President, Five Points Development Association
On Tuesday, July 7, 2026, we hope the deprogramming of the Piedras Street Reconstruction by the El Paso City Council will be our final battle in a six-year war with the City of El Paso on one small El Paso neighborhood. Why should anyone but those in the small two block area be concerned? The reason is simple; the results will set a precedent on who will determine the future of every neighborhood in El Paso, the residents and business owners, who have invested their time and money in their homes and businesses or will it be the overreaching technical bureaucracy firmly ensconced in City Hall which has virtually unlimited power, little supervision, is often inaccessible and unanswerable to voters, but that seemingly has endless access to and mostly unquestioned support of El Paso’s City Council.
How did we get here? Permit me to quote from information gathered by the long-time, extraordinarily talented President of the Five Points Development Association, the late Jim Erickson. “In 1891, El Paso extended its eastern city limits to Piedras Street precipitating the development of ‘Five Points’ named for the intersection of Piedras, Pershing and Elm streets. In 1945 the El Paso Times reported that limiting Piedras to two lanes helped create the worst traffic congestion in El Paso.” Piedras was subsequently widened to four lanes then five, a configuration that remained until the actions of the City of El Paso’s Capital Improvements Department (CID) we are now seeking to reverse…