Various past and present city officials are telling vastly different stories about how we got stuck with the $27 million bill because they failed to sell the ball park bonds when they could have.
People are lying.
Under the circumstances it seems to me that it would be appropriate for the city to subpoena them all for questioning.
We deserve better
Brutus
elpasospeak 
Brutus
They are to busy in the process of covering up. Then again if some authority would lean on Wilson and she thought she was going down she would sale them all down the river. They all know she is the weak link in all of this.
As for our D.A. what most do not understand is if and that is a great big if there was evidence to to prosecute our D.A. and his staff would have to recuse themselves. Then our D.A. could say I did not see or did I do anything.
Brutus they know the public in El Paso has the attention span of a gnat and if they hold out long enough you guys will just go away. They are banking on this fact.
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It is very obvious that Wilson, Niland, Byrd and Ortega are above the law. We, as taxpayers, would like to see “some authority” enforcing the law.
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Truth be known, this probably involves more than city officials. If one look at the amounts of money that were being funneled to certain campaigns that year and the sources of those contributions, one might suspect that both city officials and a few kingmakers in the public sector collectively conspired to delay the sale of the bonds. Special interests were working hard to try to make certain that their candidates were elected.
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I do not believe in Steve Ortega’s denial that he knew nothing about the ballpark bond delay. Polling done prior to declaring his run for mayor showed very little support. Something like 7%.
Ortega has a long and storied history of disregarding and circumventing laws. Delaying the bond sale or having a surrogate advocate on his behalf would be standard MO.
1. He was the ballpark point man on council for the Mountainstar group arranging meetings and keeping score of where the votes were in what amounted to walking quorums, leapfrogging, and straw polls. Even Wilson cautioned him in an email. See chucoleaks.
2. An email exchange between Ortega, Byrd and Niland shows they knew in Aug 2012 BEFORE the vote to approve the budget that revenues were not projected correctly due to Western Refinery. They said nothing before approving the budget and allowed the taxpayer to eat the financial “shortfall”
http://deepinsideelpaso.blogspot.com/2013/05/guilty-of-fiduciary-malfeasance-steve.html
3. In an email exchange on their personal emails it was apparent Ortega, Byrd, and Niland were somehow involved with the QOL bond PAC.
The false claim made on the PAC flyers that Seniors were tax exempt was promoted in an email exchange between Ortega, Byrd, and Niland.
NO ONE including Seniors is tax-exempt. The projected effect of the tax increase to pay for the bonds was TAX NEUTRAL for Seniors owning homes valued around $111K or less with the new senior exemption.
4. He conducted city business on his personal email and then refused to turn them over to the city. Ortega voted to use taxpayer money to hire outside attorneys to sue in order to either delay or avoid releasing his emails. Apparently the emails were somehow significant to his underwear.
5. It was common knowledge that Steve Ortega did not live in his district from at least Sept 2012 to the end of his term. His pals in the media even acknowledged the fact when questioned and refused to hold him accountable.
http://deepinsideelpaso.blogspot.com/2013/05/is-steve-ortega-holding-office.html
6. After publically stating he would not take campaign donations from Hunt or Foster because of his stadium vote he did.
His campaign reports were in need of amendments in what appeared to be an effort to not disclose donations from certain people prior to the election.
He even reported receiving $50K from Hunt and Foster after the runoff election.
http://deepinsideelpaso.blogspot.com/2013/06/ortega-campaign-fianance-report-debacle.html
http://deepinsideelpaso.blogspot.com/2014/06/steve-ortega-receives-late-contribution.html
http://deepinsideelpaso.blogspot.com/2013/05/did-steve-ortega-fail-to-report-7000-in.html
7. Ortega disregarded public sector employment prohibitions for elected officials in the City Charter and State law by teaching at EPCC while in office.
http://deepinsideelpaso.blogspot.com/2013/05/are-steve-ortega-el-paso-times.html
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