FB rental ban dispute still has no resolution

Residents divided on rental ban's impact


10:32 AM CDT on Sunday, August 19, 2007
By STEPHANIE SANDOVA / The Dallas Morning News
ssandoval@dallasnews.com

FARMERS BRANCH – A year after City Council member Tim O'Hare launched a contentious debate with his crusade to crack down on illegal immigrants, residents are still divided – about whether the city has changed for better or for worse.

Pictutre
Blue Star Deli owner Dave Mooney, with customers (from left) Greg Thornell, Mitch Womble and Dennis Arnold, says his ties to the ordinance's backers took a tool on business.

Some said their opinion on Ordinance 2903, which would ban apartments from renting to most illegal immigrants, ended longtime friendships, hurt business and created an unfriendly atmosphere for Hispanics.

"It's given those people who hate the changes the Hispanic culture has brought on the city due to their increased numbers an opportunity to hang on to their hatred," former City Council member Junie Smith said.

But Mr. O'Hare said the debate has united neighbors, gotten residents more involved in their community and given the city a financial boost.

"Has this had a negative impact? In the minds of some, I would say yes," he said. "However, the overwhelming majority of people inside Farmers Branch view our direction as nothing but positive."

The argument portraying the effort as a racist issue is getting "old and tired," Mr. O'Hare said. "It's an illegal thing."

Mr. O'Hare said he doesn't remember exactly what caused him to propose anti-illegal-immigrant measures that put the city of 28,000 in the national spotlight.

"I can't point to just one thing," he said.

But he said there was increasing resentment over the growing number of Hispanic students in Farmers Branch schools who didn't speak English, and over an influx of businesses catering to Spanish-speaking customers in the Four Corners shopping center in the heart of town.

At about the same time, the owner of Arbor Creek Montessori School began complaining repeatedly about crime and nuisances associated with the largely Hispanic-occupied Cooks Creek Apartments across the street.

In May 2006, 18-month old Eva Gallegos was killed in a drive-by shooting as she slept next to her father. Two suspects arrested later were believed to be illegal immigrants with ties to the girls' family.

"To ignore all that ... or pretending it does not exist, you're not doing right by your community," Mr. O'Hare said.

Finally last August, as a handful of cities across the country began to approve ordinances targeting illegal immigrants, Mr. O'Hare tapped illegal immigrants as the root cause for most of the city's problems – including property values, crime, unkempt houses and yards and declining school performance.

Mr. O'Hare's proposal to make English the city's official language and prohibit apartment landlords from renting to illegal immigrants touched off a yearlong controversy that some won't soon forget.


Backlash

The once-popular mayor, Bob Phelps, now stands alone on a City Council that has made defending the ordinance all the way to the Supreme Court and pursuing further anti-illegal-immigration efforts a top priority.

Mr. Phelps said he had planned to seek a fifth term to stay on until DART rail service arrived in Farmers Branch. But the criticism he received for saying the ordinance was ineffective and too costly to defend in court, and having his home targeted by vandals twice, has been too much for him and his wife.

Being mayor "is different than it used to be," Mr. Phelps said. "It used to be fun and good. The fun is gone out of it. ... The stress it's caused my wife, it's just not worth the hassle."

Former Mayor Dave Blair said his opposition to the ordinance – for the same reasons cited by Mr. Phelps – caused one longtime friend to stop talking to him.

"People I've known for 20 or 30 years won't talk to me now," he said.

Mr. Blair, a founding member of the Farmers Branch Rotary Club, which bills itself as nonpolitical, left the club last month after the board decided not to admit Elizabeth Villafranca.

Ms. Villafranca, who along with her husband owns Cuquita's restaurant in Farmers Branch, campaigned heavily against the ordinance.

Mr. O'Hare, president-elect of the Farmers Branch Rotary Club, said the board voted 9-0 against admitting her.

He said the club is nonpolitical but has a four-way test, the first of which is, "Is it the Truth?"

"On multiple occasions I saw what I believe to be a complete, total disregard for the truth," Mr. O'Hare said, mentioning Ms. Villafranca's affidavit that was the foundation for a lawsuit by the League of United Latin American Citizens against members of the political action committee campaigning for Ordinance 2903.

In it, she accused some ordinance supporters of stalking and harassment.

Mr. O'Hare said that he also would deny membership for any of his supporters if their character were questionable.

Ms. Villafranca said that she didn't lie during the campaign or in the affidavit and that the Rotary Club's refusal to admit her was based on her opposition to the ordinance.

She was inducted into the Carrollton-Farmers Branch Rotary Club on Thursday.

Ms. Villafranca's experience also caused Linda Haddock to leave the Farmers Branch Rotary Club. She had invited Ms. Villafranca to apply for membership.

Ms. Haddock said the furor over the ordinance – and her vocal opposition to it – caused her to lose business at the Spa at the Marlin. She moved the business to Carrollton in early July, after 6 ½ years in Farmers Branch.

