[speaking Spanish] [machines whirring] - Call 9-1-1!

[buildings crashing] - They are demolishing now in Duranguito!

[Francisco Mendez] Everything was okay here.

Beautiful.

Everybody was so kind.

Everybody was so kind.

[Mike Patiño] And it's like everybody... Everybody knew everybody's business.

Serious.

Because, you know, it was a knitted community.

[Francisco Mendez] Everybody knew each another.

You're walking at midnight... They knew who was walking there.

"Hey, I know him!"

[Angie Martinez] It was all like a family.

We stuck together.

- You know... Just talking about it takes me back, you know.

To all the little stories.

[boom] [triumphant music] [Robert Diaz] El Paso's unique in the sense that it is both an incredibly large city and an incredibly small city at the same time.

Because at the end of the day, this is such a close knit community.

- El Paso, as a municipality, is gigantic.

You could almost compare it to Los Angeles, in terms of surface area.

[Robert Diaz] It's about as far west in Texas as you can get before you enter New Mexico.

And El Paso is tucked in, in this corner of West Texas, with New Mexico to its northwest and Juárez, Mexico to its south.

[Yolanda Chávez Leyva] El Paso, actually, was an outgrowth of Ciudad Juárez, which is much, much older than the city of El Paso.

People from Central Texas came up here and said, "Now you're part of Texas."

And that's why El Paso doesn't really feel like Texas a lot of times, because historically we were either part of New Mexico or we were part of Chihuahua.

We were never really part of Texas.

Until they came and forced us to be part of Texas.

[Max Grossman] Today, the character of downtown is largely Hispanic.

Largely the result of the mass migrations during the Mexican Revolution of 1910 to 1920.

And it was during that time, really, that the barrios assumed their final character.

And that is where it all happened.

[Mariachi music playing over radio] [Angie Martinez] We came to live here in 1948 from Segundo Barrio.

And, uh, I lived here until my grandma passed away, which was... I was already like around 11, 12.

I went to Franklin School.

So those were the years that I lived here.

A very wonderful childhood Very wonderful place to live.

[José Rodríguez] Duranguito is the oldest plot of land here in El Paso.

[Max Grossman] There are buildings along Chihuahua Street that date to the 1880s, 90s, early 1900s.

[Max Grossman] Another important building is the Mansion, which was a brothel.

[Yolanda Chávez Leyva] But it has an older history than being a brothel.

It was considered one of the most beautiful modern apartment buildings when it was first built.

And they used to advertise, "We have gas lights.

You'll have your own bathroom."

[Max Grossman] We get to the Pancho Villa Stash House.

[David Dorado Romo] Casa Clandestina, where the authorities suspected underground movements, plotting, smuggling.

And that tells the story of El Paso.

and its really important role in helping to launch the Mexican Revolution.

[Yolanda Chávez Leyva] They were lived in by Jewish immigrants.

They were lived in by people who worked with Pancho Villa.

[José Rodríguez] You know, it was a very unique place, not just from the standpoint of, of the buildings, but also from what took place there.

- Every single house has something that connects it to, to the history of the world.

- Mm-hmm.

I lived in the Mansión, which is one of the buildings that, uh, they want to tear down.

Yes.

I get... I get very emotional, because my grandma and I sleep downstairs, my mom upstairs.

So it's like they're still around here, you know, like they're still there.

Like they're still living here.

And they're, they're not only going to destroy, it's like they're gonna destroy them.

What they built.

Why we came.

And it hurts.

It hurts.

So... [ambitious music] [Cassandra Hernandez] Yeah.

So I was a graduate student at the University of Texas at El Paso when I found this wonderful opportunity to come work for council.

And it was at that time that I stepped into the doors that they were very ambitious council members.

And this is the time of Beto O'Rourke, Susie Byrd, City Manager Joyce Wilson.

[Beto O'Rourke talking] [Cassandra Hernandez] They had a clear vision of what we were going to do to tackle the brain drain is what we call, where our young, talented El Pasoans are leaving after they get their college experience and they don't return.

