country the cartel violence that has wracked Mexico since February is also being openly waged in U.S. streets.

“It is a real situation we are dealing with,” said Nancy Millar, the vice president and director of the McAllen Convention and Visitors Bureau. “What we are trying to prevent is a long-term impact.”

The city was already trying most of the ideas from the people who responded to Millar’s request for help: Be up front about the devastating violence across the border and tout how McAllen was recently ranked among the safest cities in the U.S. 

City officials have also issued press releases and tried to promote the message through social media like Twitter and Facebook.

Even the McAllen Economic Development Corp., an organization that downplayed previous outbreaks of violence, now acknowledges it on its website. In a section called “Our border: a place to live, work, learn and play,” the development corporation says that it takes precautions when traveling in Mexico, but ultimately they believe the outbreak will pass.

City leaders said they straddle a difficult line in arguing against the perception while trying to not downplay the violence across the border. The change in tone is because the recent outbreak has been the deadliest in recent history.

In late February, the Gulf Cartel and its former paramilitary enforcement wing, Los Zetas, began openly battling for control of the Gulf’s lucrative drug-smuggling routes in the region.

The Mexican states of Tamaulipas and Nuevo Leon, which were a once quiet repose from drug violence that afflicted other areas of the country, are at the center of the conflict. Government control in Reynosa, across the border from McAllen is elusive.

Keith Patridge, the president and chief executive officer of the MEDC, blamed the media for creating the perception problem. Stories in national publications and on cable television news focus exclusively on the border, creating the myth that a city like Monterrey is safer.

Last month, a delegation of Chinese businessmen skipped a bus ride through the border region and instead flew to Monterrey, Patridge said as one of several examples of how companies interested in investing in northern Mexico where instead looking to the interior.

“News reaches the public only from the border,” he said. “When in reality, it’s the entire region.”

Privately, city leaders said their biggest hurdle is elected officials who grandstand about spillover violence to score votes and to get federal funding for local law enforcement. They fear Gov. Rick Perry will toss the city under the bus in his re-election campaign this fall, as he uses the issue to appear strong on defense and the candidate most concerned about homeland security.

Last month the Texas Border Coalition, an assembly of mayors and elected officials in Texas border cities, sent a letter to Perry upset that his office had failed to consult them in a secret plan to tackle spillover violence.

Perry also renewed calls last month to send 1,000 National Guard troops and unmanned aerial drones to the border. In campaign stops, he has promoted a 60-percent drop in border crime as an accomplishment of his administration.

“How many Americans will have to die before our federal government takes serious action along the Texas-Mexico border?” Perry said in a statement at the time. “For year, they have failed in their vital duty to secure the border, resulting in escalating violence.”

As evidence for a spillover, some point to events like the death of 48-year-old Lori Gonzalez, a Mission Junior High School teacher. Gonzalez was killed when her truck was hit by another vehicle that was speeding down 10th Street trying outrun another pickup truck filled with gunmen who were firing. Also this month in another example of border violence, a federal judge rejected a plea agreement between prosecutors and a member of Zeta kidnapping ring suspected of carrying out at least five abductions in Hidalgo County.

While careful to not downplay the incidents, McAllen’s city leaders counter that such drug-connected violence happens in all major U.S. cities, but near the border the violence can easily be blamed on or connected to the cartels. In their eyes, spillover is a broad word that could be applied to drug violence throughout the country.

McAllen Mayor Richard Cortez compared the situation to the debate on the border wall, in which he said politicians who voted to build it had no understanding of the actual situation along the border. Cortez and others acknowledge that changing perception will be difficult and that any ground they gain will be lost if violence across the border does not settle down.

“If you want to get elected you don’t try to please the people of South Texas,” he said. “We’re the whipping child for everyone else’s problems – it’s the border, it’s Mexico, it’s illegal immigration, it’s violence.”

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Sean Gaffney covers McAllen, business, the economy and general assignments for The Monitor. He can be reached at (956) 683-4434.