El Paso County Commissioners reflect on bond vote, look ahead to future projects

EL PASO, Texas (KVIA) -- El Paso County voters approved three of the five Capital Improvement bond propositions on this year's general election ballot.

According to the unofficial final results from the El Paso County Elections Department, the majority of voters approved the following propositions:

• Proposition A ($95.6 million) to upgrade and expand county parks and recreational spaces
• Proposition B ($26.7 million) to build, upgrade and expand the Office of the Medical Examiner
• Proposition E ($32.7 million) to build El Paso County's first animal shelter

The majority of voters denied the following propositions:

• Proposition C ($63.3 million) for County’s courthouse, sub courthouses, and related annexes
• Proposition D ($105.5 million) for the County’s Coliseum and adjacent facilities

For the time being, the county cannot set aside funding to be used for Propositions C and D without voter approval.

"I had raised a concern that, we were requesting authority from the voters to issue too much debt," Iliana Holguin, El Paso County Commissioner for Precinct 3 said. "We could bring them back to the voters in the future." 

David Stout, County Commissioner for Precinct 2, stressed the importance of maintaining facilities.

"We want to make sure that the Coliseum continues to be a viable, safe, accessible place. It's an amazing community asset. It's a historic asset. We need to invest in that that property," Stout said.

"It seems to me that (vote) was just so close that just a little more work maybe would have gotten it across--a little better information, would have gotten it across the the finish line." 

The vote for Proposition D failed by 712 votes.

County Judge Ricardo Samaniego said that county officials will do what they can to address necessary upgrades in the meantime.

"We'll adjust our budget to make sure that we could cover some of the things that we have to do here at the Courthouse and at the annex, because people didn't want that," Samaniego said.

He cited University Medical Center of El Paso as an example. Back in 2022, UMC requested the authority to issue a Certificate of Obligation, but a community petition blocked that effort.

"They took care of a lot of things that did not pass because the bond didn't pass the first time," Samaniego added. "We're not going to let the community down."