Wednesday, November 30, 2022

Tlahtol Macehualli: The Stain of Poverty and City Hall in Phoenix, Arizona




Phoenix City Hall’s cowardice in the face of greedy, out-of-state corporations buying up old Mobile Home Parks and displacing their residents reminds me of the lyrics to a song by the norteño band Los Tigres del Norte. In ‘La Mancha del Pobre,’ (The Stain of the Poor) they sing, “Poverty’s stain is an unerasable debt . . . If you have a coin, you can count a friend, if you have silver coins you can buy them by the kilo,”. 

 

The expansion of the light rail into Tempe and Mesa resulted in a rash of Mobile Home Park sales. Speculators from other states purchased the parks and displaced hundreds of families. State law allows a new owner to file a change-of-use notice and give 180 days’ notice to mobile homeowners, uprooting decades-old communities. In some cases, up to 500 residents have been thrown out within a 6-month period. 

 


Arizona’s housing crisis has exacerbated the situation, filling the streets with newly homeless men, women, and children from mobile home parks in the light rail’s path.

 

Residents from three mobile home parks, after marching from the Capitol to City Hall, spoke at city council during public comment and submitted a citizen’s request for their concerns to be put on a formal agenda – so far to no avail. The silence from Democrat Mayor Gallego about the request has been deafening. 


Apparently, the developers, Grand Canyon University, and speculators outweigh the well-being of the low-income residents who voted for her.

 


Grand Canyon University has bought hundreds of acres to build student housing and displaced thousands of people around 27th Ave and Camelback Rd. Among the victims of GCU’s expansion is Periwinkle Mobile Home Park, a plot of land that has been a Mobile Home Park for decades. Some of the residents, many elderly, have been living there 20 to 30 years. 


While Periwinkle residents were having their last Thanksgiving dinner, paramedics were called for Gerald Sutter an over 80-year-old veteran who was told he was at risk for a heart attack.  I rushed him to the VA emergency, and he was released the next day with instructions to avoid stressful situations.


In Las Casitas trailer park, renamed ‘Beacon’ by the new owners based in Colorado, residents signed 4-year and a 1-year contracts as the Arizona Statues require.  Two weeks later, the new owners filed for legal status as a corporation in Arizona. They submitted a change of use for the property and gave the residents 180-day notice to vacate. 

 


Since then, families have been on an emotional roller coaster ride. Parents have been forced to seek counseling for their children from school psychologists. Hard-working mothers and fathers juggle feeding their families and looking for “unaffordable” places to rent. Most own their homes but rent the spaces for their dwellings.


Under Federal Law any home older than 1975 cannot be moved and must be scrapped. Most trailer homes parks are not accepting older homes even if they can be moved or if there is space available.


The City of Phoenix asked for a staff report about the situation, claiming its hands are tied by legal opinions. Other cities have created special mobile home zoning to safeguard the sites from speculators. The 9th Circuit has a precedent allowing the cities to create such zoning, but the City claims that state law requires them to compensate the property owners for the loss of value. Meanwhile 150 families from three mobile home parks including one owned by a “Christian” university are about to join the rolls of homeless under freeway passes, canals, and city parks.


Mayor Gallego’s inaction may stem from the gut wrenching stories the residents have narrated, and the sympathy earned from the general public. Perhaps Gallego fears that the votes to protect her developer friends and defeat newly-proposed special zoning for mobile home parks may not be there.


Will pocketing political “silver coins” trump protecting low-income communities during Phoenix worst housing crisis? Only the mayor and city council have the answer.

 

Salvador Reza 


 

 

Saturday, November 26, 2022

Ayotzinapa: November 26, 2022 Open Letter to Arizona Senators Sinema and Kelly

 





TONATIERRA

Human Rights Commission

 

PO Box 24009  Phoenix, AZ 85074

www.tonatierra.org

 



November 26, 2022

 

Arizona Senator Kyrsten Sinema

3333 E. Camelback Rd, Suite 200

Phoenix, Arizona 85018

 

Arizona Senator Mark Kelly

2201 E. Camelback Rd, Suite 115

Phoenix, AZ 85016

 

Dear Arizona Senators Sinema and Kelly,

On September 24, 2021, we submitted a Freedom of Information Request along with the WATER PROTECTOR LEGAL COLLECTIVE requesting disclosure of records related to the case of the Forced Disappearance of the 43 Ayotzinapa students on September 26, 2014, in Iguala Guerrero, Mexico.


On May 24, 2021, Mexican President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador communicated he had received files from the United States regarding the investigation of the 2014 Ayotzinapa disappearances and subsequent criminal coverup by officials of the Mexican government. President Lopez Obrador received these files after a virtual meeting with Vice President Kamala Harris on May 7, 2021.  


The TONATIERRA Human Rights Commission has accompanied the parents and families of the 43 Ayotzinapa students for over eight years now in their attempts to bring accountability and justice to the case.

