| | |  Editorials | Opinions | September 2008 
A Plan for Juarez
 Alejandra Gomez - Newspaper Tree
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 |  | Plan Estrategico, a non-partisan association independent from the government, is convinced that the majority of politicians in Juarez act in terms of getting votes and not in favor of changing the city. |  | | | |
In Juarez, we are in crisis. The apparent anarchy that we live in, the lack of infrastructure in our city and the extreme economic gaps between classes, are only a few of the problems that we face.
The incompetence of the authorities is evident every single day we face the news. More than 800 men and women have been killed from the beginning of the year due to the drug war. The recent rains have flooded hundreds of homes and have left poor families homeless. The maquiladoras have laid off thousands of workers, and now the whole city is wondering if this crisis will ever be resolved.
But a group of people in Juarez had already foreseen all these troubles. In 1999, the idea of Mr. Miguel Fernandez Iturriza was born to form Plan Estrategico de Ciudad Juarez, a non-profit civil association of local prominent businessmen, who were later joined by other civilians who are also leaders in the community. Their mission is to work for "El Juarez que queremos" or the Juarez that we want. Their product is the community of Juarez. They argue that Juarez has never had a strategy to confront its problems.
"What we are living is a consequence of what could have been prevented if we would have had a plan," Director of Plan Estrategico Lucinda Vargas says.
Plan Estrategico was created out of the idealism of citizens tired of the deterioration of the city they lived in. Their proposal is to have a strategic plan to improve the quality of life in Juarez in all aspects. They hope to expand the economy, to end corruption, to stop pollution and to have better education for Juarez citizens.
They believe that Juarez has become a fragmented society that has not been able to exploit its bi-national potential. They have traveled around the world and have studied several development plans that could be adopted for our city. They have brought international experts to Juarez to expand their proposals.
"The situation we are currently living is the exact reason of why we exist," Lucinda Vargas says.
Plan Estrategico is a non-partisan association independent from the government and sustained by its members. They have worked with several politicians and have asked for their economic support and commitment, but not all of the politicians have supported them, even though a lot of them signed a moral pact with Plan Estrategico in 2000. They are convinced that the majority of politicians in Juarez act in terms of getting votes and not in favor of changing the city.
"We have been accused of wanting to govern the city, but all we want to do is to help and get the right answers. We are here to educate people, even if the Mayor gets upset," Lucinda Vargas says.
Plan Estrategico is not afraid to point out the errors of the government and denounce them publicly, even if it means being censored by certain local media groups.
Some media outlets won’t cover the good actions or the public demands of Plan Estrategico because they are too critical on certain politicians and they get in the way of the media’s political interests.
For instance, Plan Estrategico strongly criticizes the poor planning that takes place in our city in terms of road infrastructure. Every day, more than 40,000 cars drive through the Avenida Juan Pablo Segundo and there are only 4 lanes. But at the Camino Real road which cost more than a hundred million dollars, six lanes were built and only a mere a thousand cars drive through daily.
In addition, a hospital was built in Juarez 17 years ago, it has been inaugurated twice, but has never been up and running. It is an abandoned building which cost millions of pesos to build. To this day, nobody has provided an explanation as for why it has never been used.
Also, the homes that were built by the new power plant of Electrolux are mostly abandoned and used for illegal activities.
Furthermore, hundreds of cars are stolen weekly throughout the city and then sold illegally at very public spots. The police drive by every day and ignore the problem.
As far as the downtown renovation project for Juarez, Plan Estrategico claims that nobody knows anything and that the government won’t reveal its plan.
"We are living in an improvised city. There is no plan to organize or to fix what has been done," Lucinda Vargas says.
The highest achievement of their association, according to Lucinda Vargas, is the creation of Plan Estrategico, "as circular as it sounds, that is the best we have provided the city with."
Plan Estrategico wants people in El Paso to know that in Juarez, not everybody is indifferent to what is happening in our city.
"The glamour of the narco news overshadows what we are doing. We are working to improve Juarez," Lucinda Vargas says.
They expect to work with border associations and expand their plan soon.
"For now, our objective is Juarez, but little by little we will integrate to El Paso as a bi-national community," she says.
However, these severe social problems are not exclusive of Juarez. In Mexico, 45 million people live in a degree of poverty making it harder for the whole country to grow out of its deep troubles.
I asked Lucinda Vargas if we will ever really get to see the Juarez that we want.
"It depends on when you ask me, some days we are really optimistic, but the challenges that we face change daily," says.
To this day, Plan Estrategico has more than 260 proposals and more than 80 projects as part of the strategic plan for Juarez. They hope radical changes will be visible by 2015.
For more information visit their website, planjuarez.org. |
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