Westmorland residents talk about the difficulty in getting jobs and transportation in the Imperial Valley. FROM LEFT: Lucia Haro carries her 2-month-old granddaughter, Danielle Barragan. Onyx Bazulto, 19, carries her 2-month-old daughter, Eunice Bazulto. Lucy Prieto, 23, carries her 2-month-old son, Zuriel Barragan, twin of Danielle. (JOSELITO VILLERO PHOTO / August 9, 2010) |
Fernando Ponce grew up in the Los Angeles County city of Paramount, but has spent most of his 34 years living in El Centro.
In spite of news reports about how the city he’s called home since 1990 is among the worst places to live, Ponce said things could be a lot worse.
To some degree, such bad news can weigh heavily on a person’s mind, but “there’s always hope,” Ponce said.
“I know people who’re still here and got a job,” Ponce said Monday at a local Main Street eatery. “I know people who live here and all of them are pretty stable.”
Ponce’s comments follow recent reports about how El Centro’s high unemployment rate and other problems make it a rotten place to live.
El Centro has bore the brunt of news reports that place its 27.9 percent unemployment rate as the highest in the nation.
As if that weren’t enough, an Internet piece claimed that El Centro was among the 10 worst places to live, according to the Web site Walletpop.com
But whether the bad press El Centro receives takes a toll on a person’s state of mind is largely dependent on the welfare of a person, Dr. Louis Nidorf, a San Diego-based psychologist who has a practice in El Centro, said.
While he does not have any patients who are despondent over the economic climate, there may be some people who could be despondent over not having a job, Nidorf said.
City officials decry the news reports as not only being inaccurate but failing to take into account some of the more appealing aspects of El Centro.
El Centro City Councilman Jon A. Edney said such gloomy news stories about the city’s poor economy are often inaccurately reported by those who know nothing about El Centro.
Such reports do not take into account how there is a transient work force that labor six months out of year in agricultural fields and that border cities, in general, tend to have consistently high unemployment rates, Edney said.
“I don’t put that much credence to them,” Edney said. “It certainly does not put a positive appeal to someone who wants to start a business here.”
El Centro Mayor Cheryl Viegas-Walker strongly denounced the bad publicity El Centro often gets because some journalists haven’t done their “homework” about El Centro.
Stories about El Centro’s unemployment rate can be misleading because the size of El Centro is comparatively smaller than a metropolitan city like Los Angeles, she said. The actual number of jobless people living here would then be smaller, Viegas-Walker said.
Viegas-Walker also said some news accounts don’t consider some of the better aspects of living here like the time spent commuting, establishing lifelong friendships and “how we care for each other in the community.”
One person who now lives in the Imperial Valley has no regrets about moving here three years ago, even though she doesn’t live in El Centro.
After spending 26 years in the Los Angeles County suburb of Azuza, Lucia Haro said she tired of waking up to smoggy skies and long commutes home from work.
But that was three years ago. Today, Haro, a native of Mexicali and happy resident of Westmorland, said she had no regrets of moving to the Imperial Valley despite gloomy news reports about it.
Haro was in El Centro Monday with her daughters and six grandchildren in tow.
“I got tired of the freeway,” Haro said with a smile. “I feel free here.”
>> Staff Writer Silvio J. Panta can be reached at 760 337-3442 or at spanta@ivpressonline.com
In spite of news reports about how the city he’s called home since 1990 is among the worst places to live, Ponce said things could be a lot worse.
To some degree, such bad news can weigh heavily on a person’s mind, but “there’s always hope,” Ponce said.
“I know people who’re still here and got a job,” Ponce said Monday at a local Main Street eatery. “I know people who live here and all of them are pretty stable.”
Ponce’s comments follow recent reports about how El Centro’s high unemployment rate and other problems make it a rotten place to live.
El Centro has bore the brunt of news reports that place its 27.9 percent unemployment rate as the highest in the nation.
As if that weren’t enough, an Internet piece claimed that El Centro was among the 10 worst places to live, according to the Web site Walletpop.com
But whether the bad press El Centro receives takes a toll on a person’s state of mind is largely dependent on the welfare of a person, Dr. Louis Nidorf, a San Diego-based psychologist who has a practice in El Centro, said.
While he does not have any patients who are despondent over the economic climate, there may be some people who could be despondent over not having a job, Nidorf said.
City officials decry the news reports as not only being inaccurate but failing to take into account some of the more appealing aspects of El Centro.
El Centro City Councilman Jon A. Edney said such gloomy news stories about the city’s poor economy are often inaccurately reported by those who know nothing about El Centro.
Such reports do not take into account how there is a transient work force that labor six months out of year in agricultural fields and that border cities, in general, tend to have consistently high unemployment rates, Edney said.
“I don’t put that much credence to them,” Edney said. “It certainly does not put a positive appeal to someone who wants to start a business here.”
El Centro Mayor Cheryl Viegas-Walker strongly denounced the bad publicity El Centro often gets because some journalists haven’t done their “homework” about El Centro.
Stories about El Centro’s unemployment rate can be misleading because the size of El Centro is comparatively smaller than a metropolitan city like Los Angeles, she said. The actual number of jobless people living here would then be smaller, Viegas-Walker said.
Viegas-Walker also said some news accounts don’t consider some of the better aspects of living here like the time spent commuting, establishing lifelong friendships and “how we care for each other in the community.”
One person who now lives in the Imperial Valley has no regrets about moving here three years ago, even though she doesn’t live in El Centro.
After spending 26 years in the Los Angeles County suburb of Azuza, Lucia Haro said she tired of waking up to smoggy skies and long commutes home from work.
But that was three years ago. Today, Haro, a native of Mexicali and happy resident of Westmorland, said she had no regrets of moving to the Imperial Valley despite gloomy news reports about it.
Haro was in El Centro Monday with her daughters and six grandchildren in tow.
“I got tired of the freeway,” Haro said with a smile. “I feel free here.”
>> Staff Writer Silvio J. Panta can be reached at 760 337-3442 or at spanta@ivpressonline.com
