Why Does City Rep. Eddie Holguin Want A Guarantee On Downtown El Paso Ballpark Money

City Rep. Eddie Holguin demanded yesterday that Paul Foster and Josh Hunt guarantee the 12 million dollars for their part of the ballpark build. He says he just wants to make sure that if MountainStar goes bankrupt that we wouldn't be stuck holding that bag. So I have a couple of questions for the venerable Mr. Holguin....

(Warning - this is a long read.  Oh, and it's just my opinion)
1. When was the last time the City required a guarantee, or the money up front, from an entity they have done business with? We give Dame La Mano - also known as 'Put Taxpayer Money in my Mano' - thousands upon thousands of dollars with no possibility of a return on that investment. What about the money they've given Café Mayapan? Where is the payback on that? When you opened your restaurant, were you told to come up with your entire lease payment up front? Did you pay for all your equipment up front? Is there a guarantee to your employees that they will be paid years of salary up front?

2. If you're so serious about the guarantee, why didn't you put a time limit on an answer from MountainStar? Why didn't you build in sanctions for a 'no' answer? You accomplished nothing in your previous term in office, and the guarantee demand is just another roar from a paper tiger. You are clearly going to spend the next four years kicking Foster and Hunt's shins so you can stand in front of the cameras and tell your constituents that you are battling the evil forces of progress. You looked awfully fetching at City Council yesterday, and the hand gestures were priceless. Mayhaps you were filming your campaign commercial, Mayoral hopeful Holguin?

3. What do you propose we do with the land? We can't go back and rebuild your beloved toaster, I mean, City Hall, so what would you do with the empty lot? You have a lot of reasons why you hate, hate, hate, the ballpark, but no ideas of what would be better.

Eddie, with all due respect, put your school marm hat away, unpoint your finger at the big bad rich people, and let's get on with this already. The ballpark needs to be built. Failure of the ballpark means huge problems for the City. I don't want you to fail in getting amenities for your district, I don't want Mayor Leeser to fail in his office - failure is a bad thing, yet you love to sing the "I can't wait for the ballpark to fail so I can say I told you so" song for all to hear.

Paul Foster and Josh Hunt are not failures. Show me one instance in which they reneged on a deal. Show me proof positive, not chismes, of their backroom deals, their corruption, or any of the accusations of wrongdoing you keep slinging at them. Show me anything that would give you reason to believe that they cooked up this whole ballpark deal so that they could skip off into the sunset and leave the City holding the bag. Did they do that with the medical school? The UTEP upgrades? The dizzying number of other charitable acts they have so callously committed against El Paso?

I know you think they are sitting in their offices, rubbing their hands together with glee, and chuckling over the fate of the thousands of El Pasoans they are working so hard to force from their homes, but, really, why would they do that? Because they want to live in those homes? So they can buy them all up and charge rent to the former homeowners?

The thought that Foster and Hunt want to bankrupt hardworking residents is ridiculous. You sling that accusation because there is no better way to scare the hell out of people than telling them the big bad rich people want to run them out of their homes. You should be ashamed of yourself for frightening people.

Do you like the ballpark? No. We get it. You hate it. But do you really want to see it fail? Because if you do, then you don't belong in office. The point behind being in office is to good for the City, not to sling mud at people who have done nothing but good for us.

You do nothing for your district or your City. You are worse than a piece of furniture office holder - you are a roadblock to progress who thinks nothing of scaring the crap out of people to achieve your ends.