New and de-proved was about the airport using a 1% growth rate in car rentals compared to the 6.1% shortfall that the city is experiencing with hotel occupancy taxes this year.
The February numbers for the airport show a 6.2% decrease in passenger traffic from last year. Freight is down 11.4%.
Last week the city revealed that they project city revenues to fall short of budget by 7.35 million dollars. With hotel occupancy taxes down the city will eventually have to dip into the general fund to pay for the ball park.
Home foreclosures in February doubled over last year. New home building permits are falling short of budget by 28.54%.
The Wright amendment is set to expire later this year. We should see fewer airline flights from Southwest Airlines as they will then be able to bypass El Paso on their way to the west coast.
Contracting
We are not growing economically. None of us know how long this will last or how bad the situation will get.
Isn’t it time that we get the city’s finances aligned with reality?
We deserve better
Brutus
elpasospeak 
The same genius cooking, er running the city’s finances is also running the largest school district’s finances. Just so you know, in neither case is that person accountable to the voters.
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Not enough has been written about the dereliction of duty by our CFO, especially her rubber-stamping the Mountainstar numbers into kool-aid for the CC and voters to drink.
Our main political effort now needs to be erecting a financial firewall between the stadium and city before the stadium crowds out parks, libraries, museums and public safety. Don’t count on the CM and CFO to do this for us as they are not here to protect us; they are here to protect the Usual Suspects and have tied their futures to them. Really, there needs to be a mass housecleaning in city hall to purge it of the bureaucrats who have forgotten who they really are supposed to protect.
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I think most of the people in the city government are trying to do a good job, but the direction they are getting from management – the CM, her deputies, and some of the office directors – is the problem. The key is who is hired as the new CM and what s/he will do to clean house. Council in theory manages the whole thing, but we’ve seen how that plays out. Several of the Council members are completely insulated from consequences as term limits mean that the voters will not even get a chance to express their judgment of these reps’ performances.
Meantime, how erect a financial firewall between the stadium and the city? Would love to know how we can do that!
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Niland – the Barefoot Contessa – needs the “Ortega treatment” next election cycle, if she chooses to run. She is so bought-and-paid-for by Paul and Woody that the city is in danger of being “Nilandized” with Wilson’s help and turned over to their sponsors among the Usual Suspects.
The Gateway is just the beginning. You notice they don’t pick on the downtown wrecks owned by Rubin and Abraham but single out a few hapless Koreans to test the business model.
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I will frankly be surprised if she runs again. She, like members of Congress, probably already has assurances that she will be rewarded with business opportunities when she leaves office as a quid pro quo for doing the bidding of special interests while in office. Lest we forget that as proven by her own e-mails, she had private meetings with Mountainstar prior to the ballpark vote.
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Easy, just formalize that the city will strictly follow the terms of the bond indenture. An ordinance to this effect should do it. If the HOT doesn’t cover the bond payments, well they took a risk, too, and there is a partial default. But we do not play a shell game with city services to save the stadium. What happens next, happens. My guess is that the investors agree to renegotiate the terms. Who wants to own a stadium?
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Its just terrible that these elected or non-elected people can ruin a city without retribution. And firing is not retribution. If a person gets fired or is Voted Out in 4 years, so what. How does that FIX what they have done? They will just get another job or even move to another city.
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Criminals always leave evidence behind. All we need is the release of the emails.
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you can bet that any incriminating e-mails are long gone
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