Take a look at this page on the city web site. The page shows a few of the legal bills that the city has been incurring.
Four invoices show $199 thousand worth of charges in 2012 from a Dallas law firm. The bills have to do with “Sports Stadium Analysis/Financing”.
The requesting attorney appears to be a member of our local Paso Del Norte Group even though his law firm’s web page says he is based in Dallas.
I don’t know anything about the complexities or legal challenges that would relate to financing a ball park but am surprised that this would cost so much especially when we wasted $14 million because of timing.
Citizen Supression
Three different invoices on the same web page show the city spending $49,521.89 with a San Antonio law firm last year to represent the city relating to “Voter Initiative Petition”, “Open Records Requests”, and a lawsuit that I believe was about the voter initiative petition.
You should note that the law firm invoice referred to the petitions as an “initiative” even though our most recent former mayor claims that the petitions were for a “referendum”.
We deserve better
Brutus
elpasospeak 
Nearly $200 grand for Sports Stadium analysis/financing and they also spent on other expert consultants and still didn’t get it right?
All these people think giving bad/inaccurate/incomplete “expert” advice is perfectly OK??? I certainly don’t and I think they should all be held accountable … maybe even sued or fined for incompetence or malpractice or something along those lines. Instead we hold onto them and pay them for more advice..
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What’s up with the City’s use of all these out of town law firms? We have some highly qualified law firms right here in El Paso and their rates are a hell of a lot lower than Fulbright & Jaworski, yet the City used a very expensive out of town firm.
This is a pattern. Our leaders make a lot of noise about supporting local businesses and helping the El Paso economy, yet millions of dollars flow to out-of-town companies, even for things like legal services. Monies that would flow back into our economy and help to create jobs if spent with local firms.
I can’t help but feel that Fulbright was selected partly to help maintain secrecy. It also wouldn’t surprise me to learn that Fulbright also does work Hunt and Foster companies.
My question is: how do hundreds of thousands of dollars related to a specific capital project get spent without city council approval? I would bet that these expenditures were not brought before City council.
Is our city attorney also trying to cozy up with these out of town firms to pave the way for his or her next job? Just a question.
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