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Yesterday, Mayor Renard Johnson gave a public presentation on the proposed Debt Plaza over Interstate 10 in downtown El Paso.
In November 2022, Stantec Consulting Services was paid $1,321,785 to conduct a feasibility study and determined its construction will cost about $412,025,031 in 2027 dollars.
Nearly three years later, only $46 million has been committed to the project thus far, including $1 million from El Paso County, which just increased our property tax by $137 on the average-valued home.
While the Mayor was speaking, a PowerPoint was projected on a large screen showing that in addition to the project cost, operations & maintenance will run $6-7 million!
No one knows where the $6-7 million will come from, but wouldn’t it be better to allocate that money for street repair and maintenance, which remain underfunded by $35 million per year?
How many streets could be repaired or resurfaced with $412 million plus $6-7 million per year?
Ask yourself this.
Is it better to have streets that do not look like they were bombed by the Russian Air Force or a five-block concrete slab surmounted by trees that will mostly benefit the local construction industry?
Unfortunately for us, our opinion will not matter.
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