The latest baseball park bond resolution from city council (sitting as the Downtown Development Corporation) authorized the sale of $60.8 million of bonds at an interest rate not to exceed 5.75%.
You might remember that this is needed to finance our $50 million ball park that now is costing north of $64 million.
This article in El Paso Inc. showed that the ball park costs are continuing to rise and that we should expect even more.
Creative financing
If I am wrong here I trust that someone will set me straight.
City staff explained that the $60.8 million of bonds will actually generate $64 million. The extra $3.2 million will be used for contingencies — in other words they will spend it. Even if they don’t we will pay interest on it.
How can they get away with $64 million when they were only allowed $60.8 million? The answer is simple and sneaky. Staff left some room in the amount of interest they can pay. What they will do is pay more interest than would normally be necessary for this type of municipal bond. In return they will get a $3.2 million dollar windfall. Don’t worry, we can pay for it over time. In fact they changed from a 25 year term to a 30 year term. Quite simply they are using time and high interest rates thus raising the total cost to the community without being up front about it.
The article explained:
As for the new $64-million figure, Wilson said the sale of $60.8 million in municipal revenue bonds will actually generate an additional $3 million because they will be premium bonds. Those bonds will pay a higher interest rate, and investors will be willing to pay more
The city’s chief financial officer, Carmen Arrieta Candelaria, said the use of premium bonds is common when interest rates are too low to make conventional municipal bonds less attractive.
That last sentence does sound like the kind of nonsense that comes from this group.
Even more ominous is their admission that more issues will be coming up soon that will have to be taken to council.
We deserve better
Brutus
elpasospeak 
Mountainstar attorney Mark Osborn made it clear that they expect there to be other cost issues related to the ballpark. When asked for insight into what those issues might be, Joyce Wilson dodged the question by simply said the city wouldn’t have to worry about it.
Once again, city management has information regarding problems and financial risk and it is not sharing that information with the public or even city council for that matter. The dealings between city management and Mountainstar are not transparent. This entire ballpark process is a charade. It’s just a game to them and there is only one intended winner — Mountainstar.
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Wilson is suppose to give all information pertaining to the ball park to Mayor Leeser per the change of control 3 weeks ago during council meeting. Nothing has changed. I know the Mayor is not responsible for this mess but when he comes out and says “that he isn’t happy how the previous administration conducted this whole ball park deal but we can’t stop it now.” What he seems to not realize is that from the previous administration he still has Niland, Noe, Lilly Morgan, Wilson, Candelaria and Firth. They all are responsible for the ballpark deal.
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The people I feel sorry for are the new mayor and council members who are voting on items regarding the new stadium that they weren’t even responsible for. These individuals are having to make lemonade out of lemons that were dumped in their laps. They certainly can’t go backwards and rebuild City Hall, research a good location for the new stadium, etc. That whole process was totally botched by the previous mayor, council, and city manager. Now our new folks are left with the job of cleaning up the mess left by our previous inept administration.
I am particularly interested when we will get to see the personal emails that may reveal underhanded dealings to get the city hall building destroyed and the new stadium started. Culpability must be ascertained and justice handed out to those who made such a mess out of this issue. I still wonder if Joyce Wilson is the kingpin who pushed this catastrophe thru, and yet she sits untainted as our city manager.
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She is. Remember three weeks ago when Holguin was aggressively asking Wilson who she works for Mountainstar or city of el paso. She kept saying the city. I have an email in her own words, “I am committed to a successful public/private partnership and have supported your efforts in every way that has been have requested. While I and the City have maintained an arms-length-distance from the work of the committee, I have communicated regularly with Eddie Rodriguez and shared updates on our efforts and progress, and responded to any requests made of me.”
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