ABC-7 Xtra: City Lost Funding?

>>> live, where news comes first, this is “abc-7 xtra. >>> welcome to “abc-7 xtra, good evening, i’m maria garcia. if you follow local news, then by now, you know of a major concern growing out of the el paso city hall. it all revolves around the city of el paso making mistakes in applications for funding that led to the loss of federal money to fast-track transportation projects. city representative claudia ordaz this week pointed out the city has lost out on $40 million worth of projects because of what appears to be inefficiency. the conversation soon turned hostile and personal, with others on council effectively accusing ordaz of essentially orchestrating a political ploy to get on the powerful board that oversees the transportation moneys, and city management saying it boils down to city employees being too afraid of city council to effectively do their job. this is just the tip of the iceberg. tx-dot now saying the city is in risk of losing out on another $20 million in reimbursements, though the city disputes that amount, saying it’s less than half of that. now, this was a difficult show to book, honestly. few people were willing to come on this program and speak about this on the record. joing us tonight, city representative claudia ordaz. and mathew mcelroy, the city’s director of international bridges, who’s also part of a new team to help the city improve its process to get federal money. you can e-mail us your comments and questions now to abc7xtra@kvia.com. call us at 915-496-1775 or tweet me at @mariagabc7. as we do every sunday before we get to our discussion, let’s get a recap of what’s brought us here. >> we should always hold ourselves accountable and enough with the excuses, please. >> city manager tommy gonzalez admitted city employees had made mistakes when filling out applications, but he says the bigger problem is city employees are so afraid of city council, they submit projects for funding that aren’t even ready but are council favorites, out of fear they’ll be attacked publicly by city reps. >> i want to let you know that i’m offended to hear mathew state that the reason these projects went forward is because staff was afraid of council. >> if council wasn’t so set on attacking staff members at times, maybe they wouldn’t be so scared of us. >> then the conversation turned personal, when city rep michiel noe said the whole thing was political, implying ordaz had an ulterior motive. >> at the same time all of this is going on, we’re getting all of this pressure to put representative ordaz on the mpo. >> i’m not really going to address mr. noe’s comments. i think they’re pretty petty in nature. >> i can tell you that i have received four different phone calls from either state or other enties asking me to remove certain members of the mpo to put you on it. >> i honestly am flattered by that. i really had no idea that people were advocating for me and believed in me that much. >> then another blow to the city, tx-dot this week saying the city could lose out on more than $20 million in reimbursements for transportation projects, because the city is not regularly sending invoices to the state. the city contends the real amount is less than half of what tx-dot claims but admits it needs to do better. >> we certainly know that we need to make improvements in terms of how we utilize our resources, including our personnel and overseeing the projects to make sure they are getting completed on time and on budget. >> the city manager announcing he’d be revamping the process the city uses to apply for transportation funding. the changes include hiring an outside firm to help city employees with the application process and forming a new team to vet those applications. >> let’s get to our discussion now. joing us now are city representative claudia ordaz and the city director of international bridges, mathew mcelroy. thank you so much both of you for joing us. we really appreciate it. >> thank you for having us. >> i do want to get to the issue of funding but we’re not going to have a productive discussion until we get to the politics of it and we get through that. there’s a lot of talk representative ordaz that you were grandstanding, that this was a political ploy to get on the metropolitan planning organization. what do you say to people who say that? >> and i’m really glad you asked me about that because i want to kind of put it all out there as far as the process on what happened. a couple of months ago the mayor had sent out an e-mail to city council representatives asking them which committees we wanted to sit on. i never requested mpo. i was under the impression that that was going to be given to the current city representatives that currently sit on the mpo. later, i hear from a city representative who currently sits on the mpo that they may not be able to serve so, of course, at that point i reached out to the mayor over a phone doll and said if that’s the case, i would like to be considered. i even reached out to dr. noe for some feedback and some thoughts. but i never, not once, and i want to be clear on this, i never not once had anybody lobby on my behalf because of that. and so when representative noe made those comments, it was really disappointing because here we are, we have a big issue, we’re talking about millions and millions and dollars and it was a serious issue that we needed to bring forward but instead, i’m given these comments that the only reason i’m bringing this forward is because of a mpo appointment, underming everything else, let’s forget about the millions and millions of dollars and obviously, the city has taken so many corrective measures to address these issues. so it was really disappointing that that’s where the conversation ended up leading to. there was a lot of excuses that i felt were given that day and that was being one of them, just completely undermining the presentation that i was giving regarding the millions of dollars and missed out opportunities for funding. >> and with every important issue, there are things that people will say on the record and will say publicly and there’s things that people will say privately. there’s always sort of an undercurrent to the story here. and i want to ask you what a lot of people whisper about but no one really asks and that’s you’re in a committed relationship with your boyfriend, the chairman of the mpo until friday and there’s talk by some of your colleagues off the record that he has some sort of