An alert reader contacted me about Economic decline hurts El Paso airport an article in The El Paso Times.
According to the article airport traffic is down 15 percent since 2010 and there is fear that if the Wright Amendment expires in October 2014 as it is expected to things will get worse.
El Paso benefited because the Wright Amendment required that Southwest Airlines stop over in a Texas city like El Paso for some long flights that could have been non-stop.
The article also explained that the tax our airport charges airlines for each passenger is “well below the national average” and that “officials” (whoever they are) want to increase incentives from us to the airlines.
Low taxes and incentives? I guess that we are not all that attractive without a little lipstick.
From the standpoint of economic growth losing flights will hurt our ability to attract new businesses to the area. Transplanted executives often enjoy getting out of town to enjoy what they consider to be a better quality of life.
Now to the point
Remember the Hotel Occupancy Tax increase that the voters approved to pay for most of the ball park? The deal was that the taxpayers would pay whatever portion of the costs that the tax increase could not cover.
Now we learn that “officials” have known that our airport traffic is declining. They knew it when they told us that they could get someone else to pay for the ball park. We were told that council was going to build the ball park and tear down city hall regardless of how we voted.
Now another deception is exposed.
Get out your wallet.
We deserve better
Brutus
elpasospeak 
Here’s something else to think about. There was a (very) short posting on both kdbc and ktsm websites informing us that city council, in a ‘special’ meeting Thursday, April 25, voted to build the new million dollar soccer stadium (November quality of life bonds) on county – not city – lands in far, far east El Paso. So it looks like we are providing to the county, with city tax payer monies…..
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On paying for the ballpark: state law prohibits the payment of professional sports facilities by taxpayers. So your statement that taxpayers will pick up the cost not met by the hotel tax cost is inaccurate.
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El Pasoan,
I understand your point but believe that part of the election was to declare the ball park a “venue” which may have removed the restriction.
I do know that presentations from the city explained that the HOT tax would pick up a large part of the bill and that the local taxpayers would have to pay for the rest.
Brutus
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Why was it that the baseball stadium absolutely positively had to be built downtown, yet it’s supposedly a good idea for the soccer stadium (the most popular of the two sports in our area) to be built the far east? The Cohen Stadium location, a more central location, could have also been redeveloped for soccer.
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