City Council Votes To Move Forward With Securing A Quality Of Life Bond

City Council unanimously decided to move forward with the process of securing a mutlimillion-dollar quality of life bond on Wednesday.

The possibility of receiving between $600 million and $800 million dollars for El Paso attracted more than 100 observers to the meeting.

Out of the dozens that approached the podium to voice their opinion, the words of a teenager seemed to captured the sentiment of many surrounding the bond issue.

“It’s sad to say, but El Paso is neglecting the children. How do you expect a child to have hope where there’s no tools, no resources?” asked 18 year-old Cathedral High School Student Oscar Carranza III, fighting back tears, as he addressed the packed council meeting.

With what seemed like an endless stream of speakers dissecting, weighing and calculating the multimillion-dollar bond issue it was Carranza’s heartfelt plea for the funds to focus on youth programs that ended with cheers and resounding applause.

Carranza, who said he was born in the Lower Valley, described being bounced around all through out his childhood.

He insisted that his passion for swimming is what kept him off the streets and out of trouble, and implored part of the proposed bond be used to provide athletic, academic, and creative outlets for El Paso’s young people.

“Don’t always think about the money but think about the future, the sustainability,” said Carranza.

Carranza’s emotion was in stark contrast to to the cold figures laid out in the bond proposal fact-sheet.

It allocated $387 million to $500 million for downtown revitalization, $145 million to $170 million for citywide improvements and $150 million to 200 million for street reconstruction.

The total expenditure cashed in between $682 million and $870 million.

More than 60 percent of the proposed bond being spent downtown caused City Representative for District 5, Dr. Michiel Noe, to chime in with concerns that East El Paso was being ignored.

“There’s more than one district in this city and it’s not just all about downtown,” said Noe. “Downtown is extremely important, I’m an avid supporter of it, but District 5, with the new construction, it needs the amenities that the downtown area has.”

During the meeting, Noe mentioned compared what he called a lack of resources in his district to the wealth of community centers and “amenities” in District 8.

City Representative for District 8 Cortney Nilad said the funds pumped into downtown will give life to the whole city.

“Your downtown is kind of your heart, it’s something we can all be proud of. It’s something we can all share,” said Niland. “(The bond) is going to attract the businesses to come to El Paso, it will provide jobs.”

According to Carranza, “(The bond) is like a little snowball effect.”

Niland said the next step here is for the city manager to take all of the feedback from Wednesday’s meeting and all of the financing options into consideration in order to put the quality of life bond to a vote in November.

City Council decided to postpone a discussion specifically targeting the use of bond funds for infrastructure to May 24.