Margo admits to using personal email account to conduct city business regarding arena

El Paso Mayor Dee Margo acknowledged to ABC-7 he used a personal email account to conduct business regarding the proposed downtown arena, vowing to “rectify this situation” and to no longer use his personal email account for official city business.

The El Paso Inc. reports a review of 155 pages of emails and documents it obtained via public information requests and from arena opponents, “found that at least seven emails sent and received by the mayor from his personal email account were not forwarded to his official city account.”

The El Paso Inc. further reports, that in the emails, Margo corresponded with El Paso businessman Woody Hunt and J.P. Bryan, the man financing lawsuits challenging the City of El Paso’s plan to build an arena in the Duranguito neighborhood in Downtown El Paso.

For a timeline of events regarding the legal fight over the arena and Duranguito, CLICK HERE and scroll to the middle of the page.

The mayor’s written response to ABC-7 was in connection to a request for an on-camera interview regarding this matter.

Below is Mayor Margo’s statement:

“During the time of the MPC mediation negotiations, J.P. Bryan initiated contact through my personal email account. In an effort to alleviate legal costs and settle the litigation, I inadvertently continued those discussions through my personal email. I recognize that emails in my personal account were not captured by IT. I have reviewed the City’s 2013 resolution regarding governmental transparency and I have taken measures to rectify this situation, I will no longer use my personal email to conduct city business.”

Attorney Joe Larsen, an open government advocate, tells ABC-7 Margo may have committed an ethics violation. The city ordinance calls for elected officials and city employees who receive messages involving city business on a personal device to forward such communication to his or her official government email.

“If the ordinance requires it, and he didn’t do it in a timely fashion, there may an ethical violation, specifically, in regards to the emails,” Larsen said.

UTEP Political Science and Communications Professor Richard Pineda told ABC-7 that just the appearance of a lack of transparency is troubling. “This only gives ammunition to the opponents of the (arena) to say, ‘this is what we’ve been saying all along: there are things that are being discussed outside the realm of public record and public scope.'”