The El Paso City Council held a work session on August 17, 2026 starting at 9:00 AM and ending at 5:21 PM. The meeting included an annual stormwater utility report, a resolution for an updated Sister Cities Agreement with Chihuahua, and executive session discussions on utility matters, economic development, and legal consultations. The council took action on three executive session items and unanimously approved the Sister Cities resolution.
Good morning. This is a work session of the El Paso City Council for Monday, August 17, 2026. It is 9 o'clock AM. Mayor Johnson is present and presiding in Council Chambers along with Mayor Protein Chavez, Representative Acevedo, Representative Malonado Rocha, Representative Boya Trejo, and alternate Mayor Pro Tem Fierro. Mayor, we have a quorum. Okay, Representative Fier, would you lead us on the Pledge of Allegiance, please? Thank you, Mayor. I pledge allegiance of the United States of America. And to the Republicans, one nation under the individual with liberty and justice fraud. Our champion. Okay, Miss Brian, believe that brings us to item number one. Yes, sir. And item number one is annual report by El Paso Water on the state of the stormwater utility. Okay. Good morning. Good morning, everyone. Yes. Yes. Well, um, my name is Gisela Dagnino. I am the utility chief operations officer for stormwater. And this morning I'll be providing the annual update on the stormwater utility through the end of February 2026, which is the end of our fiscal year. The stormwater utility was creating after the 2006 flood disaster to develop a master plan, establish dedicated funding that also helps pay for maintenance, and implement projects that reduce flood risk throughout El Paso. Um authorities were divided between the city of El Paso and El Paso Water, and the city manages floodplain regulations and development requirements through your planning and um and inspections department, meaning that they are responsible for managing impact for development to ensure that neighboring properties and downstream properties um uh do not flood. And EP water may manages stormwater infrastructure that is in place, we perform maintenance of the system and we manage capital improvements to move runoff away from property. So in other words, EP water focuses on engineered conveyance systems while the city focuses on floodplain management and evaluates watershed scale flood behavior, regulatory compliance, and long-term risk reduction. And today we maintain a large and growing system. And because needs always always exceed uh funding, projects are prioritized using objective criteria. And one question that we often hear is how do you decide which projects get built first? So the answer is that the projects are not selected selected based on who calls more. They are prioritized through a structured and transparent process, but equally important is public input. So when the stormwater utility was recruit first created in 2008, um community leaders recognized that the stormwater fees would only be successful if residents had a a voice in how they were spent. Um and subsequently, the stormwater focused group and later the stormwater task force were established, and these groups reviewed priorities, discussed community concerns, and helped shape recommendation regarding scoring criteria and um project priorities. The goal here is to ensure that stormwater investments reflect both engineering needs and the community priorities. And this process produces a projects that move into our CIP or our capital improvement program. We have projects underway in every phase across the entire city. Last year we completed four construction projects. We had five projects under construction. We had three projects preparing for construction in the current fiscal year. And we had 15 projects in planning and design. And as you can see, work is planned and in progress throughout the whole city. And now we'll look at key accomplishments. The animal services pond improvements increased storage capacity and protection of nearby city infrastructure. The project was completed in December 2025. And current construction projects focus on storage, conveyance, and system reliability. These are some of the ones that are in construction. At Saipan Pond and Magnolia Pump Station, we improve pump efficiency through sediment basins and trash rack implementation. And this is because there was a lot of trash getting into the pump stations and they wouldn't turn on. So now with this, the trash gets collected before it goes into the pump station. The Willrooth Pond is one of our signature projects. It will capture approximately 100 million gallons of runoff and remove more than 600 properties from the flood zone.