Ask The Mayor

Q.- I am particularly concerned about the illegals as they have personally affected me several times, most recently late Sunday night when a drunk Hispanic plowed through my yard, stopping within feet of my home. He did extensive damage, but the worst part is that Metro PCS (owner of the truck and a Hispanic-run company) is being very mean and uncooperative, will not furnish insurance information, and has sent people to my home to intimidate me into covering up this incident.

 

I am tired of them trying to run me out of my own town where I grew up. They have destroyed the interior city and degraded our neighborhoods. This is the 5th time in 10 years we have been startled by someone running up into our yard, 4 of these by
Hispanics (drunk at that.) This man ran from the scene and was watched and identified by six of my neighbors who rallied to our support to be sure we were okay. Just an hour earlier a family of four were standing in our driveway going home and had this happened then, they would have been killed.

 

The day before we were sitting in our front yard just feet from where this truck stopped. He left fluids in my yard that I'm sure has contaminated it and the hostile actions of Metro PCS employees (also Hispanic) have left me feeling threatened and fearful of retaliation. They have taken jobs and made Terrell an industry based town with low income jobs and no opportunities for the blue collar person. We have to travel outside Terrell to make a decent living. I don't want to give my town to them. My question is what is Terrell doing about all the illegals here? They need to go.

 

Answer - The incident you described is disturbing. I hate that your family and neighbors have had to go through this.

 

I will ask our City Manager, Torry Edwards, and our police Chief, Tod Miller, to look into the incident you described and make certain that any laws broken are investigated and prosecuted as appropriate.

 

Like most cities, we have some employers paying lower wage scale. But our Economic Development program does not recruit or fund lower wage jobs. In the last 8 years we have recruited 5 Fortune 500 companies. These companies pay their labor force well and many have significant numbers of professional white collar employees such as Nucor Steel. More than 1/3 of Vistawall's total employment of 900 is in white collar jobs such as engineers, designers, draftsmen and CAD operators. Our goal for the future is to do what it takes to get all of the employees, professional, white collar, and blue collar, to live here.

 

We have a Hispanic population that has grown significantly over the years. This is true in most cities in Texas. Most of these Hispanic people contribute a lot and are hard working citizens or legal residents. When the Terrell Police make an arrest they determine the person's identity. If this produces a person they suspect to not be in the country legally, they notify immigration authorities.

 

The City of Terrell's responsibility is to address incidents like the one you have reported and to strictly and aggressively enforce our laws and our city codes. The Police and Code Enforcement staff understand that the Council's expectation is for them to investigate, find, and take care of violators.

We are making progress and we are going to keep working at it.

Sincerely,

 

Hal Richards, Mayor