Remarks by David Stout
54 remarks on the record, newest first · Page 2 of 3
- Play at 10:21:00
“And they can also just, and it's clearly stated on our agendas that they can pull any item. The public can ask to have any item pulled from the agenda if they would like to comment on that item. And then we can have public comment on that item as well. Because usually the regular public comment is for items that are not on the agenda. Right.”
Commissioners Court · Sep 14, 2026
- Play at 55:31
“Thank you all so much for the presentation on the strategic plan. It's good to see that we have a lot of alignment in some of the work we're doing and the values. As Betsy was saying, a lot of times people don't differentiate between the county and the city, right? And that's important. I'm glad we're able to sit down and see your strategic plan. I advocated for doing this for a while because I really think it's important for us to understand what other entities in the county. I mean, we're not just doing this with the city of El Paso. We've had others of the smaller municipalities come in as…”
Commissioners Court · Aug 20, 2026
- Play at 5:10:06
“Chair, I don't know if I should bring it up on this one. Or five, but do you think, is this study that they're wanting to do, is it gonna look at alternatives to actually doing the project, or is it just to advance the project?”
Commissioners Court · Aug 20, 2026
- Play at 5:10:52
“Yeah, but this is the highway that's going to connect basically to 375 or I-10.”
Commissioners Court · Aug 20, 2026
- Play at 5:11:29
“yeah i mean i don't know i'm just worried like you know with this project um and i and i guess it's it's somewhat under underway but um it's gonna it's just gonna push like santa teresa truck traffic like through i-10 And it seems to me it would be better to push it around instead of through the city, right? I've talked about opposing the widening of I-10, but this also I think affects other parts of I-10. It's going to, I think traffic's going to bottleneck at Racetrack in Donovan. It's going to bottleneck at Sunland in Donovan. And of course, like one of the biggest bottlenecks that exists…”
Commissioners Court · Aug 20, 2026
- Play at 5:13:31
“Yeah, I mean, it just concerns me like air quality, I think issues. I don't know if anybody's reviewed the environmental for the project or what the number of trucks that are gonna be added to the roadway here in El Paso or the highway, how that's gonna affect the air quality. I think some of the parks and entertainment, just like El Paso, when it comes to EPA and air quality.”
Commissioners Court · Aug 20, 2026
- Play at 5:14:20
“Yeah, but I still think it's a good opportunity to push using the Anthony Gap and that bypass.”
Commissioners Court · Aug 20, 2026
- Play at 5:14:32
“Right, but they can still use that as a relief route to go out around El Paso instead of- Around the other way?”
Commissioners Court · Aug 20, 2026
- Play at 5:14:52
“I think that construction is going to relieve some of that bottlenecking.”
Commissioners Court · Aug 20, 2026
- Play at 5:15:02
“And then that would lead to the borderline expressway, I think, with that overpass.”
Commissioners Court · Aug 20, 2026
- Play at 5:16:05
“I GUESS IF YOU'LL JUST KIND OF ASK SOME OF THOSE QUESTIONS OR TRY TO FIGURE OUT WHAT'S... And keep pushing the border on the expressway is like we should really be trying to divert traffic out off of I-10.”
Commissioners Court · Aug 20, 2026
- Play at 2:20:28
“Good morning, Judge and Commissioners. I just wanted to give a little background on this item. As you all know, I've been working with the Texas Conference of Urban Counties. I'm the policy chair for on their board and we have been working for a number of weeks on a lot of the language that's in the resolution. This is not a partisan issue. I think you're starting to see across Texas and across the country both Republican and Democrats are looking into this issue and are concerned about what's going on, especially in Texas with the rapid influx of data centers. Really, I think the doors were…”
Commissioners Court · Aug 17, 2026
- Play at 2:25:10
“Sorry. Perfect. Thank you for that clarification. Even better. But the resolution establishes principles for response to a large-scale industrial development, including water use, electrical reliability, transparency, ensuring that project-related infrastructure and service costs are borne by development rather than ratepayers and taxpayers. The letter is going to ask the governor to ensure El Paso receives the same level of review and policy consideration as ERCOT communities and to make the state's review meaningful and transparent and not just a political ploy that's going to go away after…”
Commissioners Court · Aug 17, 2026
- Play at 2:38:10
“Yeah, if we can send a copy to the state delegation so that they're aware of the resolution and the letter that's being forwarded to Governor Abbott if the vote passes today.”
