The unfortunate synergy of veteran Güero Segovia and the mayoral aspirations of City Council member Charlie San Miguel threaten the tranquil ecosystem of North Central Park (NCP) with a plan for a veterans museum in the 13-acre Marshall tract of the park.
It’s a stretch to call Segovia’s plan a “plan.” It’s a stick drawing for a large metal warehouse building, a concrete pavilion, and a display area to park an Army tank, a chopper, a Howitzer, and other large pieces of war machinery.
Segovia is so confident that his version of a museum will be built at NCP, that he calls it a “done deal,” despite a lack of financial plans, architectural drawings or engineering and environmental studies on so sensitive a wetland tract. There is no specificity and no plan that delineates size or scope of function, except what Segovia has articulated as “a place to have carne asadas and car shows.” (Without beer, however, because it is prohibited in City parks.)
It boggles the mind that so rudimentary a drawing being bandied about by Segovia has had so powerful an effect on those who want the museum at NCP, those who oppose it there, and those in City government who are either “waiting for marching orders” to move forward or who have gone silent so as not to displease the veterans.
THE VETERANS
There are 10 or more veteran organizations in Laredo — among them American Legion Posts 59 and 850, Korean War Veterans, Laredo Veterans Coalition, Disabled American Veterans, South Texas Afghanistan and Iraq Veterans Association (STAIVA), VFW, Catholic War Veterans, Laredo Vietnam Veterans, the Marine Corps League, Laredo Veterans Honor Guard, and LULAC 777 — each headed up by a commander, each reportedly representing a portion of a local veteran population estimated to be about 6,000.
For the purpose of dialogue about the preferred site for the proposed museum, each commander of each organization was to have reached out to his group to try to establish a consensus.
According to Segovia, North Central Park is the preferred site among Laredo veterans. That may not be the case, however. A random sampling revealed that some commanders have not posed the question to their membership, and many veterans confirm they were not asked for their input.
Such was the case of Roberto Limon, whom I chanced upon at the Farmers Market last Saturday. A U.S. Army veteran who served three tours in Vietnam, Limon said he did not want a museum at North Central Park and preferred a more central location that he could get to.
Doug Alford, an outspoken veteran, said he had not been consulted or asked about a location preference. Nor had been veterans Al Villarreal who served in the U.S. Army in Iraq from 2003 to 2005, or Ricardo Quijano who served in the U.S. Army from 1997 to 2000 and in the Army National Guard from 2000 to 2008.
Segovia’s fast track, done deal orbit around the issue of location has discounted other sites that may involve less capital outlay or that are more suited to a veterans museum, notably the originally designated historic Farias home downtown or the generous offer of Laredo Community College President Dr. Ricardo Solis for a site at Fort Macintosh, the cradle of Laredo’s military history.
Those of us who have followed the issue now have a view of how factionalized and disorganized the veterans are, and that though they may be in the future spending taxpayer dollars — yours and mine — to build and curate a museum, their “ask” is not very gracious. It is a bit imperious. The Güero faction wants what it wants and is closed to any other alternative.
The environmental measure they have come up with to counter the footprint of their metal bodega in a corner of the Marshall tract — which drops ten feet in elevation to the riparian beauty of the sensitive ecosystem of the Manadas Creek stream bed — is to plant 325 trees in an eco-simpatico gesture.
Gabriel López, a member of STAIVA, who has worked to try to establish consensus, said, “I think we made a pact with the devil. We all want the museum, but I think Mr. San Miguel has played us.”
López said it was understood that the commanders would poll all of their members to come up with a site. “Once again we are seen as peleoneros who can’t agree long enough to get anything done. And we are looking like we believe we are entitled,” he said, adding, “We’re the pawn in some kind of game. I get that. It doesn’t matter where the museum ends up, everyone will not be pleased. This has the potential to create more ill will, to pit veterans against veterans and veterans against the community. That’s wrong; that’s not what veterans do,” López said. “We look egoistic, single minded, and demanding,” he continued.
