EPWU To Change Rules Of Billing Inserts For Elected Officials

On Wednesday ABC-7 told viewers about a pamphlet, mailed out as an insert in hundreds of thousands of El Paso Water Utility bills by incumbent County Tax Assessor-Collector Victor Flores.

It went out just months before election day, at a cost of nearly $14,000 taxpayer dollars.

ABC-7 pressed EPWU officials about whether a rule change during election years was in order. On Thursday, EPWU President and CEO Ed Archuleta issued a statement, saying the company has a responsibility to its customers to be more diligent in ensuring bill inserts from elected officials don’t give the slightest appearance of a political endorsement.

“There’s no law,” said Enrique Moreno, chairman of Citizens’ Commission on Best Practices in Government, a local group formed during the spike in corruption in the Borderland. “There’s no rule against it.”

Moreno said what Flores did, using thousands in taxpayer dollars to send out a the public service announcement pamphlet — containing a huge picture of himself — to nearly 200,000 Borderland homes, as an insert in water bills while election day approaches, was perfectly legal.

“I think we live in a time, though, especially given what’s happened recently in the community, where we need to rethink and maybe recalibrate what is acceptable and unacceptable,” said Moreno, who thinks a rules change may be in order. “I don’t think it ought to be up to a particular individual. That’s why I think organizations and boards should establish standards and not leave it up to the discretion of a single individual, but that it really ought to reflect what I would term community standards.”

ABC-7 asked EPWU on Wednesday whether they would consider a rules change, not allowing pictures of elected officials or the inserts to be mailed during election years. On Thursday, Archuleta responded with this statement:

“For decades, EPWU has used bill inserts to communicate with customers; we’ve allowed other city and county government agencies to include important messages as well, based on the cost of service,” Archuleta wrote. “However, we have a responsibility to our customers to be more diligent in ensuring that none of those outside messages give even the slightest appearance of a political endorsement.”

Archuleta added: “To that end, I’ve initiated the process of amending El Paso Water Utilities’ policy on bill inserts. While the amended policy has not been finalized, it will include strict prohibitions on photographs of elected officials and any other information which could give the appearance of being for personal or political gain.”

Flores’ opponent in the upcoming election, Armando Rodriguez, sent out a release Thursday, stating he will file an official complaint with the County Ethics Commission, claiming his opponent used public funds for political gain.

Flores maintains that it was simply a public service announcement.