A lot of that very progressive council saw firsthand what the lack of investment into the community was causing to our economy and to our families.

So when I came in, one of my first jobs was how do we push forward the 2012 Quality of Life Bond.

[foreboding music] [Joe Gudenrath] I think last time we spoke, I told you the 2012 Quality of Life Bonds are the reason I'm here.

It was the signal that this community wanted to invest in itself and wanted to elevate its standards, its qualities, and really return a community back to its residents.

[Aaron Montes] In many ways, the 2012 Quality of Life Bond initiative was, you know, was drafted and called to address these issues of the brain drain.

- And there were two propositions at the top of the ballot which together were worth $473,250,000.

And that money was intended to be spent on a series of projects aimed at improving the quality of life of El Pasoans.

[David Stout] "Quality of life," right?

Attracting folks to come and to stay here by offering certain quality of life amenities.

Places where people can spend their weekends, places where people can hang out after work and, and things like that.

[Alexsandra Annello] And so they wanted to bring in an arts and culture community to downtown to foster, you know, what is already happening in the city.

There were two main areas of the bond.

[Cassandra Hernandez] The first one was to focus on neighborhood improvements, such as neighborhood libraries, other things like parks and sports complexes and you name it.

[Alexsandra Annello] There were things that the community had been asking their city representatives for for 10 years.

And so, you put in these really important quality of life projects, they bundled them together with these big three projects and they were all voted on together.

[Aaron Montes] There are three signature projects.

There's the Mexican American Cultural Center.

The Children's Museum... The other one of course is the, the Multipurpose Performing Arts and Entertainment Center.

[Max Grossman] The Quality of Life Bond passed in November, 2012.

Some of the bond projects got started, but there were all kinds of problems with the rollouts.

- The city is four years into carrying out the Quality of Life bond projects.

- There's gonna be some construction projects that will probably start within the next four to five months.

[Jud Burgess] Very little was happening, years were rolling by.

They put a little money here, a little money there.

And it just, it seemed like nothing was really getting done other than a few little projects that seemed to be going forward.

[Max Grossman] And the Multipurpose Performing Arts and Entertainment Facility is the most controversial.

[Sam Rodriguez] When the Quality of Life Bond was approved by, by the voters, there was specific language that the facility was gonna be located in downtown.

It didn't specifically say what location or where, but it was gonna be within the downtown area.

[Yolanda Chávez Leyva] Then the City suddenly says, "Oh, that multipurpose entertainment center is going to be in Duranguito.

And we're going to vote whether to demolish the neighborhood or not."

[Aaron Montes] It was a... It was a relatively cold month and a rainy one.

[thunder and rain] And we had just learned that the City Council was considering Chihuahua Street and the surrounding properties for the footprint.

I recall being in the neighborhood and I was just walking and trying to get a, an idea of what the people thought that lived there at the time.

And I remember talking to the Bustillos family.

They live, they used to live next to the Flor de Luna, which is also referred to as the grocery.

And they had no idea.

So it appeared that, you know, the City was making this decision really without informing them.

And it was the press that was informing them that, that the City was making that call.

[Yolanda Chávez Leyva] So October 15th of 2016, the City announced that they were going to vote on whether to demolish Duranguito.

And on that Saturday, some business people called a meeting at one of their businesses and said, "What are we going to do?"

And that's where we met Antonia Morales.

We met Julia Castillo.

We met Romelia.

We met Chavita.

[David Dorado Romo] We asked them, like, "Do you want something from us?"

Do you want us to help you get a better deal to move out?

Or do you want to fight it?

[Yolanda Chávez Leyva] We can talk to the City.

We can, whatever kind of support you want we can do.

You know what they said?

[protesters chanting in Spanish] [Cynthia Renteria] Thank you so much for coming out.

I want to shout out to the organizations that have been supporting the residents.

[Alexsandra Annello] This is one of the oldest and most important neighborhoods in the city, and when we tear it down, we are not going to get it back.

People in the community were rising up.

They were showing up at City Council meetings.

They were very upset that they weren't part of this conversation.

