KC Counts:
Bob, it seems like data centers are dominating the news recently all around the region. El Paso, of course, is not escaping it.
Bob Moore:
That's right. And this happened the same day as they had a pretty contentious session in Las Cruces over Project Jupiter this week. In El Paso, the proposal from two members of city council was to attempt to reopen the economic development agreement, the city of El Paso approved with Meta back in, in 2023, and it drew a large audience. I think there were more than 150 or so people signed up to speak. Only 10 spoke in, in favor of it. A lot of those were union workers who are, are having access to jobs right now. But the overall message from, from the audience is that they felt that the earlier approval of this center was a betrayal of El Paso It threatened our water supply, our environment. And it was a really, really angry session. At the end, the city council voted five to three against reopening the negotiations or trying to reopen the negotiations. One thing that was never really addressed by even the supporters is what incentive Meta would have to come back to the table, you know, several years after they developed a deal and they've already begun construction. But the anger is the big takeaway. And, you know, at the end of the meeting, the crowd began shouting, vote them out, vote them out. So this will be a continuing issue as we head into elections this November when half the city council is on the ballot. So The same tensions you're seeing in Donana County, we're seeing out here in El Paso County.
KC Counts:
Yeah. And the city recently, we talked about this a while back when a lawsuit was filed about the franchise fee that the city charges. It's an environmental franchise fee on trash bills. And it looks like that lawsuit was won by a former state representative, right?
Bob Moore:
Won again. It's important to note. So this was an appeals court decision by the 8th Court of Appeals in El Paso that upheld an earlier trial court ruling in a lawsuit Joe Pickett, who, as you mentioned, is a former state representative, also back in the day, a member of the El Paso City Council. He's been part of the political scene for a long time. And this is a bill that's tacked on to water and garbage bills, the water utility bills for the sanitation collection too. And it's $6 a month right now. The declared purpose was to cover damage done by the city's garbage trucks on the the local roads. And Pickett said in his lawsuit, basically, if that's the purpose, then why are you spending this money on things other than roads? That makes it not a fee, that makes it a tax because you're using it to collect revenue. The trial court a couple of years found in his favor and the Eighth Court of Appeals did so the same this week and basically upheld the order that he was entitled to a refund. This opens the door potentially for others to seek refunds of money that they've paid over time. people shouldn't go out spending this money thinking they're going to get, thousands in refunds. But it will create a challenge for the city. They've got $13 million in their budget this year from this fee. The decisions in the two courts that have heard this so far have been very, very decisive about this being an illegal tax that the city has imposed on its residents.
KC Counts:
Very interesting. And we'll stay in court for this last story we'll touch on today. And that is the settlements that have been reached by Walmart with some 63 plaintiffs.
Bob Moore:
Yeah, so this stems from the 2019 mass shooting at the Cielo Vista Walmart. Many of the people who lost loved ones in the shooting filed suit, as did a number of people who were wounded and survived. Those suits were put on hold essentially while the criminal case went through the courts. So Walmart had court-ordered mediation with the plaintiffs. They conducted a number of these sessions, and those mediation sessions yielded 63 settlement agreements. Then all of a sudden, we were mentioning the Eighth Court of Appeals earlier with the Pickett case. They're involved in this story too. They issued a ruling kind of pausing all court action back in May so I could review some appeals that Walmart wants to file. At that point, Walmart stopped all of the other mediation sessions that involved 29 remaining plaintiffs. So we're in this really odd situation where 63 people who sued Walmart alleging negligence that contributed to the tragedy in 2019 have received settlement agreements, presumably will receive compensation down the road, while the other 29 who are making the same allegations will face at least delays in even getting to talk to Walmart. So we need to watch for this really, really odd and probably awful outcome where people who suffered, some will get compensation, some will not solely based on when their mediation was scheduled with Walmart.
KC Counts:
Wow. All right. Well, you can read all about it at elpasomatters.org. Bob, thank you for the update. Have a wonderful weekend.
Bob Moore:
Thank you, KC. I appreciate it. You too.
