Letter to the Texas Governor

RE: Citizen's Right to Petition that "No City Should be left Behind" by CPRIT.

As CPRIT is being restructured, The Coalition for the Reversal of Breast Cancer Mortality in African American Women (CRBCM), an IRS approved non profit Texan organization, and a responsible Citizen of this great state, would like to petition its Governor, influential Senators and the new Leaders at CPRIT to give El Paso finally a greater chance to participate in CPRIT's dream: Finding the cure for Cancer! We believe that until there is an overarching political will to meet the challenges of unfairness, disparity and gap in health care access, and the idea of the whole state of Texas, the participation in the CPRIT research funding program will remain fragmented and El Paso, once again, will be left behind.

Of the first almost one billion of dollars spent by CPRIT, less than one percent (1%) went to El Paso, the 6th City of Texas, population wise.  The research community in El Paso has been left perplexed. There is a growing sense that this city is being "left behind" despite its size!  It is not a contested fact that the major universities are located in the 3 major cities and have taken the lion share of CPRIT investments.  We call, however, for a deliberate political regional intent and approach by the Texas Government in order to balance and promote development across all of Texas.   We believe that a funded regional CPRIT office with focus on the WEST part of Texas will give us a better chance to participate in CPRIT efforts to reach the cure.  While it is true that most El Paso institutions could not have matching funds to benefit from some CPRIT projects, it turns out that even some of the beneficiaries of CPRIT funding in other cities, eventually never proved the existence of the promised matching funds, and El Paso missed out on false pretenses as it turned out!  
What we know for sure is that unless there is a political will to balance development in Texas and overcome the various disparities, the gap in development among cities will grow even more blatant!  This is the reason for our petition!   Even companies that were relocated to Texas as part of the CPRIT commercialization program, all flocked to Houston and Austin, (adding to the Houston  traffic). None of significance stayed in El Paso!  But El Paso is Texas, too!  A rise of El Paso's share in CPRIT funding to 5% would be an impressive achievement and is not too much to ask for the 6th City in Texas!

We call your attention to this matter, NO CITY SHOULD BE LEFT BEHIND IN TEXAS, and your will can make a difference, a regional approach is called for.

Sincerely yours,

for the CRBCM, an El Paso institution
Dr Kankonde,
Oncologist and CEO