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In November 2022, City Council voted to hire Stantec Consulting Services at a cost of $1,321,785 to conduct a feasibility study for the construction of a downtown deck plaza over Interstate 10.
The study was completed some months later and concluded that the total estimated cost in 2027 dollars is $412,025,031.
Tracy Yellen, CEO of the Paso del Norte Community Foundation and chief proponent of the project, has been telling our City and County that a five-block, 8.5-acre deck plaza will cost only $207 million. Her figure has been uncritically repeated by our feckless media.
At today’s meeting under item 8B, the County voted 3-2 to earmark $1 million for the design phase of the Deck Plaza even though there is still no federal commitment and other key funding sources have not yet materialized.
The Commissioners Court was pelted by a half-dozen public speakers who don’t want local dollars to be expended in support of this project, but that did not stop Judge Samaniego and Commissioners Stout and Coronado from authorizing the expenditure.
Our Chief Instigator, Max Grossman, read from the County’s backup, which states in plain English that the “total project cost” will be approximately $412 million, confirming the figure produced by Stantec.
In response, Tracy Yellen and Joaquin Rodriguez, a bureaucrat from the City’s Capital Improvement Division, emphatically insisted that the cost will be only $207 million (plus an additional $32 million that is apparently needed for the support structure).
Yellen and Rodriguez want us to believe that the $412 million figure includes $205 million worth of future private investment, but that is not indicated anywhere in the Stantec study, which reports the figure $412 million without qualifications.
Rodriguez actually stated that the Deck Plaza will be “an incredibly expensive project” and we agree.
Chief County Administrator Betsy Keller, who strongly backs the project, recommended that the $1 million be drawn from certificate of obligation Series 2023B and suggested that future Deck Plaza needs could be funded with bonds.
And then there was Ricardo Mora, CEO of the El Paso Chamber, who wants a Deck Plaza at all costs and exclaimed “bold ideas require bold leadership.” What he really means is that our bold leadership should force the taxpaying masses to pay for stuff that his constituents want but are unwilling to pay for themselves.
During the discussion among the Judge and Commissioners that followed, sparks flew between Coronado, who fanatically supports the project, and Holguin, who is dead set against using County money to support it.
In his own comments, Samaniego parroted Cassandra Hernandez’s favorite mantra word for word: “El Paso deserves to have these things.” Please pass the Alka-Seltzer.
We would say that today’s vote was perfectly predictable except for the fact that Butler got nervous about entangling the County in an expensive boondoggle and voted “nay.” We did not expect that at all and appreciate her new-found concern for the plight El Paso taxpayers.
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