This week’s city council agenda includes an executive session item to consider the former mayor’s claim against the city for more than $700,000 in legal fees that he claims to have incurred.
He was the subject of a recall election that he chose to fight through the legal system instead of the ballot box. He won. Now he claims that city council got bad advice from his own city attorney’s office. His claim is that they caused him to accumulate more than $2.5 million in legal bills fighting the election.
On what?
The amount is absurd. Even if somehow this is a legitimate bill he clearly did not do his job managing his lawyers. The 2013 city budget for the El Paso city legal office is $3.1 million dollars for personal services (that amount does not include the money for the cases that they lose). There are 39 positions in the budget. How can this have cost $2.5 million? Why didn’t he fire the city attorney?
Principles
My recollection is that the former mayor has said that he took on the fight as a matter of principle. It seems to me that his position is that he is entitled to use taxpayer money to fight against letting the people vote on a matter. I have a hard time defending that argument.
Is he special?
Let’s for the moment say that he is precisely right. The city attorneys gave him bad (incomplete) advice. He actually did need to run up a $2.5 million dollar legal bill.
Does that mean that the taxpayers are entitled to financial relief when city staff wastes our money?
Or is he really special?
Now the former mayor tells us that wants to run for election to the office of Texas Land Commissioner. He wants to be the first El Pasoan elected to state-wide office. As a democrat. Is this campaign really just a ruse to raise campaign money? Will he now argue that his prior legal expenses are legitimate campaign expenses?
Let council hear from you
The city has a web site that allows you to send comments to the mayor and city representatives without leaving your name or email address. http://home.elpasotexas.gov/city-representatives/district-1/contact-district-1.php will get you to the district 1 representative. Change the two “district-1’s” to your district number to contact your representative. You can write to the mayor at http://home.elpasotexas.gov/mayor/feedback.php.
Take a moment to let them know what you think about this.
We deserve better
Brutus
elpasospeak 
How does he go from $700 grand to $2.5 million? Seems like this is a strategic move to fool city council into giving him the lesser amount and “saving” the city the remainder. You ask for the highest amount possible expecting that you can only get a percentage and hopefuly end up with the real amount that you need. Voila!
Anyway the winners in the end are the city lawyers, Firth, et.al., who have gotten away with at least a few million after all the legal shenanigans they’ve pulled to outdo the people of this city and deny us our democratic rights to a voice in our government.
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One minute he’s going to open a bar and restaurant. The next minute he wants to run for statewide office. And he’s always insisted that he is a talented musician and crooner. Cook appears to see himself as a many with many talents and options. As far as I am concerned, he can hawk beer and peanuts in the stands at the new ballpark to pay his legal bills. He can be the first guitar playing peanut hawker. If City Council bails him out, every last one of them should be thrown out.
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