El Paso City Council candidates debate Quality of Life bond's budget shortcomings
Aaron Martinez
The eight candidates competing for two El Paso City Council spots focused on the city budget during a debate on Wednesday night at Coronado High School.
The biggest issue the candidates competing for City Council Districts 1 and 8 focused on was the possibility of the city going over the budget set by a Quality of Life bond for community projects.
The debate was hosted by Coronado's WE(fillintheblank) student organization which seeks more political involvement among high school students.
The six candidates running for District 1, which oversees West El Paso, are Richard Bonart, Bertha Gallardo, Manny Hinojosa, Daniel Lopez, Peter Svarzbein and Al Weisenberger. Josh Dagda and incumbent Cortney Niland are running for the District 8 seat, which represents Southwest El Paso and the Downtown area.
Several projects being built under the Quality of Life bond, which was passed by voters in 2012, are expected to go over budget, including the West Side Olympic-sized pool, a children's museum, a multipurpose arena and a Hispanic cultural center. The four projects combined are expected to cost about $200 million, the El Paso Times reported.
Voters approved the $470 million bond sale to fund projects such as improvements to the Downtown area, parks, museums, libraries and the El Paso Zoo.
The West Side Olympic-sized is expected to cost about $12 million, which is about $5.6 million over the original budget set for the project. The children's museum is expected to cost about $19.25 million, while the arena will come in at about $180 million and the cultural center at about $5.75 million.
All candidates were asked how they would address the projections that the various projects could go over budget.
Bonart said the cause of the projects going over budget was due to mismanagement. He said if he was elected, he would hold contractors accountable for the estimate they originally gave the city and would vote against any increase in completing the projects.
"I would be a better manager and make sure we never got to that point," Bonart said. "And that is what I did when I worked on the Public Service Board. We were getting all sorts of bids that were wildly apart and what I started doing was saying that I would not vote for something unless this gap began to narrow. And slowly but surely those gaps began to narrow."
The city should not look to increase taxes to meet the growing cost of the projects, Svarzbein said.
"I think we really need to be creative when we are thinking about how to fund these projects," Svarzbein said. "I don't think that the city should be considering additional funding for these projects. What we need to do is look into public-private partnerships. We need to be looking at giving naming rights and being more aggressive in getting public-private sponsorships."
Dagda said the key to staying within the budget is making sure the projects currently being built stay at the original estimated cost.
"I believe we should work with what we already have in the budget," Dagda said. "It's not necessary to make any cuts (of other projects). We need to make sure we stay within the budget. For example, the pool here in the West Side was supposed to be $8 million and then it jumped to $13.5 million and because of that some parks are not going to be built. We need to stay within the budget for each project."
The city needs to come up with designs that will allow the building of these projects within the budget, Weisenberger said.
"I believe there are some opportunities to complete these projects within the budget," Weisenberger said. "This includes looking at creative designs and stretching the budget as much as possible. Also, looking for designs that if we can't complete the full project at this time, the design would allow for economical expansion later on in the future."
Niland argued that the city must continue to work with the public to come up with ways to meet the cost of the projects.
"We are working on a daily basis with the community as these individual projects come up," Niland said. "There is public outreach that we maybe alter the budget. What we have to do is continue to look for strategic ways to bring forth these projects."
Hinojosa said as the projects continue to be built, there must be tighter scrutiny on how the money is being spent.
"I prefer to use the word scrutiny rather than scaling back on the projects," Hinojosa said. "Tightening our scrutiny is necessary. After having four years of quality of life bonds, something needs to be scrutinized closer to avoid this from happening anymore."
The city must step back and review the current plans for projects still needing to be built in order to make changes that will allow the city to stay within the budget, Gallardo said.
"We might have to re-evaluate some of the projects that are still pending and retool them," Gallardo said. "Another option would be looking into public-sector partnerships. It has been done before with the ballpark and I think we can do it again with projects remaining."
Lopez agreed that the city must re-evaluate the projects still pending before coming to a decision on how to address the issue.
"Before we can come up with an answer, I would recommend that we assess where we are with each project, the site of each project and get together with the engineering department to come up with a viable solution," Lopez said. "With that in mind, we must look at the projects and determine what the goal of each project is and come back to address meeting the budget."
Early voting for the City Council will begin Monday and goes through May 5. Election day will be May 9.
For more information, visit epcountyvotes.com.
Aaron Martinez may be reached at 546-6249.