The news broke last week that our new baseball team is considering an agreement with the county to lease 600 of the 800 parking spaces in our county parking garage for use by the ball park’s game day employees.
Some reports indicated that the parking spaces were wanted for game days, while others led us to believe that they were wanted only after hours and on Saturday game days.
Bankruptcy
Granted that I know little about operating a ball park, I am hard pressed to believe that the team will employ 600 extra employees for each game. With ball park capacity somewhere around 9,000 that would mean that they had one extra employee (beyond the full time employees) for every 15 spectators.
If that is the case then either the per spectator income will have to be very high or the ball team will not make a profit.
More likely to me is that the team may want 600 spaces so that they can resell them to spectators, presumably at a profit.
Citizen inconvenience
Leasing the county spaces to the team could lead to significant inconvenience to those that need to go to the county building. If that happens I suspect the the public outcry will be significant.
County staff evidently called a meeting to discuss the situation. The baseball team officials did not show up.
Draw your own conclusions as to why. Are they not used to doing business in public, or are they having second thoughts about what might happen?
We deserve better
Brutus
elpasospeak 
I think by now everybody (that is, we peons) should be getting the message that when it’s time for that first pitch of any and every game in the Southwest University Ballpark, we all need to lay down our prayer rugs or find the nearest soft or grassy spot, get down on our knees, face in the direction of the park, and pay homage.
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I will be staying away from the “house that Joyce built” because of all the back room deals that were made to benefit our more wealthy brethren. I’m a huge sports fan, but I refuse to support this group of owners based on principle. Had the owners and council handled this process openly, I’d feel differently. To me, they have lowered themselves to bottom feeders.
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Ditto!
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Ditto
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I will be watching the elected and city hall whores who show up and who they are sitting with, I.e., who bought their tickets.
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We are not going to be the only ones “staying away” from the ballpark, most people in El Paso won’t be able to afford this luxury. I would like to see the marketing study which indicates that the ballpark will be profitable.
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The ballpark will never be profitable, but Mountainstar will make a bundle using an asset paid for by the taxpayers and leased to Mountainstar on ridiculously one-sided terms. Just the Southwest University income alone is more than double the annual lease payments.
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you watch, mountainstar will make a bundle on leasing the stadium for boxing matches and concerts. their rent doesnt increase because of it and the city wont make a dime on something our grandchildren will still be paying for when they are our age.
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It’s very obvious that City officials ignored the marketing study, there are no jobs in El Paso and the existing jobs do not pay enough. Eventually more people are going to have to leave El Paso to get a job and pay less property taxes. We don’t have to be highly educated to know that City officials will not be able to balance future budgets, by then it will be too late. Unfortunately, corrupted officials can destroy a city, just look at Juarez.
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Sad El Pasoan — We don’t have to look at Juarez. We’re now living in North Juarez.
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And don’t forget to wave at our elected officials in the bribery suites above the peons.
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Regardless who gets the monies from the meters, the increase is being proposed because of the ballpark, making the new AAA baseball team the “gift” that keeps on taking.
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The baseball team officials did not show up for the meeting. Why should they? No need. Woody and Paul already have plenty of people in city and county government willing to represent their interests without they themselves running the risk of having to answer questions.
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Funny how “Sunshine Bob” Moore cannot write or get one of his minions to write even a single paragraph about how this opaque process happened. Of course, if he did, he would not only expose his organization as a co-conspirator, but also expose his newspaper once and for all as the hypocritical bunch of one-step-above-high-school non reporters that they real are.
We deserve better indeed, yet the English language press in this town have their collective noses so far up the rear ends of the power brokers that they cannot possibly be objective.
For once, on a Sunday Edition, above the fold instead of an article talking about how the lights in the new stadium now turn on when given electricity (WOW!) we could see an article about the TOTAL cost to the tax payers, including the moves, the over runs, the relocations, the oops we forgot to pay for this, the rewirings that this boondoggle has cost taxpayers.
Come on Sunshine Bob! Play ball!
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Yep, and Times reporter Cindy Ramirez, the hack who constantly shills for downtown, made a totally inappropriate snide, editorial comment on her official Twitter coverage today, saying “Rep Holguin ran away” after today’s city council meeting “to avoid media interviews.” Even if he did, her choice of words proves her bias and that she is inserting her opinion into what is supposed to be news coverage in an effort to portray Holguin negatively. She is a poor excuse for a reporter. If Moore doesn’t hold his reporters accountable for this kind of stuff, it will only get worse.
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well, that means people will park further away and have more of a chance to get hit by a juarez stray bullet, get stuck with a needle by a homeless drug user, or ran over by a drunk billy abraham.
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With 74% of the citizens against this ballpark, WHY would anyone PAY (Southwest University) to put their name on it and show that THEY are for something that is NOT a responsible project and takes advantage of property taxpayers who where lied to and cheated?
If anything, I will not do business with any firm advertising at the Southwest University Ballpark.
WHY would ANY BUSINESS have anything to do with them?
I, and will suggest to others, to not spend any money at places that do advertising at the ballpark. They are supporting a dishonest project and corrupt business brought about by ill gain and fraud.
Are you listening Dick Poe and Casa Ford?
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Here is the facebook for Southwest University if you want to tell them What you think about their involvement in the ballpark.
https://www.facebook.com/SouthwestUniversityatElPaso
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Do you really think Southwest “University,” which feeds off of government-subsidized student loans, cares what anyone thinks? Anyone other than the Fosters and Hunts that is.
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