Mayor Leeser’s Unconventional State of the City Address

manager’s raise?” .. laughs… “so that’s the easy question? yeah they get harder from here … ” the mayor of el paso opting for a more relaxed state of the city update. oscar leeser went with a “q and a format… only he didn’t answer all the questions. good evening and thank you for joing us on abc- seven at six tonight. i’m estela cas. rick cabrera has the evening off. the mayor hit on various topics today, answering prepared questions instead of going with the traditional speech approach to the state of the city. how are el pasoans reacting? abc-seven’s complete coverage now with reporter darren hunt. estela… the format allowed leeser to discuss several city issues, including job growth, public safety, quality of life … and even what some have called a dysfunctional council and last month’s decision by that council to give the city manager a huge raise. “sometimes we get a littl heated, no ifs ands and buts about that, but that really adds a little flavor to the city.” the mayor city council against charges it’s “dysfunctional.” “el paso is moving in the right direction and one of the things i can tell you is council is working together, if you had an 8-0 vote 100 percent of time, you really need to wonder and you need to check and see what’s going on.” “we may disagree on a lot o issues but i think that’s what happens when we have a democracy.” leeser spoke abou his decision not to veto city manager tommy gonzalez’s 60-thousand dollar raise, although he disagreed with it. “i honestly felt it could cos the city thousands maybe even millions of dollars by doing something like that and that wasn’t the right thing to do.” “when you sitting there and you heard that did you expect that coming? and what did you think when you heard it?” “i don’t know i need to ask m wife … i’ll see what she thinks about it but i think its good to head off issues and talk about issues head on and he did.” leese compared job growth to a fruit tree that needs time to blossom. “how far along is that frui tree?” “you’ve seen a lot of peopl that have come to el paso, really the wages are increasing monthly … there’s so many great things going on that that fruit tree is starting to blossom.” “we planted the tree, and the fruit is gonna start to grow but you can’t expect to see full blooming trees overnight.” “the job creation piece h mentioned, i think is vital when you talk about how to grow a community.” leeser touted his work with big companies like prudential, charles schwab, mesa airlines and a-d-p to move to el paso or expand their operations here. he said he hopes the city will see its tax base shift from largely residential to a stronger business base. estela? darren, thank you. abc-seven is also keeping you up to date on the street paving controversy