From CBS4Local.com:
El Paso’s City Council approved the agenda item to pay over a million dollars to form a Climate Action Plan during their meeting on Wednesday.
The Climate Action Plan would commit the City of El Paso to signing a four-year contract with AECOM Technical Services Inc., paying them $1,239,235 to draft the plan.
This plan plays into the passing of 3 propositions by voters for a more renewable and sustainable city.
Of those three propositions, Proposition C mandates the issuance of $5,200,000 General Obligation Bonds towards renewable energy and resource use efficiency improvements and planning.
You remember Proposition C. It barely passed with 50.63 % of the vote back on November 8, 2022.
You remember.
City of El Paso, Texas Proposition C
“Shall the City Council of the City of El Paso, Texas, be authorized to issue general obligation bonds of the City in the principal amount of $5,200,000 for permanent public improvements and public purposes, to wit: designing, constructing, improving, renovating, expanding, enhancing, and equipping City facilities for renewable energy and resource use efficiency improvements and planning, including photovoltaic and solar panel installations, urban heat, mobility and climate action planning, and modernization to existing City facilities to meet green building standards and in connection with the foregoing, acquiring land, easements, rights-of-way, and other real property interests necessary therefor; such bonds to mature serially or otherwise over a period not to exceed forty (40) years from their date, to be issued and sold in one or more series at any price or prices and to bear interest any rate or rates, (fixed, floating, variable or otherwise) as shall be determined within the discretion of the City Council at the time of issuance of sale of the bonds; and whether ad valorem taxes shall be levied upon all taxable property in the City sufficient to pay the annual interest and provide a sinking fund to the bonds at maturity and the cost of any credit agreements executed in connection with the bonds?”
That’s a pretty comprehensive list of the things that the Prop C bond money was/is to be spent on.
Somehow a Climate Action Plan didn’t make the list.
Yet the City of El Paso is plowing ahead with what they think is good for us, whether we like it or not.
I’m not sure that a Climate Action Plan is a bad thing, but no one who voted for Prop C voted for a Climate Action Plan.
If the City thinks that we need a Climate Action Plan, maybe they should find the funds for it someplace besides the Prop C bond money which was deliberately, specifically, allocated for those things enumerated in the bond ordinance, as cited above.
Too bad we spend all that money on water parks, and the ongoing maintenance of the ballpark, and a trolley that doesn’t really go anywhere anyone wants to go. Maybe then we might have the money for things that really mean something, like a Climate Action Plan.
Just like the bond vote in 2012 was for IMPROVEMENTS to a Multipurpose Performing Arts and Entertainment Center, but immediately the focus was on building a NEW center, and almost no one said…”Wait” That’ s not what we voted for!
Only one person spoke in favor of it, the County Judge from Hudspeth County, part of the Plan MSA but not in the city. A good size crowd was there unaimously opposed to Agenda Item #18 (the Plan) and asked CC to deny funding the Plan, i.e., to act instead on the Prop C improvement items. The environmental community that turned out wanted action, not studies. Instead, their city opted to write a $1.2MM report that will probably sit on a shelf in City Hall if past such issues are any guide. Remember the $800K Arena Plan?
Most disappointing to me was the utter indifference of Ms. Farini (the city’s climate guru) to the very obvious opposition to her last minute proposal, counched in the usual, “You have to act now or risk losing millions in future funding. I recall that ploy from the AAA stadium debacle when the Uusal Suspects told CC that immediate action on the stadium was necessary because we could otherwise lose the hot Tucson farm team that became the Chuhuahuahs. I mean, that crowd could have been on her team instated of testifying against her Plan, as I did.
Not much really changes here.