Thread: In Farmers Branch, if it's not bigotry, it's snobbery

Opinion!

FARMERS BRANCH in the news
>>>Star-Telegram.com:
In Farmers Branch, if it's not bigotry, it's snobbery
By Bud Kennedy
Posted on Thursday, April 26, 2007
http://www.star-telegram.com/251/story/81471.html

The Tim O'Hare Traveling Snake Oil Show finally stopped in Fort Worth on Wednesday.As always, the Spanish-bashing City Council member from suburban Farmers Branch said he really isn't a racist.
He didn't rule out elitist. Or greedy. Or snobby.

But he's not a racist.

I'm serious. O'Hare and those Farmers Branch residents who want to discourage non-English speakers and illegal-immigrant renters away from town aren't bigots.They don't necessarily want Farmers Branch to get whiter. Just richer.To promote rebuilding their city into expensive neighborhoods, they want to chase away families with too many school kids, or anybody with a taste for low-end restaurants and stores.That's what O'Hare said in so many words Wednesday at a local Republican women's club.

"What you hear about on TV is the illegal-immigration issue," he said. "What you don't hear about is what's really behind this. You don't hear about our revitalization."

He didn't even say much about immigration. Mostly, he said that he wants Farmers Branch homes to sell for more money. Farmers Branch, north of Dallas, is a postwar suburb of mostly middle-class homes. Based on the average residential property value of $149,421, it's the second-poorest city in north Dallas County. That compares with older Tarrant County suburbs such as Hurst or Bedford. For 10 years, the city has tried to phase out a neighborhood of old frame homes and replace them with a luxury subdivision, Branch Crossing.

But, gosh. Buyers keep driving by to look in Frisco or Southlake.

"For a lot of our older residents, their home is their largest investment," said O'Hare, 37, a personal-injury lawyer. "They're counting on that investment when they retire and move away, or go to a nursing home, or leave it to their children. I didn't think we were doing a good job of making sure the value of that investment goes up."

He has his own ideas about why suburban buyers don't look at Farmers Branch homes.He blames it on crowded schools, sparse stores -- and somehow, illegal immigration.Instead of the public schools from his 1970s childhood, O'Hare said, the schools are now stretched to serve large families. In some schools, he said, "Their sole function is to teach proper English."

O'Hare didn't say exactly how he determined that large families belong to illegal immigrants. I guess nobody in the suburbs had big families in the 1970s.He went on to call the shopping in Farmers Branch "awful." He described most stores as "either vacant or a Spanish-speaking business."


"There's no place for me to buy a shirt," he said. "The retail options are terrible. The restaurant options are awful."

Heavens. No Izod shop. No foie gras. I think O'Hare would be happier if his poor neighbors would leave town.
He can't legally pick on them all. So he picks on noncriminal illegal immigrants. O'Hare is frank about his development goal.

"We're about a lot more than illegal immigration," he said. "We're about fixing some things that should have been fixed years ago."

So he backed city ordinances to prevent illegal immigrants from renting apartments, plus another that has police enforcing federal immigration law. Normally, that's a civil matter not handled by state or local law enforcement.He threw in one odd ordinance unrelated to immigration, but with racial overtones: He backed an ordinance barring the city from providing routine services in any language other than English.

Now, older residents at the city senior citizen center no longer can switch the TV to a Spanish network such as Univision or Telemundo. Not even if their families have lived in bilingual Texas for generations.That's just plain mean.

The anti-Spanish law was meant to "send a message," he said. We get it.

Posted on Sat, Apr. 28, 2007reprint or license print email Digg it del.icio.us AIM
What is a 'noncriminal illegal'?
Star-Telegram
I realize that Bud Kennedy is an opinion columnist and gets to write what he thinks, rather than reporting, and I always enjoy reading his musings.

I do, however, wonder about his logic in Thursday's column ("In Farmers Branch, if it's not bigotry, it's snobbery").

He used the phrase "noncriminal illegal immigrants." How can one be "noncriminal" and an "illegal immigrant"? One can't be illegal and noncriminal.

I wonder how that slipped past your editors, or even Kennedy while he was writing.

C.M. Menger,Fort Worth

Kennedy made some points in Thursday's column, but he missed the main one.

Illegal immigrants are by far the most abused victims of porous borders and "safe havens" because they're completely and totally subject to manipulation and have little recourse to law.

Will an illegal go to the police if robbed, raped or cheated? If every city would adopt Farmers Branch's policy, it would be better for all concerned in the long run.

Richard Warren,Fort Worth

Kennedy has done it again -- put his foot in his mouth and confirmed that he's not in touch with the real world. He wrote that Farmers Branch City Councilman Tim O'Hare "picks on noncriminal illegal immigrants."

What's a "noncriminal illegal alien"? There's no such thing. They break the law when they come here illegally. They break the law when they work with fake IDs and Social Security numbers. They break the law when they drive without driver's licenses. They break the law when they don't carry insurance.

We have illegal aliens who have been here 20 years, 30 years or longer, never became citizens and vote illegally. The League of United Latin American Citizens and other organizations are trying to get blanket amnesty for their kinfolk before they're charged with voter fraud.

Yes, Bud, they are criminals.

Dan Gilbert,Bedford

http://www.star-telegram.com/244/story/84117.html