In a special city council meeting Monday, October 28, 2019 they will be changing the water park deal.
They do these things in special city council meetings to avoid exposure to the citizens.
They first plan to cancel the earlier agreement with Great Wolf.
Why? Probably because their plan to give Great Wolf 100% of the sales taxes collected near the water park was going to run into trouble because the water park was not really a convention center.
Now it is
Our Texas legislature passed house bill 4347 in their last session.
One of the things the bill did was to qualify facilities that have at least 4,000 square feet of meeting space as a convention center.
In the agreement being cancelled the city promised to give the developer up to $40 million if Texas decided that our facility did not qualify as a convention center and thus would not be able to get the sales taxes collected from facilities around the water park.
Now that the water park and its adjoining meeting room will qualify the city is off the hook.
We however are not so lucky.
The sales tax money from stores near the water park would normally go into our general fund.
Now they will be used to fund the privately owned water park.
We deserve better
Brutus
elpasospeak 
What a corrupt deal… Herrera claims that there will be an economic impact of $680 million over 10 years (works out to $188,333 per day…) with 500,000 visitors annually..or 1,370 every day. (All of them will have to leave the resort to shop or eat, as the money from reservations at GW will not stay in the city, given that it’s not a local business…Does the city staff actually believe this nonsense (nonsense on stilts!) or are they just playing a game?
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Just one big corrupt, criminal DemoRat politician empire, a Cartel running, ruining El Paso. Happiness is El Taxo in the rearview mirror. Sold my home of 30 years and moved out a month ago. A million memories with family, friends, a job there, a home. Not one regret of leaving, getting out of El Taxo. The politicians there are in the “job” for pay-offs, bribes, getting rich. They do absolutely nothing for the PEOPLE. Tax, waste, spend, tax some more. The “Standard of Living” there refers only to the RICH, corrupt politicians who only TAKE from the PEOPLE. El Taxo is not a place for Military, ANY Retirees. All that we have left there is 30 years of memories and final utility bills.
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City Manager Tommy Gonzalez has been the chief promoter of this monstrosity…maybe looking for his next job? I suspect his party allegiance is to the What is Best for Me party.
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KVIA did a story on Great Wolf Oct 24.:
https://kvia.com/news/business-technology/2019/10/24/city-of-el-paso-needs-to-rework-economic-development-plan-for-great-wolf-lodge/ In the video the head of economic development said, that if the convention center falls through we still have $4 M. – where does the city get the $4M?
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It’s $4,000,000 per year for 10 years totaling up to a $40,000,000 giveaway. That was what the city promised we would pay Great Wolf in cash if it does not get $40,000,000 in state subsidies. This is probably why the people at city hall put a footnote on the proposed police and fire bond giving themselves permission to unilaterally divert money from the new bond now being voted on.
That $40,000,000 is on top of giving Great Wolf an option to purchase millions of dollars worth of our property for about $30,000. This is as big a heist as the downtown ballpark and when the dust clears you will see that some local people have their fingers in the Great Wolf pie.
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Guess maybe the SHEEP of El Taxo should ask, how many MILLIONS of the WOLF 40 MILLION$$, goes into the pockets, campaign “Donations” of the POLITICIANS. Okay, never mind, DON’T ask. 🙂
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Some get compensated with consulting gigs and job opportunities after they leave office. Consider the cush job Joyce Wilson landed after she left the city manager position. The power brokers even had a person removed to make room for her.
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