Loss of federal funding leads to tense accusations

A tense, nearly four-hour discussion over millions of dollars of lost transportation funding turned into a finger-pointing session at El Paso City Hall on Tuesday.

City Rep. Claudia Ordaz began the discussion by asking why the City had lost more than $20 million in federal transportation funding since May of 2014. In a presentation she prepared, Ordaz pointed out $29,814,917 worth of city transportation projects had been “deprogrammed” by the Transportation Policy Board at the Metropolitan Planning Organization or MPO.

The MPO is a regional planning agency that allocates federal transportation moneys to local city and county governments.The MPO’s Transportation Policy Board is made up of representatives from local municipalites, the County of El Paso, New Mexico and the Texas Department of Transportation.

Late last month, the MPO’s Executive Director in an email wrote that several city projects were ineligible to receive federal funding because of various application errors, including missing analysis, late submissions and funding discrepancies.

Among the City projects that lost out on the money were the Paso Del Norte Roundabout, the Quiet Zone Railroad Crossings and the reconstruction of Winn Road. Ordaz said City employees did not communicate with her about the status of the projects.

In response to Ordaz’s concerns, City Manager Tommy Gonzalez insisted the city had not “lost out” on the money but the projects had just not been “fast-tracked.” He said the projects were still on schedule. Yet City Rep. Lily Limon pointed out that had the City’s applications for funding been accepted, the City could have by now applied for funding for other projects.

Gonzalez admitted to errors by city employees in the application but said the bigger problem is that City employees have been submitting projects that are not ready for the application process out of fear of being attacked or humiliated publicly by the El Paso City Council. Mathew McElroy, the City’s International Bridges Director told the city representatives the employees were submitting projects that were ‘council priorities but were not ready’ out of fear of the City Council.

“I want to let you know that I’m offended about the state that the reason these projects went forward is because staff was afraid of council,” City Rep. Lily Limon told McElroy. She said she understood if city employees were afraid of “some council members” but not all of them and added she would not take responsibility for the application mistakes.

“If council wasn’t so set on attacking staff members at times, maybe they wouldn’t be so scared of us,” said City Rep. Michiel Noe. He later added he was “confused” Limon was offended because she had a history of publicly attacking city employees.

Gonzalez added that governance changes had also resulted in the City not being able to accelerate the transportation projects.
“We have to nimbly adjust our processes in response to changes which have been made to state and federal application processes,” he said.

Specifically, Gonzalez pointed out the federal government used to conduction environmental reviews on transportation projects. But the rules changed so that TxDot now conducts those reviews which take 12 months to be completed compared to the three months it took the federal government to do it. Gonzalez said he had reached out to the local and Austin offices of TxDot as early as February to offer the city pay for additional staff members to speed up the environmental reviews. City officials said TxDot had not responded to its offer.

City Rep. Cortney Niland said the City’s relationship with TxDot had been rocky lately and suggested the City speak to state officials about the “lack of cooperation” by local TxDot officials. In response to Ordaz’s questions, the City Manager announced he’d be revamping the process the City uses to apply for transportation funding. The changes include hiring an outside firm to help city staff with application development and forming a new team to vet the applications. The internal team includes the City’s Chief Financial Officer, Airport Director, International Bridges Director, Assistant to the City Manager, and Capital Improvements Director, as well as representatives from Planning and Inspections Department, Public Affairs Office, and Office of Management and Budget.

The tense discussion took a personal turn when City Rep. Michiel Noe implied Ordaz had an ulterior motive. Noe said members of the MPO were purposely trying to make the City look bad. “Why are these numbers being manipulated to make the City look bad and at the same time all of this is going on, we’re getting all of this pressure to put Rep. Ordaz on the MPO,” he said. Ordaz whispered “that’s low” at Noe. She said she would not respond to his comments because they were “petty in nature” and said she only tried to bring an important issue of to light. She said she had never advocated for herself to be on the MPO.

Mayor Oscar Leeser then said something similar to Noe. “I can tell you that I have received four different phone calls from either state or other entities asking me to remove certain members of the MPO to put you in it. So what he’s (Dr. Noe) saying, he’s not speaking out of turn. Including you, asking me to put you on there because other members have been on there long enough. So he didn’t make up the statement or dream it up.”

“I honestly am flattered by that. I really had no idea that people were advocating for me and believed in me that much,” responded Ordaz. She admitted to asking the Mayor to appoint her to the MPO.

Currently, City Representatives Cortney Niland, Michiel Noe and Emma Acosta serve on the MPO.

County Commissioner Vince Perez, who is in a romantic relationship with Ordaz, is the chairman of the MPO.