El Paso City Council to consider breaking up climate charter in special meeting Tuesday

Sunrise El Paso Members and other supporters of the climate charter filled Cty hall on Aug. 2.
Martha Pskowski

El Paso Times
Adam Powell - El Paso Times
January 23, 2023

The El Paso City Council has called a special meeting for Tuesday to discuss the proposed climate charter, which would create a citywide climate policy aimed at creating green jobs, conserving water, promoting solar energy and reducing the city's contribution to climate change.

Spearheaded by activist groups Sunrise El Paso and Ground Game Texas, the climate charter garnered more than 39,000 signatures of support on a petition submitted in July and certified in November for placement on the May ballot.

But according to a Ground Game Texas news release, the council plans to consider breaking up the climate charter into multiple separate ballot measures during its special meeting Tuesday, a move proponents say will only confuse voters in May.

"The El Paso Climate Charter is an overwhelmingly popular proposal that nearly 22,000 registered El Pasoans asked to put on the ballot," Sun Rise El Paso climate campaign manager Ana Fuentes Zueck said in the news release. "These voters signed their names in support of ONE climate charter, not eight separate initiatives dealing with eight different issues. It's an insult to the voters of El Paso that the city staff would seek to sow confusion by breaking up this initiative."

While the original proposal was "a single, comprehensive policy," according to Ground Game Texas co-founder and political director Mike Siegel, the amendments championed by the Ad Hoc Charter Advisory Committee call for the charter to broken into eight separate measures.

The amended propositions read as follows:

• Proposition A: Shall the City Charter be amended, as proposed by a petition, to require the City Council to employ a climate director, who shall be appointed and removed by City Council and report directly to City Council; to create a climate policy requiring City Council to use all available resources and authority to accomplish and reduce the City’s contribution to climate change, invest in an environmentally sustainable future, and advance the cause of climate justice; and to require the creation of a climate department to be directly overseen by the climate director.
• Proposition B: Shall the City Charter be amended, as proposed by a petition, to require the creation of a nine (9) member climate commission, with recommending and investigative powers, for the purposes of overseeing the implementation and fulfillment of a city climate policy; the climate commission to be appointed by City Council with removal of individual members only for incompetence or nonfeasance, misfeasance or malfeasance in office.
• Proposition C: Shall the City Charter be amended, as proposed by a petition, to require the creation of an annual goal for climate jobs and the adoption and implementation of a policy, that will provide a preference for contractors who are able to advance the City’s climate policy.
• Proposition D: Shall the City Charter be amended, as proposed by a petition, to require the creation of an annual Solar Power Generation Plan for the City of El Paso and to require the City Manager to establish and maintain policies that encourage the development of rooftop solar power generation capacity within the City of El Paso using existing City facilities and require both new buildings and retrofitted buildings to include solar power generation capacity.
• Proposition E: Shall the City Charter be amended, as proposed by a petition, to require the employment of all available methods so that all energy used within the City is generated by clean renewable energy, with the goals of requiring (1) 80% clean renewable energy by 2030 and (2) 100% clean renewable energy by 2045.
• Proposition F: Shall the City Charter be amended, as proposed by a petition, to require the City of El Paso to employ all available efforts to convert El Paso Electric to municipal ownership.
• Proposition G: Shall the City Charter be amended, as proposed by a petition, to require the City of El Paso to undertake all necessary efforts to prepare city infrastructure to withstand extreme weather conditions and ensure uninterrupted provision of basic services and utilities to City residents.
• Proposition H: Shall the City Charter be amended, as proposed by a petition, to require the City of El Paso to ban the use of City water for fossil fuel industry activities, defined to include El Paso Electric Company, outside of the city limits and prohibit the City of El Paso from selling or transferring any water for purposes of fossil fuel industry activities outside of the city limits, or otherwise allow any City water to be used for such purposes.

For East-Central city Rep. Cassandra Hernandez, the changes represent little more than an attempt to ensure that the measures fall within the letter of the law.

"It's up to council to create ballot language that is factual and aligns with state law," Hernandez said in a text message. "State law won't allow for one measure. Because it has to be broken up into different subject matters per state law."

City Strategic Communications Director Laura Cruz-Acosta agreed.

"According to Tx. Local Gov't Code 9.004, 'an amendment may not contain more than one subject,'" Cruz-Acosta said in an email. "It also goes on to say, 'the ballot shall be prepared so that a voter may approve or disapprove any one or more amendments without having to approve or disapprove all of the amendments.'"

West-Side city Rep. Brian Kennedy said he had not yet reviewed the agenda packet for the meeting, which was announced Friday, while city Reps. Art Fierro and Chris Canales opted to hold their comments until after Tuesday's presentation. The remainder of the council did not respond to requests for comment.

For Siegel, however, the climate charter only deals with one subject and should therefore be taken as one measure.

"The reforms in this initiative all fall under the single subject of climate action," Siegel said in the news release. "We view the city staff's proposal as a hostile act designed to confuse El Paso voters, tens of thousands of whom signed their name behind a single policy to put on the ballot: the Climate Charter."