Commissioners Court · Aug 17, 2026
- Play at 4:33:47
“That way it's still available if it's needed.”
Commissioners Court · Aug 17, 2026
- Play at 4:55:37
“I'll go ahead and make the motion to approve option E. I brought this up last week. I really think that the commissioner's court should continue to try to push up the minimum wage. It's still not even a living wage. In El Paso County, we're still behind the ball when it comes to actually being a living wage. WE ASKED UMC TO DO SO AS WELL. IT'S MUCH EASIER TO DO IT INCREMENTALLY THAN TRYING TO JUMP FROM 15 AND A HALF TO $18 MINIMUM WAGE IN A YEAR OR SOMETHING LIKE THAT. I'D LIKE TO MOVE THAT WE APPROVE OPTION E.”
Commissioners Court · Aug 17, 2026
- Play at 4:57:22
“Yeah, I mean, I think we have a very healthy fund balance. Again, work that's been done over a number of years, right? And I think it was two years in a row that we actually forego, we had foregone giving increases to our- To 23. To our staff, right? Some other things like provide extra extra days extra days off. To try and to try and make up for some of that, but. You know, last year we we made the decision to increase by a pin and a half. To to bulk up our fund balance to have to have a cushion. And I just want to remind the public that we we not only did we. to make that increase, but also…”
Commissioners Court · Aug 17, 2026
- Play at 5:01:38
“um as long as we can um uh keep the preference to to that um to reduce fund balance the fund balance yeah and this motion doesn't doesn't state where it's coming from we'll have to make that vote later but i think i don't i don't think i've heard anybody on the on the on the dais say that we want to raise the we want to change the from going from the new revenue rate”
Commissioners Court · Aug 17, 2026
- Play at 5:12:56
“And I just want to point out that these increases that we're doing this year, whether it's cost of living or STEP, for employees and retirees or for our sheriff's association is because of the difficult decision that this court made last year. It was not a unanimous decision and I would like for folks to understand that this is why sometimes we have to make these decisions. It's important for us to continue to help make sure that our employees are paid the way we feel they should and compensated the way we feel they should, even our retirees. And I, for one, have always voted to pay for the…”
Commissioners Court · Aug 17, 2026
- Play at 5:38:01
“Elected official salaries that we had a discussion on last week, including the county attorney salary, was that supposed to go into effect as of October 1st or as of January 3rd, like the rest of the increases?”
Commissioners Court · Aug 17, 2026
- Play at 5:38:24
“Yeah, I mean, I'd just like to point out that there's been a ton of public misinformation. I mean, at worst, not knowing what the heck's going on in Commissioner's Court and people misinforming the public, or at best that, or at worst, just outright trying to sully the reputation of members of the Commissioner's Court for for quote unquote voting to suppress other elected officials and other county employees salaries because we didn't get it. So I really would like the record to reflect that any increases that were going to be given to elected officials would not start until January. So…”
Commissioners Court · Aug 17, 2026
- Play at 5:39:38
“of doing what happened and I really hope that members of the Commissioner's Court who may have differing views about the way that we did things aren't in cahoots with some of these folks and trying to I would just hope that members of the Commissioner's Court would be also respectful and not be working with these members who are unscrupulous members in this community who are trying to misinform purposely and sully, again, the reputation of colleagues of y'alls. And I hope everybody on this Court would stand up and say, you know what, that's not true. You know what, that's not right. when they…”
Commissioners Court · Aug 17, 2026
- Play at 6:10:51
“But are you requesting that or are you requesting an additional $100,000 from our fund?”
Commissioners Court · Aug 17, 2026
- Play at 6:11:25
“Is there going to be a list after this, I think? Yes, can you go to the next? So these are policy considerations that were brought up during the conversation and are”
Commissioners Court · Aug 17, 2026
- Play at 7:02:34
“Cesar, real quickly before we go into executive, I wanted to ask if I can reopen item 7A. There's some information that I mistakenly left out of the letter that I want to request that we add into the letter. So I'll make a motion to reconsider item 7A.”
Commissioners Court · Aug 17, 2026