July 8, 2008
El Paso City Council members have been intensely lobbied in recent weeks over zoning cases, whether to allow a modern-looking house to go up in a historic district and, especially, the proposal to develop the former Farah manufacturing site.
The city and county governments imposed rules in 2006 to bring legitimate lobbying activities into the light by requiring paid lobbyists to register and to disclose their activities.
But not everyone is playing by the rules.
So far, no formal complaints have been filed with the city or the county alleging that anyone has failed to comply.
“Obviously, the rules are not being adhered to,” said Mark Smith, a registered lobbyist who works for Hunt Communities LLC. “The city ordinance is being broken because people aren’t registering.
“If you want transparency, let’s all register or let’s say it’s just a paper tiger and be done with it. It upsets me … that people don’t register or consider it a problem not to register.”
Two names that pop up quickly are Ray Mancera and former city Rep. Alexandro Lozano.
Lately, Mancera has lobbied council members on behalf of the owner of The Three Legged Monkey, an Eastside bar, involved in a parking dispute with the neighbors, and for Project Vida, which sought City Council approval for a zoning change to build an apartment complex.
“He lobbied for Project Vida at City Council and in each of our offices,” city Rep. Beto O’Rourke said.
City Rep. Susie Byrd said Mancera was involved in drafting the lobbyist ordinance and has been engaged in lobbying for two years.
“He knew what the rules are,” she said.
Newspaper Tree asked Mancera about his unreported lobbying activities in the lobby outside City Council chambers last week after he appeared before the council on behalf of the Hispanic Builders Alliance.
Mancera admitted that he had not registered this year, paid the annual $100 registration fee or disclosed his contacts with city officials, as required.
Ironically, Mancera was involved in drafting the city’s lobbying ordinance and supported it in 2006.
He also left the City Plan Commission because the ordinance prohibits lobbyists from serving on 10 major city boards and commissions.
“I was the first to register, and I stepped down from the Plan Commission to address this,” he said. “There was a lot of opposition from engineers and attorneys and all those folks that come and advocate on behalf of their clients. They were very upset about having to register as a lobbyist.
“I went in there and said, ‘If you appear before mayor and City Council, go ahead and register. You’re a lobbyist. You don’t like the name, but that’s the name that they give to you.’ ”
There are others who have never complied, he said.
“You have seen many of them here, and yet they are never registered,” Mancera said. “Engineering firms, not only are they representing clients, but they also sit on boards and commissions. That’s the story, not who has not registered.
“A lot of folks have not stepped down, and they continue to sit on very prominent boards and commissions.”
Asked if he intended to register, Mancera said he did and headed immediately to the City Clerk’s office where he reregistered as a lobbyist, paid the fee and filed a report of his contacts with city officials.
Byrd said she challenged Lozano several weeks ago over his lobbying activities on behalf of Jorge Valenzuela, who was forced to stop construction of his house in the Austin Heights Historic District.
“He came to me privately on the Valenzuela stuff, but he never said he was representing Valenzuela,” Byrd said, noting that Lozano was a member of City Council when the lobbying ordinance was passed.
She quoted Lozano as saying he had no intention of registering until other lobbyists did so, a charge Lozano did not deny.
“I was just pulling her leg,” Lozano told Newspaper Tree. “If I decide to be a lobbyist, I will register.”
Lozano said Valenzuela hired him to do drawings that filled out the proposed designs of the house Valenzuela wanted to build but was not paid to lobby city officials.
Smith contends that lobbying is a legitimate and necessary activity at the local, state and national levels of government, but the profession has gotten a bad name because of the highly publicized illegal activities of Jack Abramoff and others like him.
Locally, well-known lobbyists Tony Dill and lawyer Raymond Telles were caught by federal authorities for engaging in what could only be called extreme lobbying and pled this year guilty to bribery and wire-fraud charges.
And Mark Schwartz, who lobbied for Access Healthcare and worked for El Paso’s National Center for Employment of the Disabled (now ReadyOne Industries) has been identified as a target in the federal public corruption investigation.
County Commissioner Dan Haggerty and Escobar both have signs outside their offices advising lobbyists to register if they wish to speak to the commissions about matters coming up for a decision.
Haggerty isn’t sure that everyone who has visited him to lobby has been registered.
But, he said, the federal investigation, last year’s FBI search of the county offices and the subsequent guilty pleas by County Judge Anthony Cobos’ former chief of staff, John Travis Ketner, and former Commissioner Betti Flores has seriously dampened interest in lobbying at the courthouse.
“Since May 15 of last year when the FBI raided us, nobody comes near the third floor of the courthouse,” Haggerty said. “If somebody’s lobbying, they’re doing it in a bar.”
NOT MANY LOBBYISTS REGISTERED IN EL PASO
In all, just 41 individuals, law firms and companies are registered for lobbying activity with the city clerk’s office. And only two people are registered as lobbyists with the county.
