by Special to El Paso Matters, El Paso Matters
December 19, 2025

By David Stout

The year 2025 has been one of significant challenges for our community. Across Texas, counties like ours continue to face state interference, including increasing unfunded mandates that strain local budgets. 

El Paso County Commissioner David Stout

Programs like Operation Lone Star and the 287(g) agreement under SB 8 cost local taxpayers millions while doing little to solve real problems. At the federal level, the Trump administration’s agenda continues to threaten immigrants, families and the communities that contribute every day to the strength of our city.

For more than three decades, Texas has served as a blueprint for restrictive governance. Unfunded mandates, voter suppression, and punitive approaches to public services have shaped the state’s priorities. At the same time, our community has become a blueprint for how to organize, resist, and fight back. 

Here in El Paso, we show that when neighbors come together, collaborate, and lead with values, we can overcome obstacles imposed from above. Our city demonstrates that resilience, connection and shared purpose are more powerful than top-down politics. 

Even in the face of these pressures, 2025 has been a year of meaningful progress. Voter-approved bonds are already transforming our parks, including Ascarate Park, with $30 million dedicated to upgraded trails, lake enhancements, festival spaces, and new picnic and shade structures all shaped by community input. Across the county, strategic planning efforts are aligning resources, strengthening services and setting a long-term framework that ensures local decision making meets real community needs.  

The Precinct 2 office has advanced initiatives that directly enhance quality of life. The Office of New Americans expanded pathways for naturalization and language access. The Healthy Food Financing Initiative brings nutritious and affordable food to neighborhoods long overlooked. Our strategic, community driven approach to the opioid crisis, funded with both settlement and county resources, has led to more than a 50% reduction in overdose deaths, expanded rehabilitative supports and secured millions in additional grant funding. 

Our office’s leadership also extends to work in areas such as the arts, infrastructure, and cross border collaboration. The County Arts Advisory Committee is supporting public art and creative projects, enhancing local culture and tourism. Through the Binational Policy Roundtable, we are establishing permanent structures for collaboration with Chihuahua on economic development, public health and infrastructure priorities. Advocacy on projects like the Bridge of the Americas port renovation has ensured long term improvements that balance community health, safety and economic growth. 

In 2025, our office passed key policies, convened dozens of meetings and engaged directly with residents at over 100 community events. We testified for community centered legislation like expanded youth access to drug courts and against harmful election restrictions in the Legislature. These accomplishments reflect the power of participatory governance and the impact of leadership guided by values. 

These accomplishments demonstrate that local leadership, shared values and community participation drive real progress. Where state and federal politics create obstacles, our community responds with solutions. Where policies threaten to divide, we focus on connection. In El Paso, collaboration, compassion and commitment are not just ideals, they are the foundation of measurable, meaningful change. 

As we look to 2026, our vision is clear: to build a community where every family can thrive, where essential services are strong and where opportunity is accessible to all. Despite the challenges imposed by Gov. Abbott, the Legislature or Trump extremist policies, we remain committed to resilience, thoughtful governance and shared responsibility. 

We dream of a county where decision making is truly participatory, where neighbors have a voice in shaping the programs, policies, and investments that affect their daily lives. From the parks we enjoy, to the public health services we rely on, to the programs that support families and youth, your engagement will continue to drive our progress. El Paso is strongest when residents participate, advocate and work together. 

The year 2026 will bring new challenges, but also new opportunities to demonstrate what community centered, values driven leadership can achieve. With your continued collaboration, we will keep building a county that reflects our shared priorities, respects every resident and proves that El Paso is a model of possibility, innovation and resilience.

This <a target=”_blank” href=”https://elpasomatters.org/2025/12/19/el-paso-opinion-county-bond-ascarate-park-david-stout/”>article</a> first appeared on <a target=”_blank” href=”https://elpasomatters.org”>El Paso Matters</a> and is republished here under a <a target=”_blank” href=”https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nd/4.0/”>Creative Commons Attribution-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License</a>.<img src=”https://i0.wp.com/elpasomatters.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/01/cropped-epmatters-favicon2.png?resize=150%2C150&amp;ssl=1″ style=”width:1em;height:1em;margin-left:10px;”>

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