Why Is El Paso City Council Fighting So Hard To Keep You In The Dark?

For living in the Sun City, El Paso City Council sure likes to keep their constituents in the dark. The latest example of that is the City of El Paso trying to make sure that they don't have to disclose what they said about or how they scored the performance of El Paso City Manager Tommy Gonzalez or El Paso City Attorney Karla Nieman. They were both up for review earlier this year and city reps and Mayor Oscar Leeser are all trying to make sure that what they had to say in that review doesn't see the light of day.

They've gone to the Texas Attorney General on a couple of occasions to avoid releasing the specific scoring by individual city reps and the mayor on Gonzalez and Niemen's reviews but they did release an overall review. They also hired an out-of-town law firm from San Antonio to help them keep those individual reviews hush hush. At one point the City owed the San Antonio lawyers over $25,000, and paid them a few thousand on a previous bill. That means they're giving your taxpayer money to out-of-town lawyers to keep you from seeing Gonzalez and Nieman's reviews. And your taxpayer money pays their salaries. All of them. City Council, the Mayor, Gonzalez, and Nieman, and none of them want you to see what they are doing with your money.

But wait, there's more. The City also doesn't want you to know the breakdown in fees that they have been paying those San Antonio lawyers. They've asked the Texas Attorney General if they have to release the information on the fees they've paid with your taxpayer money or how much the lawyers were charging per hour.

City officials are waiting on a decision by the Texas Attorney General about all this secrecy. For some reason they feel like they get to hide what they are doing with your money. I'm not sure what they are hiding but I hope the TAG opens the windows and let's some sunshine in on whatever is going on behind closed doors at El Paso City Council. You can check out more details about this story by clicking here.