 

Although we have sent this message to both of your offices on December 26, 2021, via the email address provided on your website and the message has been confirmed to have been received, we have not had any substantive response from either of you regarding our request for assistance in terms of bringing to light the relevant information as outlined our initial FOI request.

 

We shall continue to follow up with your offices to arrange for a meeting to discuss the particulars of the human rights issues involved.

 

Sincerely,

Tupac Enrique Acosta

TONATIERRA

 


PRESS RELEASE

Comisión Permanente Ayotzinapa

TONATIERRA Submits Freedom of Information Request to the Biden administration for US government files on the investigation of the Forced Disappearance of the 43 Ayotzinapa students missing since September 26, 2014, in Mexico

Phoenix, Arizona – Today a Freedom of Information Act request was formally submitted to the Biden Administration by TONATIERRA and the WATER PROTECTOR LEGAL COLLECTIVE soliciting disclosure of the files related to the US government’s investigation into the Forced Disappearance of the 43 students from Ayotzinapa Rural Teachers’ College missing since September 26, 2014.

************


TONATIERRA

Comisión de Derechos Humanos

PO Box 24009 Phoenix, AZ 85074

www.tonatierra.org

Contacto: Tupac
Enrique Acosta

chantlaca@tonatierra.org

 

 

26 noviembre de 2022

 

Senadora de Arizona Kyrsten Sinema

3333 E. Camelback Rd, Suite 200

Fénix, Arizona 85018

 

Senador de Arizona Mark Kelly

2201 E. Camelback Rd, Suite 115

Fénix, Arizona 85018

 

Estimados Senadores Sinema y Kelly,

 

El 24 de septiembre de 2021 presentamos una Solicitud de Libertad de Información (FOI) junto con el COLECTIVO LEGAL PROTECTOR DEL AGUA solicitando la divulgación de antecedentes relacionados con el caso de la Desaparición Forzada de los 43 estudiantes de Ayotzinapa el 26 de septiembre de 2014, en Iguala Guerrero, México.


El 24 de mayo de 2021, el presidente mexicano, Andrés Manuel López Obrador, comunicó que había recibido archivos de Estados Unidos sobre la investigación de las desapariciones de Ayotzinapa en 2014 y el subsiguiente encubrimiento criminal por parte de funcionarios del gobierno mexicano. El presidente López Obrador recibió estos archivos luego de una reunión virtual con la Vicepresidenta Kamala Harris el 7 de mayo de 2021.


La Comisión de Derechos Humanos de TONATIERRA ha acompañado a los padres y familiares de los 43 estudiantes de Ayotzinapa desde hace más de ocho años en su intento de llevar la rendición de cuentas y la justicia al caso.


Aunque enviamos este mensaje a sus dos oficinas el 26 de diciembre de 2021, a través de la dirección de correo electrónico proporcionada en su sitio web y se confirmó que se recibió el mensaje, no hemos recibido ninguna respuesta sustancial de ninguno de ustedes con respecto a nuestra solicitud por asistencia en términos de sacar a la luz la información relevante como se describe en nuestra solicitud inicial de FOI.


Haremos un seguimiento con sus oficinas para organizar una reunión para discutir los detalles de los problemas de derechos humanos involucrados.


Atentamente,

 

Tupac Enrique Acosta

TONATIERRA



*********************

Solidaridad Internacional

Comisión Permanente Ayotzinapa

TONATIERRA

Phoenix, Arizona


On September 26, 2014 in the town of Iguala, Guerrero in Mexico, 43 students from the rural teacher preparation school of Ayotzinapa were Forcibly Disappeared by federal and local police agents of the Mexican state.  Six others were killed that night, including three students and three innocent bystanders shot and killed when the Mexican army attacked the bus the students were taking to Mexico City.

The 43 Ayotzinapa students were unarmed, they were on their way to participate in the commemoration of the massacre of the students in Tlaltelolco Square in 1968. Unknown to the students, was the fact that the bus they were on was also carrying a contraband load of heroin for delivery to the US, in Atlanta and Chicago.

 

The military and police agents were sent by the cartels of the narco-state in Mexico to recover the heroin, at any cost.

Now, over eight years later, the parents, families, and the community of the Ayotzinapa continue to demand accountability and justice not only for the 43 Ayotzinapa students, but also for the tens of thousands of victims of killed and disappeared in Mexico under the shroud of the US backed “War on Drugs” and the US financed Plan Merida Mexico.

 

Today, the guilty parties to the crime of the Forced Disappearance of the 43 Ayotzinapa students remain at large. In open collusion and complicity, the highest echelon of the Narco State in Mexico, the guilty parties who were facing formal court charges in Mexico and in the US, have escaped capture and detention, and after fleeing to Canada, are living in comfort with protection and political exile in Israel.



¡AYOTZINAPA!

¡We do not forget, we do not forgive!

They were taken alive, we want them back alive!