[Yolanda Chávez Leyva] I love historic buildings.

I'm a historian.

But more than historic buildings, what I'm concerned about are the people in that neighborhood who will be displaced.

[Cynthia Renteria] On the one hand, the City of El Paso touts El Paso's culture and claims to be El Paso Strong, while destroying the very birthplace from which the city began.

[protesters chanting] [Max Grossman] The information is changing quickly.

And we're not even certain exactly what this entails.

We're being asked to trust you.

[David Dorado Romo] They showed them who they were.

And that they were not going to back down.

And these guys were paying attention.

You saw their faces for the first time.

They realized this was gonna be a huge battle.

[Robert Diaz] This neighborhood is one of El Paso's oldest.

It appears in the original 1859 plat of El Paso, which I actually brought with me today.

Right here.

It's right here.

To demolish this neighborhood to build an arena is to bring irrevocable harm to two of El Paso's most important resources: its history and its people.

[Jud Burgess] Our leadership, they're depending on the ignorance of El Pasoans and the fact that most people really don't know what's going on in Duranguito.

But there's a movement afoot, where people are little by little getting the picture.

There's a critical mass of people that are understanding that, "Hey, we've been taken advantage of" And why?

Because we've never bothered to understand what the issues are.

[ominous music] [Paulina Almanza] So on December 20th, 2016, City Council met to decide if they were going to reverse the original decision of putting the arena in Duranguito.

- Good morning.

- Good morning to everyone.

- This is a meeting of the El Paso City Council for Tuesday, December 20th, 2016.

- The residents of Union Plaza have made it clear that they want their community intact.

Relocation assistance will not make it right.

- Don't create those who are going to be hungry and then, uh, organize your food drives for them.

- Why must progress for the City be built on the backs of the most vulnerable?

- Do not place the arena in Union Plaza.

Do not displace, remove, or erase the residents of Duranguito.

- This process amounts to a civil and human rights violations and a lack of respect for the residents of Barrio Union Plaza.

[Paulina Almanza] So after they finished with public comment, the City Council went to vote.

- All right, call for the vote.

End the voting session.

And the motion passes four to two, with Representatives Acosta and Ordaz voting nay.

The motion does pass.

- Thank you.

[cheering and applause] [crowd chanting in Spanish] - The future of the Downtown Arena project remains in question, while residents of the El Paso's Union Plaza celebrate the Council's decision to change the arena's location.

- Chanting and cheering echoing in the halls of El Paso City Hall last month, setting the course for what will happen this week.

[David Dorado Romo] Everybody was so happy, we were so ecstatic.

City Council voted to take Duranguito off the chopping block.

[celebratory music] [music ends abruptly] And then within three weeks, they said, "Oh, nevermind.

We are gonna destroy it."

[Aaron Montes] Of course, it was back on.

And so, um, that's when I really started to see their perspectives change.

[Yolanda Chávez Leyva] So Julia Castillo, as I said, was one of the early leaders.

And very eloquent, very willing to stand up for her community.

And she was really good friends with Salvador Acosta.

"Chavita."

And Julia and Chavita lived in this tenement owned by Don Luciano.

[Veronica Carbajal] So he purchased this property in 2012.

He was privy to information about what was going to happen at the City.

And it was an investment property.

[Don Luciano] We're looking at putting a hotel here.

We have people.

I mean, it's not going to be a Hilton high-rise... We're talking about possibly a Comfort Inn, something like that.

It's not to our benefit to do any improvements to the property right now.

With what's going on in the area.

[bleak music] [slide projector clicking] [Veronica Carbajal] Each of the units was very small.

They didn't have running water, because they didn't have sinks.

They shared these two toilets and these two showers that they were responsible for cleaning.

And so Julia Castillo, for her, the biggest issue, initially, was the bed bugs.

And with Mr.

Chavita, the issue was the ceiling, because he did have a huge hole that caved in.

[Yolanda Chávez Leyva] The place was a horrible place to live, because it had not been kept up.

But they felt comfortable because they were within their community that watched out for each other.

