The City Department was not the only destructive antagonist. We had ten property owners within the Barrio, all newcomers, not-longtime residents, who expressed dissatisfaction with how things were going. Juanito and his wife were the most vocal of them. Despite their past violent history, they did apply for a Housing Rehab Grant, as it was commendable that they wanted to do the work themselves. The first time they were given the amount they requested by the Committee. Sometimes you wonder; you do the right thing for bad people thinking it is proper, and logically they ought to respond with kindness. Instead, they spit right back on your face. They came back for more, and this time while others were still waiting their turn, they were turned down. Thinking that the squeaky wheel gets the grease, they started a campaign of harassment that continued for years. Among their actions was to appeal to the papers and to councilman Bejarano, a Democrat Councilman, and somehow turn him into a rabid critic of our efforts. If they didn’t get it, no one else should.
Then there was Williams whom I have mentioned before. He was an educated Anglo, claiming Indian blood, which may or may not have been true. When he moved into the neighborhood, he was very supportive and cooperative. He inherited his father business, and he got elected to the Board. While the TBA had no money, he was in full support of all we did. I treasured the fresh perspective that he usually brought to the meetings. His knowledge and skills were beneficial during the building of the Parquesito del Tiradito. Then he met his girlfriend, a black lady, who he successfully got elected to the Board as well. Their attitude began to change when the TBA got HUD money, for he now had more responsibility and a greater need for home security. At that time, I left for Beaumont, Texas, and when I came back eleven months later, the couple was married. He was a changed man. There was a latent hostility, and I didn’t know if it was directed at me, at the world in general, or at the TBA.
At one point just before the City took the administrative funds away; William and his wife began to show their teeth by helping the city department defund TBA. As mentioned before, up to this point I didn’t know what it was that bothered them, maybe I had said something, maybe they wanted the TBA to go in a different direction even before I came back? Could he have hoped for him or his wife to get the job of director? His bitterness was first manifested when he insinuated that if he applied for a Rehab Grant, he should get it because he and his wife were both minorities, but he refused to reveal his income. He hinted several times that his wife could do a better job as a staff member of the TBA than some of the people we had, but I don’t know if that was a need for employment or a desire for more influence and control in the running of the TBA.
Internal power struggles develop in every human undertaking. And I know I attract my own share of resentment and enemies, because I speak my mind, and I am not smart enough to know when to keep quiet. I assumed it was due to something I had said but not by intent. He went to work.
One day I got a call from the Tucson newspaper, ‘Arizona Daily Star’. It was a woman’s voice. She didn’t give me her name.
“Sir,” she said, “You are going to have a Board meeting tonight. I want to warn you that Mr. Williams - she called him by name - has called here to advise that the Board is going to fire you tonight, and the newspaper will be sending a reporter to the meeting.”
That was it. Wonderful news out of the blue. It is hard to interpret intent from a telephone voice from someone you don’t know, but I was pretty sure it came from a friendly supporter calling without authorization or calling on behalf of a higher up who sympathized with us, or with me. Where was Danny Cross in all of this? He was not at that night’s meeting. It could have been him, or it could have been done behind his back.
At the very beginning of the meeting, I addressed Bertha as Chair. Bertha was sitting across the table from me, and next to her right, was Williams. Two chairs to her left was a young reporter who had introduced herself the moment she came in, asking if it were okay for her to attend the meeting. She was welcomed by everyone.
“Bertha,” I said, “Before we start the meeting, if it is okay, I want to do a Reality Check, starting with you and going on to your left. I got a call from the Newspaper early today, saying that they had heard from a Board Member (I didn’t say who) that I was going to be fired tonight. Do you know anything about the attempt to get me fired?”
“No, not at all. Who would say that?”
Then I pointed to the next board member to her left, leaving Williams for last, “What about you?”
“No. No knowledge of any such thing,”
“And you?”
“No.”
So, I went around the table until I got to William’s wife, she was three seats away from Bertha, so that would have left one more person and then William himself. Nine “no’s” then those two and one more to go. Until that moment no one had expressed any knowledge of any such intent by any board member.
