Today there’s a special meeting of City Council. I was hoping to attend, but life had other plans for me.
Robert Cortinas will illuminate council on the impact tax reform will have on municipal bonds. After his recent performance, anything Mr. Cortinas says will have to be verified by independent third parties, so I’ll just google “tax reform municipal bonds,” and figure it out from there.
The second part of today’s special meeting is a presentation by Patrick Schaefer from the Hunt Institute for Global Competitiveness. I hate to pre-judge Mr. Schaefer’s presentation, but, just by looking at the PowerPoint presentation offered as backup materials on the City’s website, it looks like Mr. Schaefer will be talking about regional economic development.
Remember, the Borderplex Alliance is focused on regional economic development. No one has any plan to improve El Paso’s economic development, as far as I can tell.
Now, in the fairly recent past, anytime the members of City Council have concerned themselves with regional economic development, the El Paso taxpayers have taken it in the shorts. I suspect that no one in Juarez or Santa Teresa or Las Cruces is too concerned with El Paso’s economic development, except in as much as it directly concerns them.
There’s a billion dollar real estate gambit taking place in Santa Teresa. The players would like to see El Paso foot the bill for amenities that would make the region more attractive for the management teams that will work there. The Santa Teresa intermodal logistics hub will be a gold mine. The way they’ve got it planned, Santa Teresa will get the gold, and El Paso will get the shaft.
I hope City Council isn’t seduced by the siren song of regional economic development, because that is what has lead the local economy to flounder on the rocks.