[Don Luciano] We probably bought it, I don't know exactly, but I'd say we've owned it for... We probably bought that property about 2008, something like that.

I think we probably owned it 10 or 12 years.

Yeah.

We bought it from a family in Tucson, who let it run down.

And we went in there and remodeled it.

It was a, uh, apartment complex that's very old.

And I guess you could say they were studio apartments with a common bathroom at the end of the hall.

But what we had there was very clean, very safe.

We never had a problem with anything until that, until Duranguito hit the front page of paper.

Nothing.

[Veronica Carbajal] And so once we started to talk to people about, um, what was happening, we couldn't turn a blind eye to the condition that people were living in.

And we filed a lawsuit for repairs.

[threatening music] Mr.

Luciano sent eviction notices right after he was served with the lawsuits.

[Yolanda Chávez Leyva] And the eviction notices said they were being evicted for not paying rent, but we had the receipts where they had paid the rent.

So that was just a lie.

It was really because they were the two outspoken people.

[Veronica Carbajal] Judge Aponte, she issued a very short order to Mr.

Luciano telling him that if he did not make repairs, he would spend time in prison.

[Yolanda Chávez Leyva] So he just let the 30 days go by and he said, "I'm not gonna make the repairs.

Why would I?"

[Don Luciano] It would've been stupid for us to spend any money on that building, upgrading anything, if six months later they were gonna buy it and tear it down.

That's just a bad investment.

[Yolanda Chávez Leyva] So the City condemned the building.

And everyone had to leave.

[somber ambient music] [Don Luciano] And everybody we had there was very happy people.

Like I said, and I'm gonna let... This is the end of my (...) conversation with you guys, Okay?

Okay?

They're pieces of (...).

Okay?

Yeah.

I mean, they... we tried to work with them and we ended up spending a lot of money to move them into high-rise new apartments, which is fine.

[Aaron Montes] It was really one of the first instances of, uh, whether or not people would leave the neighborhood.

That particular building is not in the footprint of the arena, but it somewhat became kind of a symbol for the struggle because it was really the first building that was vacated.

And so it did strike quite a blow, you know, for that movement.

[sad piano music] [Veronica Carbajal] Julia is living in public housing with her grandson.

And the apartment, it's the right size, it's comfortable, it's clean, and it's a great space for them.

- And Chavita was in another building for older people.

But what happened to both of them is that they were taken out of the community that they had lived in for decades.

The community where they knew everybody.

They were afraid to go outside.

They didn't have anybody watching their back now.

[David Dorado Romo] And so when I talked to Chavita he said, "Pues aqui estoy agusto."

You know, I'm comfortable here.

Why can't he just fix it?

Why can't Don Luciano... - So when they moved him, it was a better home.

But he used to complain to Doña Julia that he didn't like the fact that there was a funeral home right opposite to his new apartment.

And that he felt alone.

- Imagine how hard it is to start all over when you're 85, when you've built friendships in the part where you're living for like three decades.

[sad orchestral music] And that's what happened to Chavita.

He was... he died of a broken heart, you know.

And I do think that City leaders killed him.

And you know, they literally make people sick.

And that's root shock.

Being taken from natural ground, transplanted.

Your roots don't catch.

You dry up.

[Paulina Almanza] Don Luciano's building was vacated and over the course of a few months, other landlords started to do the same thing.

[Yolanda Chávez Leyva] The landowners hired who they called a property manager.

And he was the one that was supposed to convince everybody to leave.

- Do you at any capacity work for the City?

[Property manager] I don't work for the City.

[Aaron Montes] You don't work for... - I work for the property owners.

And the City has an agreement with the property owners.

[Yolanda Chávez Leyva] He would go knock on their windows at night and on their doors.

He would call them over and over and over and over.

[Veronica Carbajal] You need to comply with what the City is trying to offer you.

Right now there's money on the table for you to relocate.

The money's gonna dry up.

Take it and move.

[Yolanda Chávez Leyva] You have to leave now.

If you wait, you're not gonna get any money and they'll turn off your electricity.

Like you have to sign this paper now.

