By RON MEXICOStaff Writer
McALLEN - Here, in the cradle of the Rio Grande Valley's forward-thinking philosophy, it is an age-old scrap that has the population branching out to take sides: McAllen's abandoned botanical gardens is doing its damndest to make a comeback worthy of Cleopatra's flings following Julius Caesar's assassination that fateful day in Rome.
At issue: This fast-growing city of 110,000 desperately wants a national tennis center where Big Time tournaments - college and otherwise - would bring tourist money to the City of Palms. Behind that push is Mayor Richard Cortez (shown in photo). Fighting against it is a new group of McAllenites apparently thinking that, yeah, there may just be enough concrete and asphalt anything in town already, and, sure, why not opt for a little grassy knoll here and there.
As reporter Sean Gaffney put in a recent edition of The Monitor: Victorious in their campaign to save McAllen’s Botanical Gardens from a tennis compound, eco-minded activists plotted strategy earlier this week for what could prove to be more difficult than swaying an election: persuading the city to reopen the long-neglected park. The group's name sounds neat: McAllen Parks and Habitat Preservation Coalition.
And then he quoted a local woman who put things in perspective: “The hardest thing for us to do now is to keep the ball rolling,” Marilyn LaMantia, a McAllen native, said in a meeting held by the group. “Now we need to be responsible and develop it.”
Botanical gardens are the rage across the country. In theory, they are supposed to be respites from the noise and hullabaloo of a city-on-the-move. You know, the traffic, the construction, the road rage, the neighborhood spats, the entire symphony of Life.
McAllen folks want a patch of Earth, and that is what they are telling the mayor. Tennis can go elsewhere, they say. Slapping of fuzzy-covered balls is a racket they do not wish for this burgeoning community now used to getting what it wants, whether it be new cafes, new stores, new coffee shops, new magazines, new people, new cars, new homes, new everything.
"There really is no place where a guy can go fall on a nice grassy hill under some tree shade and just flake-off for an hour or so," said another resident. "We need a nice, well-maintained park like that."
If the mayor is listening, he isn't saying...
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2 comments:
There is also the consideration that most underpriviliged children cannot afford the expense of tennis but nature belongs to everyone. Everybody should have a chance to find a little shade, regardless of social class, bank account, or even citizenship papers.
ANON: Excellent point. We're hip to tennis, but we do wonder how much court time the citizens of McAllen would get, and whether the high-fallutin tournaments envisioned by Mayor Cortez would interfere with enjoyment of the property on the part of the local children. A park that would include a botanical garden seems to be the best-use plan for that property. But who knows? Maybe the mayor has a direct line to John McEnroe or Rafael Nadal... - Editor
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