"They were boycotting me, the Support Farmers Branch group," she said. "I had several clients tell me they got phone calls asking them not to come to the Spa at the Marlin."

Leaders of Support Farmers Branch have said there was no organized boycott.

On the other side, Blue Star Deli owner Dave Mooney said that allowing radio and television shows that supported the ordinance to broadcast from his shop also hurt his business. One large company nearby, he said, told employees not to order food from him for meetings. But blogs and e-mails about his woes prompted supporters to flock to the restaurant.

Meanwhile, business at Cuquita's is down markedly.

"But I don't know if you can relate it directly" to the immigration debate, Ms. Villafranca said.

Resident Michelle Holmes said Ms. Villafranca's actions during the campaign prompted her to stop going there.

"She tried to make it personal. To me it wasn't personal," Ms. Holmes said.


Hispanic unease

The debate has made some Hispanics feel uncomfortable in Farmers Branch.

Romelia Peña, who is teaching dances to 36 students in preparation for a quinceañera, said her students use humor to deal with the situation.

"If someone doesn't show up, they'll joke with him next time, saying, 'What happened, did the Farmers Branch police get you for being illegal?' " she said.

Roy Morales said that in the more than 40 years he's lived in the city, Farmers Branch has been the kind of place where neighbors look after one another – and still do.

But he said he's felt the tension.

"It seems like when people look at you, they think, 'You're illegal.' Even me, and I was born here," Mr. Morales said. "It was just a look. But it might have been me."


City revenues

But supporters like newly elected council member Tim Scott said he's heard from people who bought homes in Farmers Branch because they supported the city's efforts. He said others from out of town shop and dine in Farmers Branch to show their support.

And a simultaneous focus on redevelopment has caused developers to take notice, with two projects in the works to tear down old office buildings and build new townhouses, restaurants and retail, Mr. O'Hare said.

Mr. O'Hare also points to increased sales tax totals and higher property values.

"I believe that is a direct result of our city's commitment to revitalization, and there is no doubt our city's stance on illegal immigration contributed to these positive influences," he said.

The upward trends in sales tax revenue and property values have allowed the city to maintain the same property tax rate while adding 15 firefighters and three personnel to the Police Department.

Sales tax revenue is up 8.9 percent from the Oct. 1 start of the fiscal year through July. That's not as big a jump as a year earlier, when sales tax revenue during the same period was up 10.8 percent.

One of Mr. O'Hare's complaints was that home values were rising too slowly. In 2006, the average market value of a new home rose only 0.8 percent from 2005. This year, the average market value of a home is up 3 percent over 2006.


Apartments

There's also no evidence that Hispanics have moved out of the apartments or the city because of the ordinance, which is not being enforced after U.S. District Judge Sam Lindsay in June issued a preliminary injunction until a trial can be held.

But a report by ALN Systems Inc., which tracks multifamily data, indicates that apartment occupancy rates are dropping.

Farmers Branch apartments showed a 90.5 percent occupancy rate at the end of May, and that dipped to 86.3 percent at the end of June.

ALN tracks only those 10 complexes with 90 units or more. Overall, Farmers Branch apartment occupancy rates at the end of June were down 5.2 percent from the year before. That's the largest decrease in the 30 Dallas-Fort Worth area cities that ALN surveys.

In D-FW as a whole for the second quarter of this year, occupancy rates were down 0.1 percent, with rental rates per square foot up 3.6 percent over the second quarter last year.

Bonnie Brown, senior consultant with ALN, said the occupancy rate of Farmers Branch apartments dipped to a seven-month low of 86.6 percent at the end of January, just after the City Council approved the rental ban and decided to put it to voters in May.

"In February, apartment occupancy within the city began improving and by May of this year was around 90.5 percent again," Ms. Brown said. "However, over the last two months, occupancy within this town has once more waned."

During the election campaign for Ordinance 2903, supporters also said the illegal immigration debate was having a positive impact on crime.

Police Department statistics show that overall crime from August 2006 through June 2007 is up 2.8 percent from the same period a year before.

Members of the news media that swarmed the city during the debate and election campaign now show up only sporadically. City Council meetings that drew hundreds of residents are again quiet and uneventful.

As hundreds of residents gathered for neighborhood and block parties on National Night Out Aug. 7, divisions in the community weren't evident.

"It was a nasty election," said Gail Scott, who twice had signs opposing Ordinance 2903 stolen from her yard. "It put people at arm's length. But it's been a while. I think a lot of things are trying to heal."

Rodney Prittle said there's been no discernible change.

"If I've seen anything in my group, it's a reluctance to talk about it," he said.

David Cozart said the only real change he's noticed is that people are more aware of who they're doing business with. Some friends have told him they changed their yard service or pool maintenance companies, not wanting companies that employed illegal immigrants.

"Things do seem to be pretty much as they were before to me, before all this controversy began," he said.

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