So slowly people started to leave, because they felt under such pressure and like there was no choice.

So people started to leave one by one.

So then eventually, there were just two people left on Chihuahua Street, Romelia and Toñita.

And they're the ones that remain today.

And Romelia is a homeowner.

Romelia bought that house while she was living with her mother and raising her small brothers and sisters.

And she raised her daughter there.

Toñita always says that she's not fighting for her apartment, she's fighting for her community.

And she has lived in the apartment where she lives now for many, many years.

She lived there with her husband and he's, you know, passed away years ago.

- Quality of Life Bonds that you voted for continue to make an impact on our city.

- It's good for El Paso.

That seems to be the opinion of most people now that the word is out that the Sun City is officially getting an arena.

[Yolanda Chávez Leyva] So one of the things about the the Life Bond is that it said "performing arts."

So when you think of performing arts, you think of dance, you think of music.

The ballot in Spanish said "centro de bellas artes."

And "bellas artes" is like "fine arts."

[Jud Burgess] So people were thinking we're gonna get, you know, somewhere where we're gonna see concerts, we're gonna see ballets, various different things like that.

And then all of a sudden, they tell us we're gonna get a sports arena.

[basketball announcer giving play-by-play] [Jud Burgess] So, basically that was a bait and switch.

Plain and simple.

[Max Grossman] Well a bait and switch is a very apt term for what is happening right now.

Bait is for attracting an animal to a trap.

It's the same kind of thing.

We're baited with notions of quality of life.

It feels prestigious, it feels new.

So El Pasoans were baited into voting for something that was completely fraudulent.

And then the City switched to something completely different.

And at that point, it's too late.

At that point, the only solution is litigation.

The City Manager at that time, Joyce Wilson, testified under oath in 2017 that they purposely did not represent the project as a sports arena because it would've been a "lightning rod for opposition."

[Jud Burgess] She told the judge, named Amy Meechum, "You know, we hired an expert in arenas and in putting them up in cities and he told us avoid any language that refers to sports, because voters tend to shy away from that because they know that that means that's gonna be a lot of tax dollars down the drain."

[Veronica Carbajal And so what we found in the course of the trial was that the City took all of the advice that the consultant gave it.

And didn't talk about the building.

It didn't talk about sports, it didn't talk about the cost of each of these projects.

It just named them very generically.

[Max Grossman] We won that lawsuit hands down.

And the findings of fact made very clear that the City deceived the public, that it engaged in nothing less than fraud.

That it played fast and loose with the language of the bond ordinance, as well as with the ballot.

[Jud Burgess] And that was a devastating blow to everybody that wants to put that arena there because she said, "Well, okay, now you can't put up a sports arena.

You can't fund it with any kind of money that wasn't approved."

And so that basically tied their hands.

So that bait and switch was basically what could stop this arena from moving forward in downtown.

Things changed, though.

- We begin this edition with the status of the Multipurpose Performing Art and Entertainment Center, also known as the MPC.

The El Paso City Council voted to appeal a judge's decision.

Council is asking the court to clarify how the facility can be built and if it can be used for sports venues.

[Sam Rodriguez] When you look at the latest hearing that was held at one of the appeals courts, where they talked about entertainment and sports being part of the entertainment, I think we are allowed to, to house sporting events in this facility.

[intense music] [Cynthia Renteria] We went to Firefighters Memorial Park in Duranguito, and we continued with the press conference.

[crowd murmuring] And so, we had a member from a different organization and he came around and said, "You know, there's a lot of noise coming from Chihuahua Street."

And so I ran over there really quick and I could, I, there was demolition equipment being hauled in on giant flatbeds onto Chihuahua Street.

Two big pieces of equipment.

And so I thought, "Oh this, this is really bad."

[David Dorado Romo] So all of a sudden, we looked at each other and said, "Let's move the rally over there in front of the bulldozers."

[crowd chanting] So JMR and the demolition crew had brought in this huge bulldozer.

It reminded me of a Panzer tank.

And they brought it on a trailer.

They were backing up, and we just got in front of it.

We just said, "Everybody surround it."

