TxDOT says it processed City projects on time

Texas Department of Transportation officials say road projects El Paso city representatives are concerned about are not delayed.

“It is not unusual for a project that lets at the very end of July or the beginning of August to go into construction in November and December so there’s nothing that’s really unusual about that,” said Bob Bielek in an interview Wednesday.

Bielek is referring to pedestrian and bicycle enhancements slated for four El Paso roadways. The streets are Resler, Viscount, Independence and River Bend. The walk and bike trails will be paid with federal money which is handled by TxDot.

City Rep. Emma Acosta asked for an update on the projects at the City Council’s weekly meeting on Tuesday, citing concerns from constituents about the timeline of the projects. City Rep. Cortney Niland also mirrored Acosta’s concerns, saying City employees have to do a better job of updating city council on project delays.

Niland was critical of the City’s Capital Improvements Department, formerly known as engineering. “There’s so much turnover, you’re not quite sure who you’re supposed to get the answer from and when you do one person tells you one thing and another person tells you another and then you’re hearing something else,” she said.

Capital Improvements Director Monica Lombrana explained the City had turned in all of the documents to TxDot on time. Lombrama said the City turned in the concurrence package, which consists of paperwork showing the bids the city is seeking, on July 29th.

According to the City timeline, TxDot told the City on Sept. 16th that it did not have a record of receiving the concurrence pkg for Riverbend, despite the city sending it late July. Also according to the City, TxDot did not submit the concurrence packages to Austin until September 28th and October 22nd and 23rd.

“I can’t speak for TxDot. Let me answer your questions. We submitted the documents. We didn’t receive them. We called them, we emailed them. Staff said hey we haven’t gotten them. I called them personally. We finally got a letter. Those are the steps that took place,” said City Manager Tommy Gonzalez in response to Niland’s question about the timeline.

Bielek said July and August is a busy time for texdot because that’s when every city is turning documents in to get projects funded and it’s the transition between fiscal years so its not unusual for it to take weeks to process documents. “That happens statewide so you have all the 25 districts trying to get all of their projects under let in august. You have all the counties and all of the cities across the states trying to get those projects let so it just builds up.”

He said TxDot processed the City’s projects as soon as it could. “Things do get lost. There are humans involved. If that was the case then it’s our fault but I don’t think that was the case. It wasn’t a matter of not having a record of it, there was some information that wasn’t there and so they (TxDot engineers) called the city and asked for it and we got it back the same day,” Bielek said.

TxDot said communication between the state and the City has improved since Gonzalez revamped the Engineering department.

He also alluded to city representatives not fully understanding the funding process. “Anytime that you get people who are not completely familiar with the process when they’re reacting to constituent complaints sometimes take issues beyond the level that they really are in terms of discussion.”