Thread: Farmers Branch: Outsiders fuel counterattack

http://www.dallasnews.com/sharedcontent ... 3648e.html
Outsiders fuel counterattack
Foes, many from outside, fear measure could affect their cities
12:00 AM CDT on Sunday, March 25, 2007
By DIANNE SOLÍS / The Dallas Morning News
dsolis@dallasnews.com

FARMERS BRANCH – Irving Mayor Herbert Gears has some money to burn. He'd like to give it to candidates for the Farmers Branch City Council who oppose the polemic ordinance to crack down on illegal immigrants.

So goes the ground war in Farmers Branch, where an ordinance that would crack down on apartment owners who rent to illegal immigrants goes to a vote May 12.

Ordinance 2903 has sparked a counterattack from a platoon of both expert and novice political activists, many of them from outside this suburb of 27,500 residents. They include elected leaders, business owners, corporate lawyers and regular folks who think the ordinances are mean-spirited and discriminatory – or just bad for business.

Among the out-of-towners: Domingo García, a former Dallas City Council member and lawyer whose staff includes a director of "social justice initiatives"; Elizabeth Villafranca, a wealthy restaurateur who grew up in East Los Angeles; and Bill Brewer, a corporate lawyer who with his law partners has plowed nearly $45,000 into the war coffers.

As Mr. Gears sees it: "They are destroying the self-esteem of children the way they talk about people who are immigrants."

Plus, he does not want the anti-immigrant sentiment to spread to his city of 212,000, where one-third of the population is foreign-born. Already, the chief spear-carrier for the ordinance, Farmers Branch City Council member Tim O'Hare, will be a guest of the Greater Irving Republican Club on Tuesday.

Across Texas, many other mayors and political activists are waiting to see how the Farmers Branch ordinance fares and wondering, much like Mr. Gears, what the outcome could mean for their cities.

"It could go to other cities just like Jim Crow laws passed in the south ... that discriminated against African-Americans," Mr. García said.

Ms. Villafranca, who owns a restaurant in Farmers Branch and is president of the city's League of United Latin American Citizens chapter, said she would "find it difficult to believe that Dallas would let anything like a Farmers Branch ordinance happen. They wouldn't dare."

But just in case, she's been a near-daily fixture on the campaign trail.

'Distorted notion'
Mr. Brewer, who grew up on Long Island, got involved in the campaign after a phone call from lawyer Adelfa Callejo, a longtime civil rights activist from Dallas.

First, his firm's community service arm, Bickel & Brewer Storefront, took on a lawsuit alleging that the Farmers Branch council violated the Texas Open Meetings Act by conducting all of its deliberations on the ordinance behind closed doors and voting on it before residents could see the text. A district judge issued a temporary restraining order in January. The law firm took on a second suit on behalf of the owner of three of the largest apartment complexes in the city who also challenged the ordinance.

"For Farmers Branch or any other community to get the distorted notion that you can give these people jobs but at 5 p.m. chase them from your borders is inappropriate," Mr. Brewer said.

That's why he and his law partners poured $40,000 into the political action committee behind the citizens group Let the Voters Decide.

The group successfully petitioned to put the ordinance on the May ballot and is now trying to defeat it.

Mr. Brewer kicked in an additional $4,500 separately.

The Dallas Peace Center is urging its members to fight the ordinance, volunteer to walk precincts and hand out lawn signs, said executive director Lon Burnam, who is also a Democratic state representative from Fort Worth.

And the Let the Voters Decide alliance plans to hit the business community and apartments hard with campaigning, organizers said.

Both camps operate Web sites – www.votersdecide.org and www.supportfarmersbranch.com. And both sites encourage and accept donations.

Hoping for high turnout
If voters accept the ordinance, Farmers Branch would become the first city in Texas to pass such a measure. Mr. Brewer noted that many elections here were decided by a handful of voters – sometimes 3 percent to 6 percent, or fewer than 1,000 people. He is hoping for a high voter turnout.

With the hot-button issue of immigration, Dallas County elections chief Bruce Sherbet said that is likely. "I wouldn't be surprised if it's three times, four times, or five times more," Mr. Sherbet said.

And while some residents of Farmers Branch detest the outsiders, others embrace them.

Salvador Parada, a 28-year-old father of three, is one of them. He spent many weekends on the campaign trail to get the ordinance on the ballot, after it was approved by the council and nearly took effect. That's when four lawsuits were filed and the petition began to put the ordinance to a vote.

Mr. Parada identifies powerfully with those whom the ordinance targets.

He is a former illegal immigrant who grew up in an apartment complex in a mixed-status family.

His two youngest siblings were born U.S. citizens. But it took the 1986 amnesty for illegal immigrants to give Mr. Parada and his older sister and his parents legal permanent residency.

"I know what it is like to live in an apartment complex and be afraid to come out because immigration may be around the corner," he said.

As Mr. Gears sees it: "They are destroying the self-esteem of children the way they talk about people who are immigrants."

Right out of the liberal playbook...

here is the contact info for the guy behind "Let Voters Decide"

btw. he's in Dallas:

Administrative Contact:
Long, Brice brice@bluefinsol.com
Carter Public Relations
5956 Sherry Lane
Suite 1310
Dallas, Texas 75225
United States
(405) 820-7503