There they go again.
The city wants to lease a parking lot for either the new city hall or the 801 Texas building. Either way they did not tell us the truth.
This is really pretty simple.
On September 14, 2012 the city chief financial officer made a presentation to city council and to the public. This was to try to convince us to move city hall. The plan was to move into a few buildings. It was all figured out.
The main part of city staff would move into the Times building and its parking lot. One lot, singular, not two lots. The building was in great shape, needed “minimal” improvements and the lot could handle our parking needs.
The city subsequently bought the building and has spent a lot of money remodeling it. They got their parking lot too.
Now do they want another parking lot for the Times building — or do they want it for the 801 Texas building that we were told in the same presentation had ample parking?
Step one:
- Start with the same presentation from the city’s chief financial officer.
- You can see the page here 801TexasParkingPortrait
- The chief financial officer told us that the building had “ample customer parking in city-owned lot and streets”. Ample is defined as “
enough or more than enough; plentiful”.
Step two:
- Next Tuesday’s (January 29, 2013) city council agenda has as item 14 “Discussion and action that the City Manager be authorized to sign a Lease of Property by and between the City of El Paso and Union Pacific Railroad Company for approximately 43,800 square feet on Mills St., between N. Ochoa St. and N. Virginia St., El Paso, Texas, the property to be used primarily for City employee/visitor parking.”
- The lease, with it’s automatic 3% price increase per year, comes to over $611 thousand.
We were told that if we bought the building, parking was “ample”. Now they need to lease an acre of land two blocks over.
The told us that they needed to buy one parking lot with the Times building. They did. They told us that the 801 Texas building had ample parking. They want yet another parking lot now that the other purchases have been approved.
That’s another $611 thousand that we should add to the cost of the move. My numbers come to over $66 million and raising for a project that we were told would cost $33 million.
Will city council speak up? Will they remember? Are some of them part of the lie?
Is this deliberate lying or is it gross negligence? Either way —
We deserve better
Brutus
elpasospeak 
Brutus, these are the same “city planners” and fuzzy math geniuses who have said that the new stadium will not create any downtown traffic problems, that the stadium will pay for itself, and that the $40 per person expenditure they used in their revenue projections is affordable family entertainment. That’s $160 for a family of four in a town with low-paying jobs. It’s also going to get really interesting when people attending games and events discover they cannot park at the stadium, and must instead park off site.
So now Brutus, who pray tell, owns the parking lot the city now wants to lease? Who will be the next benefactor of the taxpayers’ largesse?
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Dear Brutus,
My apologies. When I read your post the first time, I totally missed the fact that you named Union Pacific Railroad as the owner of the property the City wishes to lease for additional parking. I guess it’s because I was seeing red.
I can’t help but wonder if this parking is really for employees and visitors or if it is instead to provide more ballpark parking. Also, I recall that one side of ballpark is designed to fit very close to or actually on top of the Union Pacific tracks. Is the rental of this land being done to compensate Union Pacific for certain waivers the city needs in order to build the park?
If our city leaders were more forthright and honest, we wouldn’t be spending time trying to figure out why they’re doing the things they are doing, especially when they’re doing things inconsistent with the plan they sold to the public.
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