El Paso City Attorney rejects ethics complaints against mayor, city reps.

The Office of the City Attorney of El Paso said two ethics complaints filed against the mayor and four city representatives were sent to the wrong agency.

In her reply to Jud Burgess and David Aviles, City Attorney Sylvia Borunda Firth said each “failed to identify a specific section of the ethics ordinance you believe has been violated.”

Borunda Firth said the complaints should have been filed with the District Attorney’s Office or the County Attorney’s Office.

“I note that your allegation is not grounded in the ethic ordinance but rather a violation of a Texas statute; the Texas Open Meetings Act,” Borunda Firth wrote.

It took the City Attorney’s Office more than a month to reach the conclusion.

Burgess filed an ethics complaint against Leeser and City Reps. Cortney Niland, Jim Tolbert, Peter Svarzbein and Lily Limon. The complaint took issue with their participation in a Dec. 16 closed door meeting with some of those opposed to the original proposed Duranguito location of the Downtown arena.

In his complaint, Burgess stated, “I believe the Mayor and four City Council members named in this complaint intentionally conspired to avoid quorum by gaming The Texas Open Meetings Act and participating in a rolling quorum, which allowed them to conduct closed-door meetings without public notice.”

According to the complaint, Limon, Tolbert and Svarzbein met in the mayor’s office privately before 10 a.m. Dec. with local citizens. Tolbert left the closed door meeting just before Leeser and Niland arrived to continue the meeting with local citizens, the complaint stated.

The complaint also states, “City Council members and the Mayor cannot rotate members in the meeting over small periods of time to avoid meeting the number that constitutes a quorum for the purpose of avoiding giving public notice.”

Svarzbein left the closed door meeting about 10:30, the complaint stated. That was reportedly followed by the re-arrival of Tolbert at 10:45 a.m.

Burgess further stated in the complaint, “Outside parties, such as the citizens who participated in the meeting, are not allowed to attend executive sessions as in this case.”

Both men met with ABC-7 for an interview Monday evening. Neither received the letter and weren’t aware of the city’s response until speaking with ABC-7 over the phone. “The mistake that she says I made seems to be a pretty straight forward one, so I don’t know why she didn’t tell me this very quickly,” Aviles said. “I’m not really sure why it would have taken her 36 days to give me something that would have taken maybe an hour to figure out,” Burgess said. “It starts with this and then it leads to what, taxes could get raised, they can get lowered, programs can be funded or de-funded and we’ll never know why, and this all has to be out in the open,” Aviles said. The complaints were filed on December 19th and 20th and the city had at least 20 business days to respond. It took at least 35 days total to respond. Burgess says he filed another ethics complaint Monday morning against Sylvia Borunda-Firth because of the delay. “She did not do her job. I mean, I filed that ethics complaint and it was her duty to immediately look into it and isntead here we are 36 days later and I’m barely getting an action letter from Syvlia Borunda-Firth,” Burgess said. Burgess told ABC-7 now that the investigation is in the hand of the Texas Rangers, he does not plan to follow through with the complaint. Aviles however, say he will. “If I have to keep going up the chain of command, I’ll keep doing that. If I have to talk to the district attorney or the state attorney, whoever I have to have to submit that complaint, I’m going to because this is very serious what they did and this is not something that would call for a recall, this is something that could lead to jail time,” Aviles said.