The rate case does not affect New Mexico customers

“We identified a wrong and we were on the side of right — and we prevailed,” said city Rep. Cortney Niland, who led the fight against the power company. “That this will benefit businessmen and women is especially exciting, but everyone will benefit from this victory.”

The settlement allocation means residential customers will save about $1.5 million in the form of a credit, decreasing their average summer bills by about $3.89 a month. Commercial and industrial customers will benefit most from the settlement, with a decrease of about $12.1 million annually. Individual savings for commercial and industrial users will be based on their use and rate class.

The rate case does not affect New Mexico customers

“We identified a wrong and we were on the side of right — and we prevailed,” said city Rep. Cortney Niland, who led the fight against the power company. “That this will benefit businessmen and women is especially exciting, but everyone will benefit from this victory.”

The settlement allocation means residential customers will save about $1.5 million in the form of a credit, decreasing their average summer bills by about $3.89 a month. Commercial and industrial customers will benefit most from the settlement, with a decrease of about $12.1 million annually. Individual savings for commercial and industrial users will be based on their use and rate class.

The new rates will be effective May 1.

El Paso Electric officials on Tuesday said the settlement is designed to encourage economic growth, primarily through rate reductions for commercial and industrial customers.

“Economic development is critical to the continued growth of the El Paso region and is a common goal shared by the city and the company,” said Tom Shockley, the power company’s interim chief executive officer.

Arroyos was prominent during the Chicano Movement in El Paso in the 1970s, and in later years became a spiritual leader of Teokalli Tlauizkalpantekutli Ketzal-koatl, a back-to-roots church seeking to connect with Aztec culture.

“The whole civil-rights movement was anawakening for us. People began to realize they could do something and bring about change,” Arroyos told the El Paso Times in 2010. Information on funeral services is pending.

Arroyos grew up in Ysleta. He was part of numerous community organizations and produced several Hispanic-themed television and radio shows in El Paso and Odessa.

“I think everybody in that (Ysleta) community will remember him as someone who gave the good fight. He was a man of his word. He was consistent and he was courageous,” said Carlos Aceves, who has known Arroyos for nearly 40 years.

During the 1970s, Arroyos was an editor of the Chicano newspaper “El Mestizo” and a member of Chicanos Unidos, a community group credited by some for helping decrease gangviolence and drug abuse.

It was during those turbulent, politically-charged times that Arroyos became part of one of the most high-profile episodes of the Chicano Movement in El Paso.

Arroyos was one of “Los Tres Chicanos Unidos,” three local activists accused and convicted of firebombing the Popular department store in Downtown El Paso in 1975. Arroyos was given a sentence of five years probation.

The firebombing, according to newspaper archives, occurred during a string of arsons at police community relations storefronts that fire investigators at the time suspected was the work of Chicano militants.

Supporters of “Los Tres” (Arroyos, Alfredo Espinosa and Ruben Ogaz) maintain the prosecution was political.

Prosecutors had said police stopped the three in a car with materials to make a firebomb — gasoline, oil, rags and paper. It wasn’t reported why the store may have been targeted.

During the trial, Arroyos “was frustrated, but it was probably the most energetic that I’ve seen him, because he was determined to beat the charges,” said Aceves, who was active in the Chicano Movement.

“What Ramon always claimed was that he was innocent, that the police had done the firebombing,” Aceves said.

“We are elated that the Social Media Tourism Symposium planning committee selected us to host this very progressive-thinking conference,” said Bill Blaziek, General Manager of the El Paso Convention and Visitors Bureau.

“El Pasoans Fighting Hunger”… formerly West Texas Food Bank… enters the vote-driven competition with a full plate… as the organization prepares to open its new facility.

“We’re hoping to get this food bank started right and part of that starting the food bank right is buying the food that we need, bringing the food in and getting our building ready to be able to support the needs of this community,” said “El Pasoans Fighting Hunger” Executive Director Ruben Sanchez.

Wal-Mart will also donate $50,000 to the 20 runners up in the competition… which runs through the end of the month.
You can cast your vote for “El Pasoans Fighting Hunger” by simply visiting facebook.com/walmart and by clicking on the “Fighting Hunger Together” tab.

“We’re in 6th place right now. We need to make up some ground and we need to come up in first place come April 30th,” said “El Pasoans Fighting Hunger” Board of Directors Vice President Victor Nevarez.

Nevarez says the organization could certainly use a heaping helping of your support… as children make up the largest portion of the more than 200,000 El Pasoans considered food insecure.

“That’s our charge is to feed the children, make sure that they don’t go to bed hungry because if they go to bed hungry, they don’t wake up ready to go to school and those kids are our future,” said Nevarez.

The analysts wrote, “We are upgrading El Paso Electric to Buy from Hold due to our expectation that the company will reach a regulatory settlement in the next several weeks. The company filed a motion with the Public Utility Commission of Texas to suspend the procedural schedule to facilitate settlement discussions with [intervener] parties.”

