Over thirty years ago, a small group of El Paso Citizens thought that the City needed a venue to teach our children science. All science, a “hands on” museum where they can learn about nature, space, gravity, anatomy, etc. They put their money where their mouth was and through their tireless efforts, Insights Museum was born. Over the next 30 years plus, over a million Children from our school districts alone, learned the beauty of science. Countless physicists, chemists, physicians, engineers and even an astronaut, had their first exposure to the beauty of science at our museum. “Poof”, says the Wilson Quintet of Byrd, Cook, Lilly, Ortega and Niland and it’s gone. So we needed a downtown ballpark so the children can sit in the stands and eat junk food while watching minor league baseball players, hit, catch and scratch. Such a deal!

Always thinking of the children since they are our future, they tossed the Insights Museum out in the street, replacing it with first base.

Did they give us an interim location for our children? How about the El Paso train Station? No lets rent/give it to the Texas Tech Architectural School for $1.00 a year for 75 years. Some of our kids may become architects. I’ve got a better idea, let’s stick a Children’s museum into the Quality of life Bond issue which if they approve, will result in the City hall and the Insights Museum imploding. They think they are getting a museum but it will take 5 years if ever. Give the kids popcorn and cracker jacks.

Despite the City’s efforts, Insights lives on. There is an active board of directors who like their predecessors, see the value of a science museum for the children of El Paso. They see, out of the Rubble of the old Insights Museum a new and better era coming. I’m sure that the new Mayor and Council will see their value and give them the support they need. Oh yes we want to support the baseball team but isn’t this important?

Just think of it, dedicating space in the new baseball stadium addition in honor of the Insights Museum on which the stadium is situated. How about a display about the physics of a curve ball? a sinker? a fastball? ala George Wills. the art of hitting the ball, opposite field hitting etc. I’m sure we can come up with that type of display. Things don’t just happen by accident, there is a science to baseball Misters Doubleday, Foster and Hunt.

While we are waiting for the summer monsoon to begin let’s do a recap of where we are with the ball park.

Their numbers are wrong

Various city officials stood before council and made official presentations

The city hall move will only cost $33 million

We are now over $70 million.  The fact is that the city officials had not studied the costs thoroughly  and simply made a presentation designed to get council to vote favorably.

The ballpark will only cost $50 million

They wanted a construction manager at risk — no bidding involved

The construction manager would get to keep a percentage of what was not needed of the construction budget. That was designed to make us think that the ball park could be built for less.

The city manager recently told us that they do not know what the ball park will cost.  They only have 20% of the bids in and will have to wait to see how much it will cost.  No serious study was given to the cost of the ball park before they stood before council.

The owners are not giving up $12 million.  Before this whole deal was sold to city council the owners said that they would donate their profits to charity for the foreseeable future.  The $12 million is being stolen from charity by the city.

Someone else will pay for the ball park

The hotel occupancy tax numbers are only estimates (from the same city staff that has made the other estimates).  There is no guarantee that those monies will come in.  The team ownership is committing to pay us over a 30 year lease.  What will happen if something goes wrong?  I would imagine that the ownership group might have to declare bankruptcy, thus leaving the citizens of El Paso responsible to make the bond payments.

We must do this immediately

Hasty, irresponsible actions were taken because we were told that  the ball park must be open at the beginning of the 2014 season.

Plans for the ball park have not even been drawn up yet.  We need plans first, bidding next, and then construction.  The chances of getting this done in time are negligible.  They always were.

City staff recently tried to buy the Diablos out of their lease of Cohen stadium.  Is it possible that they want the new team to play at Cohen while the ball park is being built?

Cohen is not acceptable

According to city staff, no amount of money spent for improvements to our existing ball park would make it acceptable to league management.

I simply do not believe them.

Now city staff tells us

The team owners are willing pay $12 million more

City staff came before council recently and asked for $10 million more to build a ball park “the public wants”.  $5 million was going to come from previously approved projects for sidewalks and streets.  The other $5 million was for contingencies.

Now the owners themselves say that $8 million more needs to be spent on the basic ball park.  What about the $10 million city staff asked for and got turned down on?  The city manager told us that moving the $5 million from sidewalks and streets  into the project would simplify coordination of the projects.  In other words, the city is going to spend the $5 million sprucing up the areas around the ball park anyway.  That puts us at $50 + $8 + $5 or $63 million without the contingency fund.

As the city manager recently confessed, no one knows what this will cost.  I would have been in favor of a properly researched and planned project.

I think that the ball park should now be built even though the way we got here was horrible.

I hope that the new city council slows this deal down and gets real numbers before we get in even deeper.  At the very least the contracts should be changed to eliminate any penalties to the city if the ball park is not finished in time.  After all, the ball park owners are the ones that are asking for the changes.

We deserve better

Brutus