I searched the City’s webpage and found a presentation entitled Quality of Life Update, February 18, 2020.
I have attached page 4, which indicates that as of that date, the $176,456,919 for the “Arena” (I thought it was $180,000,000) had been depleted to $154,580,141. The chart states there had been $16,373,662 in expenses and $5,503,116 in contracted work totaling $21,876,778.
In 2017, the El Paso Times reported that the City spent $11.6 million acquiring the properties in the “Arena Footprint” with bond funds. How did the City get from that figure to almost $22 million, especially since the litigation was paid for from the General Fund? Where did the missing $10 million go?
More importantly, what does the City think they are going to build with $154,580,141 when a 15,000-seat “Arena” will cost at least a half-billion dollars?
Another City presentation, entitled CIP Review, April 13, 2020, indicates on p. 15 that the City was holding, as of that date, $157,297,723 of the $473,250,000 Quality of Life Bond in cash: $90,376,840 from Proposition 1 and $66,920,883 from Proposition 2.
Can you imagine how much the taxpayers are paying in bond interest while all that money, apparently including “Arena” money, sits in some bank account? Shouldn’t general obligation bonds be issued only when it is time to spend them?
We all look forward to the next City presentation on the expenditures from the 2012 Quality of Life Bond.
Keep your Alka-Seltzer handy!