Then, after saying she didn’t make the call, Mrs. Williams diverted the conversation, so the question would not be asked of her husband, but by then, with only two people left, everyone knew who had made the call to the papers, so she ended up by saying, “We are wasting too much time with this, let’s get the meeting started.”
Bertha looked at me, and I nodded to go ahead with the meeting. Anyone who serves on boards should know that if you want to make a motion and have it passed, you must count the votes beforehand. Obviously, neither Williams nor his wife knew how to do that. But the reporter did. She had relaxed, leaned back, and prepared herself for a pleasant but wasted night, for her purpose for being there had been exposed as bogus and no longer existed. The issue, or no hint of any dissatisfaction by anyone ever came up that night. We never had another reporter come to a meeting nor my position questioned again. Another possibility was that there was no expectation of a vote, the intent was only to get an article published showing a conflicting board with unresolved allegations. My actions, a kind of ‘reality check’, made that impossible, for I was the only one who could be quoted on that none-issue about my own demise. Reality Check flushes out blatant unilateral power-players from those who care. It would stop the Al Sharpton’s of the world.
When asked later if I knew who had made the call, I repeated word for word, including the name, what the person from the newspaper had told me. William and his wife lost all credibility and at the next board meeting, without my knowledge, a motion was made and passed that no two members of the same family could serve on the board. Given a choice, they chose for his wife to leave the board. I wish he had left as well. It is always good to have some dissent in every group, but not destructive evil intent, which is not the same as differences of opinions, or competition.
Another new comer with a reversal of heart I’ll call Rodriguez. He was American claiming Mexican descent, and a somewhat well-known artist who painted colorful quaint Mexican villages, houses, children, and women in cultural costumes. At first friendly and supportive, he worked his way onto the Board. He was always in an economic crisis. To help him I bought a painting from him when I barely had any money myself. He said he was giving it to me at a big discount from his normal price of thousands. He was renting from Kelly Rollins. Later, he stopped paying his rent and was evicted. At one point he confided that the two Anglo males who were living next door to him were dealing in cocaine, for he could see and hear people coming at all times of day and night to buy from them. I told him I could not do anything from hearsay. He needed to get some proof. He never did. He often invited people over to his house, and frequently spoke about having given a painting to the U.S. President. He bragged about having friends in the FBI. One day, after many of us had been talking about the hard time the City’s Development Department was giving us, he came to me and said, “I know people in the FBI. I can get them to open an investigation on Dan Benitez and we’ll probably get rid of him that way.”
“No thanks.” I said, “That would not be proper.”
Days later he came for another personal loan and offered to give me the title to his car as collateral. I gave him the loan and accepted the title. By then, I had once more taken a job in construction. My financial condition had improved, and I had a little spare money, but his financial condition did not improve, and as I was still holding the title of his car, he turned against the TBA and began a series of attacks that made no sense to any of us. Almost everyone on the board was baffled by his behavior. Now thinking back, drugs and money may have had something to do with it, but who could be offering him money to do what he did?
The small group of ten, of which I have identified six so far including Rodriguez and his wife, although his wife did not participate in any manner at all, continued to lobby the council members against the TBA, and always against me especially. The two people dealing drugs that Rodriguez had pointed out were two others in the opposition group, and not the artist in the restored little church but his boyfriend yes, was another one[xli].
In this world, good and evil is not always clear-cut, but it is always present. Sometimes we need to step back and consider the full picture; then decide whether we are standing with the good forces. Rule for Freedom # 3 “Clean your own house first.” You wonder if drinking coffee helps you make the right choices, for I did do a lot of introspection. There could be some truth in their opposition. But then, consider Rule # 13, “… make sure you are not fighting the wrong war…” Subsequently, compare it to Rules for Radicals #13, “Pick the target, freeze it, personalize it, and polarize it. Cut off the support network and isolate the target from sympathy. Go after people and not institutions; people hurt faster than institutions.” Awful!, so sometimes you do need to fight fire with fire.