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Today under agenda items 38 and 39, City Council voted 4-3 to provide $30.6 million in incentives to Notes Live Inc., which will construct an amphitheater on the site of the old Cohen Stadium at their own expense.
The project will use $0 from the General Fund and is expected to generate an economic impact of $5.4 billion in its first 25 years.
Reps. Josh Acevedo, Cassandra Hernandez, and Isabel Salcido dissented. Their singular concern is that the contract with the builder includes a non-compete clause, preventing the City from constructing a competing venue within a radius of 60 miles.
Rep. Kennedy reminded his colleagues that there is an existing non-compete clause in the contract between the owners of the Chihuahuas franchise and the City of El Paso, which owns the Ballpark.
Hernandez bloviated endlessly about how she was blindsided by the non-compete provision, even after Cary Westin interjected that she was informed about it back in April.
But what was truly laughable was her effort to project herself as fiscally prudent when she (along with Salcido and Rivera) voted for a whole galaxy of boondoggles, such as the Great Wolf Lodge incentives and land swap, which included 75% property tax forgiveness for 50 years–the most egregious corporate handout in the history of El Paso. The incentives for Notes Live are not even 5% of what Hernandez, Salcido, and Rivera voted to give away to Foster and his business partner.
The same three also voted for a series of property tax increases and hundreds of millions of dollars of non-voter-approved debt.
Hernandez did succeed in bringing Acevedo and Salcido into her camp on this issue but failed to overcome the granite wall put up by Kennedy, Molinar, Fierro, and Canales, with the backing of Mayor Leeser.
In any case, when Hernandez votes against an agenda item–whatever it happens to be–we are 100% certain that her opponents are right because she always votes against the interests of the taxpayers.
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