“I don’t have to go to a museum to understand my war experiences. I live that every day. But I do think a museum that tells a story about Laredoans serving their country educates Laredoans of all ages and informs them that our sacrifices allow us the freedoms we know,” López said.
“Mr. San Miguel is serving his own agenda and his own district, and the vets are following him,” López said. “He’s the deal maker. How will he deliver? I don’t think he’s going to. Not like this.”
López said he doesn’t believe many veterans have had input in deciding a location and that San Miguel should start over with town hall meetings that give voice to veterans, taxpayers, and other City Council members. “Take the public’s input into consideration,” he said.
Perhaps as a result of a rogue golf Frisbee boink to the head, neither Segovia nor San Miguel in their magical thinking of museum building in a nature park, considered the input of nearby homeowners, those for whom parkland is a vital amenity for recreation and health, and the taxpayer who is not being asked for tax funds but is rather being apprised it will be required if the City builds their musem.
HOMEOWNERS, FRIENDS OF NORTH CENTRAL PARK
Homeowners in the subdivisions surrounding the proposed museum have organized as Friends of North Central Park to voice their opposition to the veterans museum in the park. They have collected 416 signatures.
“We support a veterans museum that honors the sacrifices of Laredo men and women who served this country, but we don’t think this environmentally sensitive site in the park is the right place,” said Alyce McCain, who lives in University Park. “The park was the draw to buy a home here. It is an important recreational component of our lives,” she added.
Albert Grooms, a native of Maine, a former Marine, and now a federal law enforcement officer in Laredo, is also opposed to the veterans museum in North Central Park. He would like to see it at Laredo Community College. He considers the park an integral part of the time he spends with his son and said that its green spaces influenced his decision to invest in a home nearby.
Grooms enlisted in 2004 and saw service in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina. As a member of the 24th Marine Expeditionary Unit, he evacuated Americans from Beirut. He served two tours in Iraq and left active duty in 2012. Grooms joined the North Carolina National Guard in 2013 and transferred to the New Hampshire National Guard. He has been a member of the Air Force Reserve since 2015.
Grooms observed that the Laredo veterans community is like any other cross section of society. “You have fragmented ideas and opinions, however, there is a chain of command that sets an idea or agenda and expects its membership to fall into place.”
THE ENVIRONMENTALISTS
As the battleground and the testing ground for three important city environmental ordinances, the waters of Manadas Creek in the Marshall tract resonate with the protective specificity of 2002’s Flood Plain Ordinance, 2003’s Storm Water Ordinance, and 2006’s Green Space Preservation Ordinance.
Before Manadas Creek enters the Marshall tract and traverses it diagonally, two streams of the creek have joined to form one to carry its own flow and that of clean wastewater effluent to the Rio Grande. Parts of Manadas Creek inside the park are per the EPA, federally protected waters of the United States.
The surrounding wetland and its abundant band of foliage, trees, and palms are home to a bounty of wildlife and many unusual resident and migrating avian species that birders find there, such as the Rose Breasted Grosbeak, the Blue Grosbeak, the Grooved Billed Ani, the Clay Colored Thrush, and the Tropical Parula. NCP is considered by local and visiting birders as one of the most significant sites in the area.
According to birder and wildlife photographer Carlos Escamilla, some species rely on the park’s habitat for breeding and nesting. He added that e-bird has compiled a list of over 150 species found in North Central Park. (Escamilla’s pictures are part of the photo gallery that accompanies this story.)
The Río Grande International Study Center (RGISC) has been outspoken in its opposition to the NCP site.
Its executive director, Tricia Cortez, was a journalist who wrote extensively in the early 2000s about the Marshall tract, calling it “the birthplace of Laredo’s environmental awakening.”
She said Dr. Jim Earhart saw the property back in 2001 for what it was — “a precious tract of woodland and wetland that was teeming with wildlife.”