[Jud Burgess] People mobilized, word got out on social media, and everybody descended upon Barrio Duranguito to basically fight the fact that this could be the day that they decided that they're gonna tear it all down.

- Just hours before the City could start bulldozing Duranguito, and as demolition trucks were driven into the neighborhood, protestors took a stand.

[Aaron Montes] There was a little over a hundred people stopping this really large demolition vehicle.

They were standing right in front of it.

[Veronica Carbajal] And the demolition crew was slowly navigating its way down Chihuahua Street.

And we knew that they were going to start demolition efforts right then and there.

- That is when Lisa took action, and got an emergency court order protecting the neighborhood from demolition.

The request for emergency relief is granted!

[applause and cheering] [Veronica Carbajal] And so all of a sudden, the demolition crew starts to back up.

[cheering] [chanting] [Cynthia Renteria] We were able to prevent the demolition.

And the courts came back and said, "There is now not a temporary restraining order, but an injunction that's going to last.

And you cannot take any measures to demolish this neighborhood until this has been cleared up."

[chanting] [David Dorado Romo] They always change the rules, but we didn't let them!

We showed them what true people power is!

And so, September 11th, we won.

[chanting] [Yolanda Chávez Leyva] So not only were people celebrating the fact that we had stopped the bulldozers, but then that we had an injunction to protect Duranguito.

- About a hundred people shouted, chanted, and held signs, pushing for all of the construction equipment to be removed from the neighborhood.

[Yolanda Chávez Leyva] So I remember going home that night and feeling really for the first time in a long time at peace, like Duranguito's protected legally.

The City knows, the landowner knows, the police know.

Like everyone's been informed of this injunction.

[Jud Burgess] And so that was a victory.

That was a real victory.

[machines whirring] - Call 9-1-1!

I called 9-1-1 to get an officer down there.

[buildings crashing] - They're demolishing now in Duranguito!

Everybody come down now!

[Yolanda Chávez Leyva] The next morning, September 12th, I'm driving to work and I get this message that says there's bulldozers in Duranguito.

And I zoomed over there.

It was about 7:30 in the morning.

And I was the first non-resident to arrive.

They've demolished parts of several buildings!

This is the Restrepo building.

It was his office.

[equipment demolishing] - I have a court order!

[arguing] [Yolanda Chavez Leyva] So Toñita was out there.

So I joined her.

And she and I were yelling at the men with the Bobcats.

And we're like, "There's an injunction!

You can't do this!"

And I remember that they just laughed and made fun of us and kept going back and forth with the little Bobcats.

And they were on both sides of the street.

We're here at Duranguito and the illegal demolition of the neighborhood has started.

[Aaron Montes] When I woke up, I learned that several holes had been punctured into the buildings.

And so I rushed right back down to the neighborhood and it started this whole day of like, "What's going to happen?"

[tense music] [Yolanda Chávez Leyva] He lived here for many years.

And in this little piece of tierrita he had a garden.

A garden that he loved and that he tended.

As you can see, they've demolished parts of every building on Chihuahua Street, starting with Flor de Luna.

[crying] - I called Lisa Hobbes, who had not yet returned to Austin.

She was packing up.

She goes running, physically running down to the neighborhood and hands the court order to the demo crew.

And says, "Excuse me, what part of this do you not understand?"

[Aaron Montes] I remember at first, you know, people were trying to tell the police that this was illegal.

They were trying to get them to stop.

- Who damaged it?

Who damaged it?

It's our concern.

[arguing] [arguing] [Aaron Montes] And it, and it did stop.

[Yolanda Chávez Leyva] The police are saying that they need to find out which is the latest court order.

But everything has stopped, for now.

We need everybody here as soon as possible.

The demolition has stopped right now, because we called the police and Lisa Hobbes, the attorney, showed them the court order.

The police say that they don't know which is the most up-to-date court order.

But even though it stopped right now, you can see the damage that has already been done to these historic buildings.

And this is what the City is doing.

Demolishing our history.

And demolishing it, why?

Because it's poor people who live here.