Those are small numbers by Texas standards.
In San Antonio, for instance, there are 10 lobbyist companies and firms employing 41 individual lobbyists representing more than 550 individual and business clients.
Most of those registered in El Paso are executives with the electric company and Hunt Communities who may not be required to register and who have reported no contacts with anyone in city government this year.
Of the 41 lobbyists at City Hall, only seven have reported contacts this year. [link]
Those who have reported contacts with local officials this year are lawyer Rodolfo “Rudy” Mata; Montoya PR representing the Simon Property Group; and Smith, Albert Olvera and Gary Sapp and Michael Viramontes, all representing Hunt.
Three lawyers who are registered as lobbyists have not reported contacts this year but say they will do so by Thursday’s filing deadline.
They are Frank Ainsa Jr. representing Valenzuela, his partner Mike Huston representing Artemio de la Vega, owner of Las Palmas Marketplace and Jeff Ray representing Simon Property.
The two registered at the county courthouse are Teresa Montoya and Ray, both representing Simon Property. [link]
LOBBYING FOR AND AGAINST FOSTER-REGENCY TAX BREAKS
Recently, the heaviest lobbying of local officials has been by representatives of Paul Foster and Regency Center over their request for $18 million in city and county tax incentives to develop the Farah site and by those by those opposing it on behalf of Simon Properties Group, owner of the Cielo Vista and Sunland Park malls.
“My name is there,” Ray said. “I registered out an abundance of caution, but I don’t see anybody listed for Regency as a lobbyist.
“I know there are some people lobbying for them, but who is registered?”
By all accounts, Simon Vice President Rod Vosberg and Regency executive West Miller have lobbied City Council and county Commissioners Court hard.
The question is whether they should have registered as lobbyists.
A close reading of the city’s lobbying ordinance and the county’s lobbying rules, which mirror the city’s, indicates that the Foster-Regency and Simon representatives may not be required to register and report their activities, though executives with other companies, such as El Paso Electric and Hunt Communities, have done so.
Vosberg could not be reached for comment despite several calls and messages left on his cell phone, but Newspaper Tree did reach Miller, who vehemently denied that he has engaged in lobbying at all.
“I am not a lobbyist, and I have not been lobbying,” Miller said. “I have been informing the City Council and county commissioners as requested by them and informing them and educating them on what we’re trying to do and what we’re trying to get approved.”
County Commissioner Veronica Escobar said there’s no question about whether Miller has been lobbying.
“Of course he does,” she said. “Commissioner (Dan) Haggerty and I met with West Miller together. He strongly advocates his position. That’s lobbying. He’s doing it for his job. He’s not doing it for free.”
Byrd agreed that Miller and Vosper have engaged in lobbying, but she said that may not mean they have to register as lobbyists because they are working on behalf of their own companies and that is very apparent.
“It’s real clear what his interests are and who he is working for,” Byrd said of Miller. “The idea behind the ordinance was to make sure that we had people register as lobbyists when it was not clear where their interests are.
“It’s the unknown person who is stirring the pot that makes people mad.”
Last year, Byrd said, the council loosened the requirements of the lobbying ordinance, eliminating the need for people representing their companies or themselves to register and narrowing the requirement to those people who are actually paid for lobbying.
But people who are paid more than $200 in a year to lobby elected or appointed officials and decision-making city and county staff members must register.
Activity reports are supposed to be filed every three months and the next deadline is Thursday for the second quarter.
If anyone were reported for violating the city’s lobbying ordinance and convicted, the punishment would be inconsequential.
It’s a Class C misdemeanor punishable for a fine of up to $200.
“I do think there are people not following it,” Byrd said of the lobbying ordinance. “And I think it’s incumbent on us to follow it and not to meet with people who are lobbying but aren’t registered and upon people in the public who are aware of it to file a complaint.”
She said she intends to post a sign in her office similar to the one in Haggerty and Escobar’s offices, advising people required to register as lobbyists not to seek an appointment with her if they have not.
O’Rourke said he thinks council members should take the affirmative step of providing the city clerk’s office with copies of their monthly calendars so people could see for themselves who council members are meeting.
“I think it is a valuable tool to know who is paying to influence public policy and who is being paid to do it,” O’Rourke said.
Calls to the offices of city Reps. Melina Castro and Rachel Quintana went unreturned.
As light as the punishment may be for violating the city’s lobbying requirements, Escobar said she would be happy to have that much enforcement power at the county.
“We have a more fundamental issue at the county, and that is our Code of Ethics and our rules are essentially a guideline,” she said. “We don’t have rule-making authority. There are no consequences.
“We are powerless when it comes to enforcement because the state of Texas refuses to give us ordinance-making authority.”