influence on you and that this political ploy was somehow also influenced by trying to get you on the mpo when he would be leaving. >> you know, vince is a great support system. i cannot say the least of that. but to say that this was a ploy to get me on the mpo, if i was really smart, i would have — if i really wanted to be on the mpo, i need the support of the mayor and council. so bringing forth issues like this doesn’t really help me in that case. so to say that that was a ploy between vince and i to get me on the mpo, we wouldn’t have played that very mart if that was the ending goal. the goal for this was to bring forward some serious issues, that the city manager felt was even important and has made so many changes to the organization, but to say that it was all because i wanted a seat there, we would have played it a little bit smarter and i would have received first the support from my colleagues and the mayor and not bring something like this forward. i felt it was really important when i started discovering issues, i wasn’t getting any sort of information and more and more digging, the more and more information i found that was quite disturbing that i felt need to be brought to light. >> you know, i’ve been covering city council for many years and i can tell you really right now, there’s so much tension every tuesday. i mean, it is palpable. it is palpable. i don’t think i even have you tell you that but being a policy maker isn’t just about understanding, researching, writing ordinances. it’s also about exercising diplomacy, building consensus, bridging ideas, making compromises. and so there’s people who say that after this week it’s going to be harder for you to get things done because you may have burned some bridges. >> and, you know, it’s good that you bring that up because you know, the day that i put my agenda item for that following week, the mayor sent out — coincidentally had sent out his committee selections for members to sit on. and once i started raising questions, once i posted something else on the agenda, i was the only representative that did not get anything i requested. i asked for the central appraisal district, we haven’t had a representative there since morgan lily’s departure and i even asked for animal welfare and i can’t even get that, it was given to dr. noe. so it’s a culture, and it’s an unfortunate one that when a council member, how can a council member feel comfortable bringing forward issues if she feels like there’s going to be sort of a reprimand. >> repercussions, isn’t that essentially, your job, right? to point out problems, concerns? >> right, right. but it’s this culture where you feel almost afraid to bring out these sort of issues because of retaliation. and you know what? and i’ve thought about it long and hard and yes, we certainly took some hits for it but in the end, i really felt it was the right thing to do. i mean, i’ve never seen the city work so quickly as they did in the past week, the city manager has made some significant reforms, we have mathew here, one of our most exceptional employees, who oversees ports but now, he’s on the transportation team. we’re hiring outside consultants you know. there’s lots of things being done, and it’s unfortunate, though, because i feel like council shouldn’t be afraid to bring out serious issues that they feel need to be addressed and that’s a culture i believe we changed. >> okay. we’re going to get to that in just a little bit. mathew i promise i have a lot of questions for you but i wanted to first get through that. the city announced a plan to improve the application process that includes a new city team of top managers to vet these applications, to help employees go through the application process. and also hiring an outside firm. but i know there are people out there thinking okay, so they lost money to fast-track these projects, and now, they’re going to be paying a company to help them do a job that they should already be able to do. what is happening? >> the language that we use when we talk about this is really important because we keep misusing the word lost. what really happened with regard to how transportation funding works is we lost the opportunity to accelerate funding. the money didn’t disappear. if you watched what happened at the mpo recently there were still $50 million in transportation money that got spent on this region, those projects will help this region be more successful in terms of how to implement the general transportation system but also in terms of how it moves cross-border trade. whenever you have a transportation project that’s never 100% guaranteed that you’re going to get that money because there are more projects than there is money, so everybody’s competing for that money, and so when we talk about that $50 million being implemented in the most recent round, there was no guarantee that the city was going to get all of it anyway. one perfect example is the cbi funding that was available. tx-dot had a fantastic project that was going to get trucks onto the interstate system faster. the border structure funds, which was a different pool that was available in this last round of funding. tx-dot had a fantastic project of regional importance that was going to move more trade out of the region faster. that was the same category. head to head when you look at those two kinds of projects you’re never guaranteed that both of them are going to get funded because they’re both in the same pool. >> you can’t deny that there is a level of inefficiency in the way that the city is rolling out these capital projects. the city manager this week admitted there was a problem and you have as we discussed this week a project like the central business district phase four which was introduced in 2510 years ago. the federal government committed more than $10 million for this project for the city of el paso in 2009. fast forward 10 years the city has not moved on this project. >> on that particular project, the issue started in 2013. there were changes in scope, there were historical documents, archeological documents. >> but if the money was awarded in 2009, why was the environmental review started in 2013? >> i think that you have a misunderstanding about when the funding was allocated. and then when you have to go through an archeological review and a historical review as part of an environmental assessment process, they’re very complicated projects that take a long amount of time to get worked out, submitted to tx-dot so