Petition with over 32,000 voter signatures stops UMC, El Paso Children's proposed projects
A proposal for $346 million worth of medical projects at University Medical Center of El Paso and El Paso Children’s Hospital has been stopped by a petition with more than 32,000 validated signatures of El Paso County voters against raising property taxes for the projects.
The El Paso County Commissioners Court at its meeting Monday received the official signature count for a petition circulated by The Libre Initiative, a national advocacy group.
Commissioners now will wait for the El Paso County Hospital District board to come back to commissioners on what it wants to do next, County Judge Ricardo Samaniego said after the validated petition numbers were reported.
One option is for the hospital district board to ask Commissioners Court to put the projects up for a public bond election vote next year.
“I want to assure you all that the things we had asked for in our bond (proposal) are necessary for us to continue to provide great care for our community. And we will continue that fight,” Jacob Cintron, hospital district and University Medical Center chief executive officer, told commissioners.
“We will respect the process and we will follow along with that and leave it to you to decide next steps,” Cintron said. “We’ll go back to our board as well and discuss what our next steps will be as well, in view of the petition.”
The proposed projects included a $79 million cancer treatment center, as well as expansion and upgrades of several medical units at county-operated UMC and El Paso Children's Hospital, which is overseen by the hospital district.
Just over 25,000 valid signatures, or 5% of county registered voters, were needed to stop Commissioners Court from allowing the hospital district to do the projects with property-tax financed certificates of obligation, which require no approval by voters.
El Paso County Clerk Delia Briones said Libre's petitions had 36,924 signatures, of which 32,311 were verified as valid signatures from El Paso County voters.
Libre is one of the first groups in Texas to use a new state law that allows the petition process to stop the issuance of certificates of obligation.
“El Paso is the only city to have collected signatures at this magnitude,” Karla Sierra, Libre’s El Paso director, told Commissioners Court.
“We had about six weeks to collect 25,000 signatures and an overwhelmingly 35,000-plus El Pasoans signed not only to hold UMC accountable for their lack of transparency, but to send a clear message to our elected officials” that El Pasoans are struggling to make ends meet while elected officials continue to incur debt, some without voter approval, she said.
The not-for-profit Libre, focused on Hispanic community issues, was started in 2011 with seed money provided by Kansas billionaires Charles Koch and his late brother David Koch. The Koch brothers are known for establishing a network of organizations to support libertarian and conservative political causes.
That doesn't mean the petition drive was done by out-of-towners, Sierra said.
“I have a personal- and professional-invested interest in my hometown, and I am far from an outsider,” she told commissioners.
Sierra in 2014 returned to El Paso, where, she said, her family has long-established roots, and became Libre’s El Paso director in 2016, when the group began operating here.
Officials at UMC and Texas Tech University Health Sciences Center El Paso, a UMC medical-care partner, have said the proposed medical projects are badly needed to handle increasing medical needs in El Paso County. The cancer treatment center would lessen the need for El Pasoans to travel out of town for cancer treatment, UMC officials have said.
But Libre got people's attention by focusing on the property-tax increase needed to finance the projects.
More: Large El Paso cancer treatment provider investing $34.5 million in expansion, renovation
The proposal would have increased the hospital district's annual tax bill on county properties by $51.80 per $100,000 of property valuation for 10 years, or an increase of $83 per year on a home valued at just over $146,000, a UMC official had reported. That amount would've declined to $26 per $100,0000 valuation for another 15 years.
Vic Kolenc may be reached at 546-6421; vkolenc@elpasotimes.com; @vickolenc on Twitter.
This article originally appeared on El Paso Times: Petition with over 32,000 voter signatures stops El Paso hospital plan