Cortez said that Laredo had nothing on the books at that time to protect creeks, wetlands, or any ecologically sensitive areas. A public outcry and pressure from then- City Council member Joe A. Guerra created a Green Spaces Preservation sub-committee under the Citizens Environmental Advisory Committee.
Dr. Earhart stood up to the developers and their engineers, Cortez recalled. “Had it not been for Jim sounding the alarm with all his photos and power point presentations, all that beautiful land would have been lost to development and a channelized creek. It changed the business as usual model that Laredo development had long followed,” she said.
“But here we are now understanding that we don’t have anything on the books to protect parks, and all these years later we may not have city leadership that protects green spaces,” Cortez said.
“A military museum with its concrete slabs, extra parking, loud air conditioning systems, and bright lights will destroy the very reason people seek out this nature park — for its serene quiet and for the ability to escape and recharge in nature,” the environmentalist said.
Former City Council member Gene Belmares, who along with then-County Commissioner Felix Velasquez had a role in acquiring the land for North Central Park, noted the current Council’s “willful disregard for previous Council decisions. So far it has the look of staff trying to accommodate the wishes of a Council member. At the root of it is a political promise.”
BACKSTORY: THE MILLION BUCKS
The historic Farias home at 415 San Bernardo, a structure built of two-foot-thick quarried sandstone blocks, was sold to the Veterans Coalition in 2002 for $100,000.
The sale required the signatures of 44 Farias family members as they passed their legacy onto the veterans, who one year later would sell it to Webb County for $90,000 with the proviso that the property always remain a military museum and that it be named after Juan Francisco Farias.
In June 2010 Webb County and the City of Laredo agreed through an inter-local agreement to fund $500,000 each for the establishment of the Juan Francisco Farias Military Museum.
“The project was earmarked for urban revitalization at a specific location for a specific purpose. A million dollars would have served for renovation,” Belmares said.
The project appeared to have momentum. Architect Kennedy Whitely of Ausland Architects of Austin drew plans for the 3,375 square foot project and reviewed them with local veterans and city and county officials. There were meetings and more reviews, and then things stalled while veterans fell into discord and factions.
The $650,000 piece of downtown real estate that had been home to five generations of Farias, languished, boarded up to keep out birds and rats, but fenced only very recently by the county to keep out vagrants.
In an effort to release itself from the 2010 inter-local agreement, Webb County has sought to give the $500,000 commitment to the City of Laredo for the museum and to cap it at that amount, freeing itself of any further liabilities or commitments.
This is the million dollars Güero Segovia says veterans will have for the construction of the bodega and the pavilion.
NOT SO FAST, TWICE
- While many of the individual veterans organizations have 501©3 non-profit status, they are not registered together as one entity under one non-profit status number.
Should the City/County money become available, City manager Horacio De Leon said the cost of feasibility, environmental, and engineering studies would chip away a that fund.
- “Should any of that happen, we are lawyered up to challenge the City and the County,” said Richard Geissler, a Vietnam era veteran who represents Voices in Democratic Action.
“There’s a valid contract for that museum at that location which had been set aside for a specific purpose,” he said.
Geissler said the Farias house deserves another look. “This place is so rich in the history of this City. Very little needs to be done to it. You’d have repairs done and exhibits up in a matter of months. It fits into all the good things that are happening at that end of downtown. It’s in walking distance of two other museums. It almost happened here. It could still happen, a perfect site for telling the stories of those who served through letters and personal memorabilia. Get it going and start raising big money for another museum,” he said.
I am not a proponent of a veterans museum at either NCP or the LCC campus. But if the museum were to come to fruition at the Farias home, would there be security measures in place to ensure the security of donated items that are priceless to family members? Does any of the funding from Webb Cty or the City of Laredo go for hiring a trained curator dedicated to the preservation and historically accurate presentation of these items? Doubt it. We should be building a modern museum that will incorporate aesthetics and security. One just need to look at what the tiny town of Fredericksburg has done with the National Museum of the Pacific.