that all the i’s are dotted and all the t’s are crossed. the other thing i would point out is projects were being submitted that weren’t ready. the city manager made it clear that he did not want to see projects submitted again that weren’t ready and when that happened again in this round, that’s why you’re seeing the major reforms being made in the capital improvements division. >> and speaking of city employees submitting projects that weren’t ready, that sounds like it’s a deep cultural problem with the city. that sounds like the dysfunction within city council is affecting the productivity of city employees. that’s essentially what i understand it to be. would you agree, representative ordaz? >> when comments were made at last week’s meeting about how staff was afraid of council and they’re moving these projects forward because of this fear of council really raised a lot of questions and i’ve only been here for about less than a year and in that time, ran two campaigns and spoken with hundreds of thousands of residents and their number one complaint is that some sort of street structure project, whether it’s speeding, congestion on our roads, whether it’s better streets, whatever it may be, when you hear comments like the staff is afraid of council, it’s almost kind of frustrating for the residents themselves who have been waiting for these projects, and then you hear oh, well, it will come down the pipeline and so on and so forth and so it’s just a disconnect from staff that doesn’t really hear from the constituents themselves who are just really frustrated, especially when you know that federal funding is available. but then to top that off and i really don’t want to have mathew answer this question because i feel this is more appropriate for the city manager, but to say that staff is afraid of council really raises a lot of questions, especially if you’re not giving us any sort of details, what council members, what projects were those, and last week when i was talking about restructuring of the mpo, there’s eight voting members that vote on these projects. they vote on the projects and they vote and they’re independent in themselves. half of those are staff. and so do those staff know — >> one of them being the city manager. >> one of them being the city manager. did he know that the projects weren’t ready to go, but the reason why they voted on that was because they were afraid of council? i mean, it’s a problem and a question that certainly needs to be answered, and it’s difficult because the public can’t hold staff accountable. we can’t even really hold staff accountable. that’s primarily the city manager’s job, but the public can certainly hold us accountable. >> mathew, you’re a very articulate person, people speak very highly of you but you haven’t been on the mpo in you know, a few years. the mayor just got appointed chairman of the mpo, the city manager. so i don’t know why you were sent here, honestly, frankly. like you said, there are questions here that need to be answered by someone else, right? but we really have to take a break. when we come back, we’re going to take a lot of phone calls and a lot of tweets because brea >>> welcome back to “abc- xtra.” let’s get to your tweets, it is laughable to suggest that city staff are afraid of city reps. city reps have no power. they can only make proposals. jamie said ordaz was wrong and they sent a city staffer? where are they? we did ask representative noe to be here. we also requested the mayor but they declined to be here. and then also jamie tweeting so much for accountability and the buck stops here. eduardo tweeting city employees are likely to have a longer tenure than city reps who are elected officials so why would they be afraid? eduardo also tweeting how insulting, suggesting that representative ordaz is being influenced by a commissioner. how do you know it’s not the other way around? and i stand with representative ordaz, let’s stick to the issues of taxpayer accountability and moving el paso forward. and it’s shameful that the mayor and council are focused on drama rather than avoidable loss of millions of dollars. let’s get to the phones. won’t have chris on the west side. what’s your comment or your question? >> my name is chris and i would like to know who is accountable for the errors that these people are making? are they going to keep their jobs? is the city going to be find? i would like to know who is accountable, thank you. >> let me take a run at the accountability issue because we keep saying that over and over again like the city manager or the city administration has been sitting on their hands, that’s simply not the case. as soon as the mayor came into office, one of the first things he did was order a comprehensive audit to look at things like fund balance on the financial projections that had been made, the subsidy for the ballpark, all of that started immediately when the mayor came on. the city manager also ordered another audit of the capital improvements process to make sure that all of these things were addressed. i think you’ll see the strong response from the city manager, the mayor and the reps at council will make sure the city is competive when projects get submitted, that everyone does take this seriously and everybody wants to be as transparent and accountable to the taxpayers as they can be. >> okay, representative ordaz, i interviewed the executive director of the mpo on friday for a special report that i’m working on related to this airing this week. but he said, you know, this is not a problem unique to the city. there are other agencies who are navigating new rules that the mpo has implemented basically because the federal highway administration looked at the mpo and said you have to start changing the way you do things. one of the new rules, you know, people are getting used to them, one of the new rules is the feds now handle the environmental review or tx-dot does. so they take longer from three months to a year so that prolongs processes. but also that the city lost some influence in the powerful subcommittee that recommends which projects get funding. they lost members there. so are these just growing pains? >> and that’s a really good question. and you do make a good point. we are a growing community. the city of el paso is not the major game player anymore because now, we have outside enties who are now competing for these funds. before these processes that you just mentioned were implemented, there was a lot of