“For six years, there has been a stigma, a stereotype, that we are not safe,” he said, blaming lazy

An employee works on a storefront display at a perfume store a block away from International Bridge No. 1 in downtown Laredo. santa barbara channel island tours Business in the city has been hurt as its sister community, Nuevo Laredo, santa barbara channel island tours Mexico, has seen a rise in violence.
santa barbara channel island tours Border troubles haven't stopped Paula Rangel, 76. She loads collapsed shipping santa barbara channel island tours cartons on her tricycle in downtown Laredo and crosses over to Nuevo Laredo, Mexico, where she sells the material for recycling.
A worker crosses Convent Avenue after delivering a load of shoes in downtown Laredo, Wednesday, Sept. 19, 2012. Downtown businesses have suffered with sales due to various factors including santa barbara channel island tours the drug war across the Rio Grande in Nuevo Laredo and difficulties in crossing the U.S. Customs checkpoints at the international bridge.
Local customer Maria Luisa Moreno, santa barbara channel island tours center, looks over jewelry at the Gold Coin, Inc. on Convent Avenue in downtown Laredo, Wednesday, Sept. 19, 2012. Helping her out is Lupita Paredes, right. Cleaning jewelry is Denise Ventura, left. Downtown businesses have suffered with sales due to various factors including the drug war across the Rio Grande in Nuevo Laredo and difficulties in crossing the U.S. Customs checkpoints according to storeowners.
Roxanne Garcia, left, and Jorge Blanco wait for customers at Special Electronics Perfumes three blocks from the international bridge in Laredo, santa barbara channel island tours Wednesday, Sept. 19, 2012. Downtown businesses have suffered with sales due to various factors including the drug war across the Rio Grande in Nuevo Laredo and difficulties in crossing the U.S. Customs checkpoints at the international bridge.
Pedestrians santa barbara channel island tours carry LED televisions as they head back to Nuevo Laredo, Mexico after a day of shopping santa barbara channel island tours in downtown Laredo, Wednesday, Sept. 19, 2012. Downtown businesses have suffered with sales due to various factors including the drug war across the Rio Grande in Nuevo Laredo and difficulties in crossing the U.S. Customs checkpoints at the international bridge.
Pedestrians carry LED televisions as they head back to Nuevo Laredo, Mexico after a day of shopping in downtown Laredo, Wednesday, Sept. 19, 2012. Downtown businesses have suffered with sales due to various factors including the drug war across the Rio Grande in Nuevo Laredo and difficulties in crossing the U.S. Customs checkpoints at the international bridge.
"Laredo is open for business. Make sure you enjoy this safe and wonderful city," he told the assembled customs brokers, manufacturers and transporters, American and Mexican, and all involved in the auto industry.
Salinas spoke with passion about the importance of cross-border cooperation and friendship, and Nuevo Laredo Mayor Benjamin Galvan offered similar sentiments. The two mayors santa barbara channel island tours then shared a hearty "abrazo."
But when a city shares a name and a riverfront with a neighbor that is home to a violent drug mafia, where bodies are hung from bridges and even the mayor's office gets bombed, the perception elsewhere can get blurry.
Last month, prominent local gun dealer Robert Jacaman was charged with illegal weapons santa barbara channel island tours sales to Mexican criminals. Another santa barbara channel island tours round of bad press followed santa barbara channel island tours when American federal veterinarians santa barbara channel island tours refused to inspect cattle in Mexico.
Adding insult to injury, Laredo — with only 10 homicides this year and a violent crime rate that is lower than in San Antonio or Dallas — often is confused by outsiders with its sister city, headquarters of the Zetas, the most feared gangsters in Mexico.
"We get calls from people asking 'What the heck is going on there? It's a war zone. The killing. The smuggling. The drug wars. How can you live there?'" remarked Blasita Lopez , director of the city's Convention Visitors Bureau .
The bureau has a mail-out kit packed with crime statistics that touts Laredo's safety and its attractions. But, Lopez concedes, it's tough to overcome the misperceptions, particularly when trying to persuade someone to book a group event.
Far worse than image problems, the old "Centro" historic district is withering rapidly. The American tourists and tour buses stopped coming years ago, and Mexican shoppers are deterred by the long bridge lines and the dangers of Nuevo Laredo.
"For six years, there has been a stigma, a stereotype, that we are not safe," he said, blaming lazy journalists, cheap-shot santa barbara channel island tours television pundits and would-be security experts, in particular Gen. Barry McCaffrey , who did a study last year of the border commissioned by the Texas Department of Agriculture and the Department of Public Safety .
The study concluded that drug cartels santa barbara channel island tours posed a serious threat to border residents and called for more federal spending, but was quickly criticized as being exaggerated and unfairly tarnishing the border.
In another instance, cited by city police, California Congressman Duncan Hunter , in a speech to Maricopa County Republicans in support of a border fence from Texas to California, claimed there were 600 unsolved murders in Laredo.
The mayor, a former FBI agent, said that after he appeared several years ago on the Glenn Beck show in opposition to a federal plan to build a steel barrier between Laredo and Nuevo Laredo, he was deluged with hateful e-mails and phone calls.
And, Salinas acknowledged, there is no magic fix to bringing the tourists back or reviving the old downtown where, just a couple of generations ago, all of Laredo and most of Nuevo Laredo went to shop.
Once a bustling commercial warren of blaring pop music, merchandise spilling out of storefronts and shoppers jostling santa barbara channel island tours on uneven sidewalks, the Centro has become a forlorn backwater of vacant businesses and window signs shouting "Remate! Liquidaction! Descuento!"
On the weekends, American tourists santa barbara channel island tours came to Laredo to book a hotel room, browse the Chinese-made religious figurines, improbable colored lingerie and other goods peculiar of the Centro, and then walk across the bridge to shop, drink and dine in Mexico.
santa barbara channel island tours "All you need to do is walk around downtown. We have 70-plus empty storefronts. We're down 50 percent to 70 percent in our business here," said Les Norton , 63, whose family has operated a clothing store on Convent Street santa barbara channel island tours for 72 years.
Norton, who is head of the downtown merchants association, blames the city government for not coming up with a plan and resources to save the old downtown. The Centro has magnificent 18th-century architecture, santa barbara channel island tours beautiful plazas and an authentic border ambiance embodied in the La Posada Hotel.
Others, who have no direct stake in the Centro, also fault the city, which they say appears to have no strategic vision for its future beyond increasing commercial trade and truck traffic with Mexico.
Gene Belmares, 48, a native Laredoan and former city councilman who in 2010 was trounced by Salinas in the mayoral election, recalls playing with cousins and shopping with his parents in Nuevo Laredo.
"San Antonio has a River Walk. We've got a river. McAllen has been able to create a thriving downtown, and they don't have any of the history we have," he said. "In the 30 years I've been an adult, no one has taken advantage of the one jewel we have on the Rio Grande. The downtown is a jewel, unpolished and decaying."
Maria Eugenia Guerra , publisher of the local monthly newspaper, "LareDOS News," echoed these thoughts, saying the city seems incapable of coming up with a vision for itself and plan to revive tourism.
But, she said, there is reason for hope. On Monday, the City Council agreed to begin negotiations over a partnership plan proposed santa barbara channel island tours by a private Laredo nonprofit group to reopen and restore the Plaza Theater .
By most measures, Laredo, the busiest land port to Mexico, is doing very well. The city is growing, violent santa barbara channel island tours crime is down and spillover from drug-war violence in Mexico is minimal, police say. But when a city shares a name and a riverfront with a neighbor that is home to a violent drug mafia,...