Because it's Mexicans who live here.

Because it's immigrants that live here.

The City Council for all their talk about immigrant rights and wanting to protect the people of El Paso, this is what they're doing.

They've already allowed all the residents of this historic street to be threatened, to be pushed out, to be sent to places where they can't even get to their doctor anymore.

So that they could do this.

So that they could destroy our history.

Everybody please come down now.

[Max Grossman] And it was a lightning strike attack on this neighborhood, that was intended to damage as many buildings as possible in the shortest amount of time possible.

[Aaron Montes] People started to fill the sidewalks, because they were gonna keep an eye on the neighborhood after that because they'd become, you know, skeptical that, that there would in fact be a ban on demolition.

At least an enforced one.

- So then the City sent people to fence the neighborhood.

[tense music] [Aaron Montes] I remember things got a little bit more contentious because the police had put on riot gear while fences were being put there.

[Jud Burgess] They had, you know, the face masks, they had bulletproof vests on, they had their billy sticks, they're all armed, and they just start surrounding everybody.

- Everyone, can I have everyone's attention, please?

[Cynthia Renteria] And it became a struggle for the fence to say, "No, you're not gonna put up this fence and you're not going to have this demolition and we're going to stand here and prevent you from demolishing this neighborhood."

And it became pretty violent.

[Crowd] This is illegal!

This is illegal!

[Alexsandra Annello] They were pushing people aside, they were hurting people, and there was a lot of confusion.

[shouting] [Cynthia Renteria] I thought, "Oh, man.

We're all going to jail today."

Like this is getting pretty bad.

And so then it became clear, not quickly, but after a struggle, that we weren't going to win the struggle for the fence.

So we kind of had to let the fence go and decide where we were going to stand.

[José Rodríguez] They essentially put up a barrier and corralled people inside, including some of my, my staff.

[Crowd] This is illegal!

This is illegal!

[Alexsandra Annello] And this went on for, you know, eight hours and the chaos kind of calmed down once people were, again, put in a cage.

And people were playing music and you know, they were just dealing with the situation.

But they were there and they weren't leaving.

[David Stout] You know, I started calling the new city councilwoman who had just been elected to represent downtown, Cissy Lizarraga.

I texted her, I said, "Do you know what's going on in your district?

Do you know what's going on down here?"

[Max Grossman] Miss Lizarraga.

[Cissy Lizarraga] Hey!

How are ya?

[David Stout] She was, I guess received by a gaggle of press.

[Max Grossman] We appreciate your coming, but may I ask you one question?

- I'm not gonna answer any questions.

[David Stout] So she was quite upset with me.

She told me that I set her up and that I should have at least provided for her security, because she was close to being attacked.

It was beyond me as to, first of all, how an elected official who represents that area doesn't even know what the hell's going on.

And, and second of all, if you go down there and, and you're not prepared to answer to your constituents, to answer questions, to talk about what's going on, then you have no place representing that area.

[Cissy Lizarraga] Alright.

Thank you very much.

[Max Grossman] It was not until late in the day that Lisa Hobbes produced a second emergency court order from the same 8th Court of Appeals, signed off on by all three justices, including the chief justice.

And that court order not only halted the demolition, but it rescinded the demolition permits.

- Okay, I'm gonna read the order.

All three appellate judges have signed this order, just like the one they signed yesterday.

And I read, "The City of El Paso is ordered to cease and desist all efforts to demolish the following properties..." [Crowd] Cease and desist!

[cheering and applause] [David Dorado Romo] Every dirty trick that they throw at us has failed thus far.

And they will continue to fail, because this city is more and more vigilant.

And it's time to take back our city.

Right now.

[Yolanda Chávez Leyva] Tonight, we're celebrating because we're together, we're unified, We are with Duranguito.

We love this neighborhood.

And barrio by barrio, we'll take back this city.

[boom] [mournful piano music] [Mike Patiño] And the impact, now, losing 150 of my residents and losing 20 businesses from the area.

That makes me sad, because it was a thriving, you know, prospering community.

- And it's a shame.

