After months of delays, El Paso City Council could be poised to scrap arena plan

Could the El Paso City Council be poised to scrap City Hall proposed arena plan and go back to the drawing board? Possibly.

After months of delays, discussion on a new site for the stalled Multipurpose Cultural and Performing Arts Center has seemingly ground to a halt — the proposed Union Depot site has been widely panned and any discussions about an alternate plan have taken place behind closed doors.

After City Council voted to abandon the Duranguito site last year, city staff proposed a plan to utilize the Union Depot site for an 8,000-seat hybrid venue — 4,000 indoor seats and an outdoor area with space for 4,000 more — in February.

Since then, City Council has repeatedly postponed discussion on the plan amid an outcry of criticism from residents, organizations and even elected officials calling the proposal far short of the grand 14,000-seat arena sold to voters in the 2012 Quality of Life bond.

But with the latest delay, some city representatives believe it's time to change course.

"I think now we need to decide if we even want to go forward with the project," said West Side city Rep. Brian Kennedy. "I feel it's our responsibility for all the public interest to make sure we look at all the options available and I don't want to have a public discussion until we fully flesh out all of our options, including our option of just stopping the project."

Kennedy said he has fielded numerous calls from residents who agree with hitting the brakes on the project. Other City Council members receiving similar feedback in their districts.

"I have discussed this issue with my constituents and not one person has told me they like the proposed plan of constructing the MPC on the Union Depot property," said West-Central city Rep. Josh Acevedo in a text message. "I believe we need some more time to develop a better plan that will create the MPC that was promised to voters in 2012."

With only $163 million left on hand for the project — a number dramatically shy of the half-a-billion dollars needed for a larger venue — it's unclear what options the city has available.

One thing is clear, however: El Pasoans are no closer to a promised multipurpose center than they were when the project was first approved more than a decade ago. City Hall seems on the verge of failing to deliver on a project it asked voters to approve.

'Let's have a reality check here'

When discussing the possibility of scrapping the plan altogether, Kennedy and other council members believe it's time for the voters to once again have a say on the path forward.

Kennedy asserted that voters were misled when approving funding for the original project in 2012, which even then was several hundred-million dollars less than what was needed for the type of venue being promised.

"I don't think the voters were told the truth about how much it was going to cost," Kennedy said. "It was always going to cost more than $180 million.

"Let's have a reality check here."

For his part, East-Valley city Rep. Art Fierro also believes it's time for residents to weigh in.

"There is a sense of urgency to come up with some resolution in regard to the MPC," he said. "I still believe when it's all said and done, we need the voters to have input on whether they want the arena being proposed at this moment or something else."

"It's been so long, I believe we owe it to the citizens to let them have their voice heard, and then take their guidance, what they want us to do, and then move forward."

'Not very optimistic' about future of project

While there appears to be a growing chorus of support among council members to potentially scrap the project, at least one city representative is voicing concern over what looks like the slow death of the once-celebrated proposal.

East-Central city Rep. Cassandra Hernandez, currently a candidate for mayor and a vocal supporter of the arena plan who resisted moving the project out of Duranguito, is worried.

"I voted to postpone the item not because I agree that we should postpone the discussion but because clearly the City Council has demonstrated that they have other ideas in mind to kill the project (rather) than trying to salvage (it) and work with stakeholders to save it," she wrote in a text message. "I can't speak for the reasons why they are postponing the conversation, but I'm not very optimistic about the future of the multipurpose center."

But while the constant delays spell a near-doomsday scenario for Hernandez, South-West city Rep. Chris Canales said the repeated postponements are little more than standard operating procedure for the City Council.

"This type of situation where an item is postponed across multiple meeting agendas or deleted to be brought back at a later date is a pretty normal occurrence," he wrote in an email. "The situation with the multipurpose center proposal is one that is still developing with new information, so enough of the Council members (in this case everyone, since the deletion was unanimous) simply weren’t ready to take a vote yet on the proposed site."

Though Canales conceded that more eyes and ears are tuned into the MPC discussion, he remained steadfast that the delays represent little more than careful governance.

"Of course, given the high profile of this issue, this particular delay has maybe been more noticeable to the public," he wrote, "but in reality this happens fairly frequently."

Council members expect discussion by end of month

While the delays may seem frustrating to a public that has waited more than a decade for substantive movement on the project, both Kennedy and Fierro believe the City Council will take some kind of action by the end of the month.

The ongoing delays, they said, have stemmed from the City Council's effort to have questions about the project answered — the answers often only lead to more questions.

"It's an executive session issue that pertains to the project or could pertain to the project," Fierro said.

"I kind of feel, and I think the Council feels ... let's wait until we have answers to our questions and then go back to the public," Kennedy said. "I just think to tell people every meeting, 'We're going to talk about; no, we're not,' I just don't think that's how we should be doing things."

Eastridge-Mid-Valley city Rep. Henry Rivera forwarded a request for comment on the project to City Attorney Karla Nieman, who responded that per "practice and policy" she does "not communicate directly with members of the press."

City Reps. Joe Molinar and Isabel Salcido did not respond to requests for comment.

This article originally appeared on El Paso Times: El Paso City Council members mull returning arena question to residents