shuffling of projects. a lot of them. there wasn’t really a thorough process. it was more of a political one. and that’s why you really did see a lot of the shuffling happening. now, there’s a process where there’s a scoring criteria, there was some changes made to that committee that you’re referencing to make sure that each entity has equal representation. so it could be more difficult for entities not just like the city of el paso but we have to make sure that these applications are submitted correctly. and i really want to go back to mention that, you know, there’s been a lot of talk about that there’s no loss in funding. but the most serious issue here, and i think the reason for a lot of these reforms is our inability to really execute these projects. that project that you were just mentioning, the central business district, the improvements that are going to happen there, that funding was actually available in 2005. but it wasn’t ready to go and so they had to push it back and if we were to take a step back in time and we were sitting here asking the same questions, you know what, what happened to this project, why was it delayed? we probably would have received the same answers, don’t worry, the funding is still there. but it’s not necessarily just the funding. it’s our inability to execute on these projects when the federal funds are available. >> when you hear somebody saying we didn’t lose the money, it’s still there but really the projects have been ready to go and you had received that money to fast track it, you would be applying for other projects. >> not the case. you’re thinking about a small set of four projects, there’s six projects and not looking at all the other transportation projects that are coming out of the other end of the hose. look at the brt that has gotten built, the country club improvements that were done, look at the flyovers that were done on tx-dot. you’re talking about the toll road. hundreds and hundreds of millions of dollars in projects being delivered, working their way through the process as they should be working their way through the process. and those other projects are all projects that still would have missed region, everyone’s competing at that same mpo table and as opposed to looking at the two or three, $400 million in transportation projects that are getting done, we’re looking at the small number of projects that just didn’t happen to get accelerated and oh, by the way, that $50 million didn’t leave the region. it just went to other projects in the region that still benefit everybody and when we begin to look at the projects as part of an infrastructure set and realize they will get funded as opposed to everybody fighting over this little thing — >> but it’s not a little thing when the city of el paso shuffles projects from fiscal year to fiscal year to fiscal year because it can’t get them ready, even though the federal government has committed the funding. >> so shuffling is a pejorative. you’re not discussing the other two or three projects that have come out the other side of the funding pipeline and that’s the part of this discussion that’s missing. >> let’s just go to patty on the west side before we take a break. what’s your comment or question? >> yes, i would like to commend representative ordaz and thank you for asking the tough questions and in representing the people who are the taxpayers, making sure our money is getting used the right way. thank you so much. >> patty from the west side, commending representative ordaz. let’s take a break. we’ll be right back. we’ll get more of your back. >>> welcome back to “abc- xtra.” we’re talking about transportation funding. i have a question for you, mathew. >> sure. >> the bottom line is when you have a city rep, not representative ordaz, in this case in a public meeting that this is a hot mess, in quotation marks, and then a series of problems start surfacing, and then most recently you have tx-dot saying that the city risked losing another $20 million in reimbursements because it’s just not billing on time, it gives the public the sense that there’s some sort of disconnect there, that there’s a problem of competence. >> just to address the last one that you brought up about the reimbursement issue, that’s another one where language is really important. we’re not talking about losing funding, we’re talking about the opportunity to accelerate projects. on the reimbursement issue that’s another one that’s a play in search of a villain. on that one we’re working with tx-dot every day to make sure that we submit all the documentation that we need. the city’s goal — >> but you haven’t been doing it regularly. >> that’s a little bit of the story that you’ve heard from tx-dot. we’ve had hours of discussions with tx-dot who are working through every single project to make sure that we get to 100% reimbursement. and so while that doesn’t play as well in a sound bite, we’re working every day to make sure that again reimbursement is 100%, and that the taxpayers of el paso don’t suffer at all. and tx-dot is committed to working through that process with us. >> and that’s why we’re glad on this program because we try to go beyond sound bites here. a tweet, no one seems to care, except representative ordaz. where are they when it matters most to taxpayers? and james saying why are we not hearing about the issue from the council members and mayor who serve on the mpo? would you like to respond to that, representative ordaz? >> i really can’t speak for the members that sit on the mpo. you know — there was a couple of weeks ago i did sense that some of some of them were really taking ownership and responsibility for the mistakes that had been made but then come tuesday it was a completely different dialogue, a dialogue that i certainly didn’t expect, a lot of these excuses, just excuses from all around but i couldn’t quite understand it. so i really feel as elected officials that we are the ones that need to hold ourselves accountable and the organization accountable. >> james tweeting and if representative ordaz is the only one paying attention to mpo issues, maybe she should serve on the mpo, hashtag #commonsense. we have run out of time, thank you so much for both of you joing us. mathew, we really appreciate it. thank you so much. thank you. >> thank you. >> it’s really great to have you be accessible. thank you we appreciate it. thank you for joining us on “abc-7 xtra. we hope you’ll join us next week and we hope you found this informative