City Investigation against Gonzalez extended

The El Paso City Council on Thursday extended the investigation into the search for a new financial adviser, allowing City Manager Tommy Gonzalez to submit answers to questions from an investigators next Tuesday.

City officials said the investigator’s questions had been delayed in the mail before reaching Gonzalez’s attorney, hence the extension.

The City council in December hired ethics attorney Ross Fischer to review the search for a new financial adviser. Gonzalez authorized the process to find a new firm after City Rep. Larry Romero suggested it during a public city council meeting but without a vote from council.

Mayor Oscar Leeser said Fischer had interviewed former and current city employees and was still waiting for answers from Romero.

The City Council was in executive session for more than five hours on Thursday, reviewing Fischer’s preliminary findings. “This answers questions and what we’re looking for and the reason we hired Mr. Fischer is to come to a conclusion and to move forward because we have so many projects and the city is going in a great direction right now and we want to continue to keep the momentum and the faster we can finish, the better we are,” said Leeser.

The City’s contract with Fischer is capped at $50,000 for the independent investigation and also for advising the City’s Ethics Commission, which is reviewing a separate ethics complaint against Romero filed by an activist and former political opponent.

Leeser said Fischer’s lengthy and finished report, which he called a “book”, will be released to the public on February 24th when council is slated to discuss it again. “At the end of the investigation, we do plan to just release the book to allow the public to see what the investigation detailed.”

City Rep. Michiel Noe said the scope of the investigation is thorough. “To the point that sometimes I wonder if sometimes we’re going beyond the scope of what we originally asked for. At this point, I’m not saying we’re going beyond the scope, but we are certainly not narrowing it.”

Romero came under suspicion for not initially disclosing to City officials that he had once worked with Noe Hinojosa, the owner of Estrada Hinojosa which the city nearly hired as its new financial adviser before the process stopped.

Emails show city purchasing employees last fall were already negotiating a price with Hinojosa when City Attorney Sylvia Firth learned of the search and raised questions, eventually halting the process.

Romero recommended Estrada Hinojosa to then City Manager Joyce Wilson shortly after he took office in 2013. The embattled city rep. said he only recommended them because of their track record as the third largest financial advising firm in the state and said he “didn’t push it” upon learning of the contract with First Southwest. Romero said he didn’t think it relevant to disclose to Wilson he had worked with Honojosa for a brief time period in the early 90s. He has since said that was probably an oversight.

Then in July of 2014, when Gonzalez had been on the job for a few weeks, Romero in a budget session with Council again suggested searching for a new firm.

Gonzalez has repeatedly said he authorized the process after that because he believed the entire council was on board with the decision after expressing disappointment with current financial adviser First Southwest.

He has also said he would not have green-lighted the search had he known about a city report that revealed former City Manager Joyce Wilson delayed the sale of the ballpark bonds until after the May 2013 mayoral election, sparking a chain reaction that landed the City an unfavorable financing deal that cost it more than $22 million.

City Representatives have said they initially believed the unfavorable financing was First Southwest’s fault. Noe has said the city attorney only briefed council on the ballpark bond financing, without specifics of Wilson’s actions.

Fischer is also tasked with reviewing the role the ballpark financing played on the eventual search for a new financial adviser.