Ex-Mayor Cook denies delaying ballpark bond sales

center will actually retrograde and/or reform to the west thursday night and friday while a back door cold front pushes to the southwest into new mexico and west texas. northeast winds behind the front will push cooler air into the cwa at low levels under warm moist air aloft with resultant isentropic uplift sustaing more widespread precipitation friday through saturday. surface temo 10 degrees below normal by s air aloft will limit snowfall 3 inches may accumulate. tjohn cook about that alleged politmayor john cook about that alleged political favor that cost the city of el paso 22 million dollars. abc-7’s maria garcia leading our coverage with new information you’ll see only on abc-7 this august 2013 email from city manager joyce wilson to the city attorney says mayor cook told wilson to delay the sale of the ballpark bonds until after the may election. a gamble that ultimately led to the city losing millions of dollars. but today cook swearing what wilson’s email says is not true: 05-15 maria: so you can unequivocally say you did not direct any city employee to delay the sale of the bonds because of the election. cook: no i can absolutely say i never did give that directive to anybody. maria: that means though that someone is lying in all of this because ms. wilson says something completely different. cook: yeah well i swear to tell the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth so help me god. former mayor john cook rembers things differently than former city manager joyce wilson. cook: that’s the best of my recollection.” we took a close look at the timeline today: by late march: the city got the green light to issue the bonds when it got through a legal hurdle in a lawsuit against the ballpark. then in late april – the city finished a public notice period. yet: the city did not approve the debt amount until late may : a three week lag that could have made all the difference. according to wilson’s email: the city purposely postponed the decision after the may election because of quote: concerns over the ongoing controversy.” remember that’s when ballpark supporter steve ortega was running for mayor against oscar leeser. 02:15 i never worried about the election because i wasn’t in it bottom line: if the city would have moved to sell the ballpark bonds before the may election – it could have gotten a better interest rate and come out millions of dollars ahead. but instead – it faced an ugly market in june, july and august and it got a bad deal and lost a lot of money. maria, yesterday you told us the wilson email also mentioned anne morgan lilly. yes lilly also denies even talking with wilson about delaying the bonds. former reps steve ortega and susie byrd also say they never ordered wilson to delay. cortney niland has not returned our calls. what is becoming clear: this was a decision made by a few people behind closed doors. and maria, you’er also staying on top of another big city story out of city hall. some city reps tried to blame the city’s financial advisors for the bad financing deal on the ballpark. yes. and city rep. larry romero even suggested the city fire them. well – an el paso times investigation revealed he tried to get a company he had ties to hired instead. and this afternoon, mayor oscar leeser calling for a full report on that – saying he plans to hold people accountable. police had to close off a portion of dyer street today