The March 5, 2013 city council meeting had an update from the project engineer for the El Paso ball park.
Let me list a few of the items that caught my attention (in the order they were presented):
- They have already picked the concession firm — out of town company of course — locals need not apply
- The roof will be shiny copper — they should ask the nuns over at Loretto what happened when they built a chapel that was shiny copper
- El Paso Electric will have to move their 69,000 volt power lines to run on massive steel poles above Missouri Street — hopefully attractive power poles
- El Paso Water Utilities will handle the work and pay to redo the water and sewer lines in the area — thankfully that does not add to the cost of the ball park — it simply adds to the cost of our utility bills
- We need to buy airspace over the railway for people to walk into the ball park
- It turns out that we do not own all of the city hall site — the Union Pacific railroad owns part of the land and we kind of need to get the deed
- We evidently were clairvoyant last fall and paid the railroad to conduct various studies (vibration, noise, etc.) that will be needed — once again not part of the project cost, but part of our tax bill
- We are trying to buy the parking lot that we just leased from the railroad
- The railroad wants to buy or trade some city land to move the tracks near the Union Station so that the trains can run through town at 40 miles per hour
- The project manager hopes to have agreements with the railroad ready for city council some time in April. With the scheduled implosion date for city hall in early April it looks like the city is telling the railroad to charge whatever they want since we will be desperate for their cooperation. It would not look good if we could not get the ball park built after tearing down city hall just because we don’t have enoughk land to build the park.
- The railroad wants to close 10 rail crossings through town. Staff has not been specific about which ones. I doubt that citizen input will have much to do with this since the city desperately needs railroad help to build the ball park
- One half of Durango street will be closed
- Santa Fe street will be made smaller
- Missouri street will have to be changed to one-way going west
- Total crowd capacity will be near 10,000 counting the multiple types of seating
- The project manager is confident that traffic will not be a problem. One of the city representatives pointed out that an event he attended at the Plaza Theater with about 2,000 other people turned into a traffic “nightmare”. The city representative cautioned that simultaneous events at the Plaza Theater, the Civic Center, and the ball park would multiply the problems.
- We are not to worry because the city paid for a traffic study last year in preparation for this project — once again the taxpayers paid for the study, not the hotel occupancy tax that we were told would pay for the project
Many of these points deserve separate articles. I think I will wait for the facts to surface on various ones before I visit them again.
Please vote in May.
We deserve better
Brutus
elpasospeak 
Details shmetails ! How dare you degrade all of those Mensa members that make up our city government with facts, research and rational thinking. Why, according to that pompous pantload Steve Ortega, you’re just an “enemy of progress.” How is it that the dumbest town in america just keeps getting dumber? (sigh)
LikeLike
The traffic study was assigned to a traffic consulant that had a 2-year on call contract with the city – approved in 2011. That’s what the on-call engineering and architecture contracts are for. Nothing wrong there.
LikeLike