Other equities research analysts have also recently issued reports about the stock. Analysts at Morgan Stanley (NYSE: MS) initiated coverage on shares of El Paso Corporation in a research note to investors on Wednesday, March 28th. They set an “equal weight” rating on the stock. Separately, analysts at Zacks reiterated a “neutral” rating on shares of El Paso Corporation in a research note to investors on Wednesday, February 29th. They now have a $29.00 price target on the stock. Finally, analysts at Deutsche Bank (NYSE: DB) initiated coverage on shares of El Paso Corporation in a research note to investors on Tuesday, February 14th. They set a “hold” rating on the stock.

El Paso Corporation opened at 30.40 on Monday. El Paso Corporation has a 1-year low of $16.30 and a 1-year high of $30.53. The company has a market cap of $23.495 billion and a price-to-earnings ratio of 168.89.

El Paso Corporation (El Paso) is an energy company, which operates in the natural gas transmission and exploration and production sectors of the energy industry.

With the community’s assistance, the El Paso Convention and Visitors Bureau eliminated San Marcos in Round One and Buffalo-Niagara in Round Two.

Once again, the El Paso CVB strongly urges the community to play an active role in helping to secure this conference by requesting that Facebook users log on to the SoMe page at www.facebook.com/SoMeTourism, “Like” the page, and then cast their vote to bring the SoMe symposium to town.

Round Three is set for Tuesday, April 10 from 10 a.m. – 6 p.m MST. If El Paso wins this match-up, the city will be in the final two.

Once the top two destinations with the most votes are announced, they will begin working on hotel details, meeting space and an off-site event. SoMe officials will then select the destination that best fits the needs of their program and attendees.

In its third year, the symposium is designed for destination marketing organizations, hotels, resorts, attractions and other tourism related entities. Attendees share ideas and learn how social media impacts promotion within the travel and tourism industry. SoMe is especially unique in the fact that potential attendees and “fans” of each bidding city determine the host location by logging onto Facebook and voting. The city that receives the most votes is named the winner of the symposium. Additionally, attendees will have a voice in the entire planning process of the conference by determining everything from the destination, to the session topics and presenters.

The SoMe symposium will take place on November 7-9, 2012, and is expected to draw 250 tourism professionals from all over the country.

Last year, El Paso bid on the conference for the first time and was ranked in the top three, with Tunica, Mississippi taking the conference win.

Across the street, a children’s hospital opened earlier this year, as did an adjacent women’s hospital within a recently renovated county hospital.

Thus, in ways large and small, a sizable medical complex is emerging in El Paso, a high-desert city of 649,000 people along the border with Mexico and New Mexico.

Political, business and nonprofit leaders reached a consensus more than 10 years ago that educating medical students, treating patients and exploring biotechnology are essential to the future well-being of this area’s people and economy. Several hundred million dollars — from local tax proceeds, legislative appropriations and philanthropic donations — have flowed into the effort.

“Probably the singular thing here was to have a very consistent message that this is the most important thing to us,” said Woody Hunt, a businessman and philanthropist who helped organize a 1998 economic summit that focused attention on the health care field following the collapse of the garment industry, which had been an economic mainstay.

Hunt added, “You’ve got to have vision. You’ve got to be organized. You’ve got to be patient.”

El Paso’s experience could offer lessons for efforts in Austin to land a medical school and expand the capital city’s footprint in health care. The industry accounts for nearly a fifth of the nation’s economic output.

After waxing and waning for years, efforts got a major boost last year when the University of Texas and its governing board formally declared a goal of establishing a medical school.

State Sen. Kirk Watson, D-Austin, is leading a panel of university administrators, elected officials, hospital executives and others pursuing a 10-point wish list that also includes a new teaching hospital, a comprehensive cancer treatment center, expanded mental health services and upgrades at the Travis County medical examiner’s office — all to be achieved within 10 years.

El Paso has realized many similar goals, but challenges remain — especially in securing state money for the medical school and attracting biotech companies.

The Foster School of Medicine, a unit of the Texas Tech University System’s Health Sciences Center, is in many ways the jewel of what officials have dubbed the Medical Center of the Americas, a public-private complex east of downtown that could eventually encompass 440 acres. The school seated its first class in 2009.

A Texas Tech nursing school opened in a leased building downtown two years later and will eventually move to the medical complex. Longstanding elements of the complex include Texas Tech medical clinics in various specialties, a state-run psychiatric hospital, the El Paso County coroner’s office and the county hospital, University Medical Center of El Paso.

Planning is under way for a graduate school of biomedical sciences as well as a public-private research park that officials hope will spawn biotech startups and clinical drug trials. In February, the City Council earmarked $3.2 million a year in fees paid by electric utility customers for nurturing the research park and other life science initiatives.

Texas Tech Chancellor Kent Hance said a crucial step was the formation by local civic and business leaders of the Medical Center of the Americas Foundation, a nonprofit group helping to coordinate development of the medical complex.

“It shows the commitment of local people,” Hance said. “It helps you get organized and get funding.”