Arizona Town Hall held in Mexico
Two Yuma residents help lead first-of-its-kind event
Two Yuma-area residents helped lead the firstever Arizona Town Hall event held in Mexico, a bilingual conference in the Sonoran capital city of Hermosillo May 26.
Dr. Linda Elliot-Nelson, Arizona Western College’s vice president for learning services and past chairwoman of the Arizona Town Hall Board of Directors, said the idea came out of the nonprofit group’s spring 2016 conference on Arizona-Mexico relations.
“One of the ideas was that we should actually get more of a viewpoint from Mexico on Arizona’s relationship with Mexico, makes sense,” she said. “We were able to not only get the input from people from various points in Arizona, but also from people who live in Mexico,” she said.
“So it was very very interesting to hear about all the activities that were already taking place, but then also the viewpoint of people knowing the economic and cultural ties we have with that, especially focusing on trade.”
Most of the full-blown Arizona Town Halls last three and a half days as people from across the state break down a broad subject area, study different aspects of it in smaller groups and come up with a final position paper to present to state leaders.
This “community town hall” was shortened to one Friday of work preceded by an evening reception, both held at the Hotel Lucerna in Hermosillo. About 100 people attended, about twothirds of them coming from Mexico.
Speakers included Flor Ayala, a local deputy from the local equivalent of the state Legislature and U.S. Rep. Ruben Gallego, DPhoenix, who appeared via satellite.
Elliot-Nelson acted as the recorder for the event, writing down and translating each table’s response to questions about ArizonaMexico economic relations, how they’re influenced by government policy, prospects for developing Arizona and Sonora into a hub for international relations, and more.
Russ Jones, a Yuma County businessman and former legislator, was a facilitator for the Hermosillo town hall, translating back and forth between the two languages.
“We didn’t have simulta-
neous translating, so either I was translating or Linda was translating, because some people gave their reports in English and others in Spanish, and of course everybody needed to know what was going on, so it kept Linda and myself on our toes pretty much all day,” he said.
Elliot-Nelson, who just finished a two-year term as chair of the Town Hall board, said one of her big takeaways from the meetings was that although there’s been a flurry of initiatives over the last few years to grow the state’s trade relationship with its southern neighbor, Arizona is still “behind the curve,” compared to California and Texas.
“One of the things that came up is Arizona needs to step up if it wants to be able to benefit from its relationship with Mexico because there are other states that have been doing this for a longer period of time, and have been able to reap those benefits already,” she said.
She added that efforts to promote part or all of Arizona as an economic “megaregion” with parts of Mexico continue, and she learned about one she hadn’t heard of during the Hermosillo town hall, with Arizona and Baja California known as “ARIBAJA.”
“There’s quite a bit of dialogue about that and excitement about that, because they’re also looking at how the port of Guaymas can be used more for the import and export of goods, and how that would connect then with Arizona, mostly through the railroad,” she said.
The participants also agreed the states of Sonora and Arizona needed to expand their relationship in other areas as well. A draft of the consensus report being prepared from the meeting says: “Although trade is important, it is essential that we also realize there are moral issues affecting us. We need to present a unified front as to why we need to work together for the betterment of all.
“There are state collaborations with organizations such as churches, schools, universities, and town halls that focus on opportunities on both sides of the border and that provide educational, social and medical services for our residents.”
Other representatives from Yuma County included Tadeo de la Hoya, city manager of San Luis, Ariz., and Tomas Virgen, a growth consultant for Yuma Regional Medical Center.
Virgen said Mexican perceptions of federal Trump administration, fueled in many cases by social media, brought home the need for better communication.
“They’re hearing there was a tweet on this, this was on Facebook or this was on social media, but yet it’s more sentiment and emotion, and not real fact. So a lot of people are very concerned and saying ‘why should I apply for a visa if they’re going to stop approving them?’ That’s one of the misinterpretations and some of the confusion,” he said.
He said some of the ideas for keeping Mexican citizens better informed included blogs or holding larger town hall meetings throughout the country, after figuring out where the best, most current information was coming from.
“I did not realize how much fear and confusion there was on the Mexican side,” Virgen said, whether it was on immigration, trade and the NAFTA agreement, or the decline of the peso’s value after Trump took office.
The conference did spur enthusiasm about holding more events like the town hall in Hermosillo and other Mexican cities, Jones said, which wasn’t necessarily part of Arizona Town Hall’s mission but a welcome outgrowth.
“In Mexico their government and issues are more top-down than grassrootsup, in many cases, certainly governance. So the Sonorans were absolutely ecstatic about and delighted with the process, even the shorter version we used,” he said. “And they really want to do, and we’re going to work with them on that, they want to do a fullblown town hall in Sonora in 2018.”