Dear Media and Friends,
The City of El Paso’s Bond Overview Advisory Committee (BOAC) is charged with monitoring the City’s expenditure of hundreds of millions of dollars in municipal bonds.
Given that El Paso holds the Texas record for outstanding CO debt issued without voted approval ($757 million authorized so far), citizen oversight of City expenditures has never been more important.
Obviously, the media and public need to be able to attend and follow all BOAC meetings.
Yet for the July 12 meeting, the City posted the wrong conference call-in ID on the BOAC agenda, so the media and public were blocked from attending or commenting. I managed to attend only because I got hold of the Microsoft TEAMS meeting ID from a person who shall go unnamed, admitting me to the video conference. Many more taxpayers had planned to attend but were barred from doing so.
That is unconscionable.
Just as bad, the City has failed to post the videos of the BOAC meetings in a timely manner. The February 1 meeting was never posted, and the July 12 meeting has still not been posted, preventing the media and public from acquiring timely information about bond expenditures.
The December 14 meeting was posted, but without sound, so the video is useless.
Here is the City’s record of posting videos of BOAC meetings during the last year:
7/12/21 not posted, wrong call-in ID on agenda
4/19/21 posted
2/1/21 not posted
12/14/21 posted but no sound
10/29/21 posted
8/17/21 posted
Thus the videos of three of the last six BOAC meetings have not been posted properly, and the media and public were excluded from the last meeting.
Make no mistake about it. This is by design.
The City does not wish the media and public to follow its financially reckless behavior for fear that those responsible will be held accountable.
We deserve better!