It's a shame, because there's still poeple living here.

That they could do so much for them still.

There's a lot of change that they can do.

A lot of things.

[singing] [Francisco Mendez] Now, I'm here to tell you that I love my whole barrio.

And this is the way I am right now.

Feeling very bad.

Sometimes feeling very good.

Sometimes I cry myself... in my house.

Thinking about all these people.

About me.

[Mike Patiño] You know, it was a knitted community.

And, uh, but... I just wish, you know... Makes me sad, now... you know, to know that, you know, most of my neighbors are gone.

And most of my life, knowing my neighbors and their families.

Watching them grow, Watching their families grow.

This place, actually, if they graduated, they got a free party.

[laughing] That makes me so proud.

Because I've had so many parties.

From this neighborhood.

And families that couldn't afford a hall.

You know.

And I brought that to them.

You know, party.

Pizza parties.

Bring me A's.

That's all I wanted from the neighborhood kids, you know.

But... Hey... My neighborhood's gone.

Nah, it's cool.

You know, it's a true story.

You know... It's sad.

It's a ghost town.

[Max Grossman] The residents were left completely out of the discussion.

Displaced, offered money, in most cases something like two years of rent, and relocated to other parts of downtown or other parts of the city.

Communities that had been there for over a century were just dismantled.

The residents were treated like furniture and just moved out of the way.

They were of absolutely no consequence and they were never part of the discussion.

[Aaron Montes] This neighborhood is still there.

Really the only changes that you'll see are the weeds creeping through the pavement in the street, which is very evident of how still things have been and kept in this mode of preservation.

[Veronica Carbajal] You can't drive through Chihuahua Street anymore, because it's been completely blocked off by the City.

And you can see that the City is completely neglecting it.

[Aaron Montes] A lot of it has to do with just this struggle that both the City and the people that live there have, you know, in the near future of what's going to happen there.

[Director] You ready?

[Yolanda Chávez Leyva] Ready.

Ready.

[laughing] So just start?

[Director] Yeah.

[laughing] Okay, sorry.

I'm just spacing out sitting here.

- Take a deep breath, because this is forever.

[laughing] Raise your right hand.

[Yolanda Chávez Leyva] So we had a brand new City Council.

And one that was very empathetic to the situation of residents.

One that was not tied to the idea that we had to have the arena in that place.

And one that questioned the developers behind the arena.

- So when the new City Council comes in, one of their major points was, let's not tear down Duranguito to build an arena.

[Yolanda Chávez Leyva] It was packed.

Both with the people who worked with Duranguito for so long, as well as Romelia and Toñita.

We were kind of on the edge of our seats waiting to see what would happen.

But we were super hopeful that the new City Council would do what was right [David Dorado Romo] And it took forever.

That meeting went on, I don't know, hours and hours.

We didn't get out of there until late in the afternoon.

- On that motion call for the vote.

[Yolanda Chávez Leyva] So in January of 2023, the City Council voted not to demolish Duranguito in order to build an arena.

- And the motion passes four to three [clapping] [Yolanda Chávez Leyva] And that was an amazing, amazing time for us.

And there was a huge celebration in Duranguito.

- Today, the City of El Paso filing a motion to end the legal fight to build the multipurpose center in the Duranguito area.

- The City of El Paso is asking the Texas Supreme Court to end the legal fight to build a multipurpose center downtown.

- Questions remain about what is next for Duranguito a day after City Council voted the so-called downtown arena will not be built there.

- I really see that it was a victory for the residents.

There was the whole legal part going on and, and I'm definitely grateful for that.

But to me it was the residents whose victory this, this really is, - To me it does feel like a win, because we already stopped it back in 2016.

And now here we are stopping it in 2023.

[Yolanda Chávez Leyva] Toñita and Romelia are very hopeful and really they've always been very hopeful.

And I think that's why they've been able to really stand up to the City for almost seven years now.

[David Dorado Romo] It's a never-ending struggle, but we're not gonna give up.

And, and hopefully more and more people can see this as an example.

Oh, you know, that you can't beat City Hall.

Well we did.