DOUGLAS MUNGIN: So what does community mean to you?

KEVIN FONDEL SR.: When you look at a community, Sasol, Conoco is a part of this community. A very important part of this community. Without them there probably wouldn’t be a community. Because, you know, jobs are important. I mean I worked at . . . for L&G plant, you know. So if you don’t have jobs, you don’t have the means for a person to make a living then. But there got to be that medium where everybody can be satisfied. And that’s what I think. I’m not against all this. I’m not against it. But it’s a sadness anytime you lose something.

The most important thing I want people to remember is that when you drive down Old Spanish Trail, you may . . . This community center may still be here, the swimming pool and all that, but there were people here, too. A lot of African American people were here. And I think this is one of the communities that survived after slavery after . . . during Reconstruction and all that. It didn’t grow as big as some of the other communities, but they were here, you know. And one of these days, when you drive down here, you’re going to see a fence. An eight foot fence with that wire, that razor wire all around it. But at one time they had people living there. And that’s not a bad thing I don’t think. I’m not trying to say it’s a bad thing, but it is what it is. And hopefully that some of these jobs that they bringing in will trickle down to some of the people living in this area. Because one thing that I’ve noticed . . . I’m not trying to point no finger at nobody, I don’t know why, but a lot of times when economic boom happens, it don’t necessarily happen for the people that it affect the most. And that’s the sadness that I see in it. Now it may be because that person didn’t assert his self to get that job or whatever, but that’s the only thing that I pray that we all prosper from this. Not just a select few.