'No one dropped the ball': El Paso leaders address, defend Gateway Hotel fallout
City leaders hosted a press conference Thursday to discuss the now -infamous Gateway Hotel, more than a week after bombshell allegations were made in an injunction that closed the site.
The press conference was held at City Hall and featured Mayor Oscar Leeser, El Paso Police Chief Peter Pacillas, Deputy City Manager Mario D'Agostino and Tony De La Cruz with the planning and inspections department.
Mayor Leeser opened the press conference by pushing back on a claim recently made by Texas Department of Public Safety Chief Steve McCraw, that El Paso is "ground zero" for the Venezuelan gang, Tren de Aragua (TDA).
The injunction filed against the Gateway Hotel reported that alleged members of the gang were living there.
"There've been a lot of talk about TDA, and based on that, that El Paso is ground zero, which is a very inaccurate statement," said Leeser, adding that over the past six months crime in El Paso has decreased by 10%.
Leeser stressed that the Gateway Hotel was not shut down due to gang activity.
"We're sitting here talking about the TDA, that's not the reason why the hotel got closed down," said Leeser. "[It] got closed down for numerous violations that they had not fixed. And it's not a quality of life, and a quality of place, for anyone to be living in. There's no doubt. So that's why it was closed down. It was not closed down because of gang member activity."
While Leeser said that only one confirmed member of TDA has been apprehended in El Paso and deported, Pacillas gave an answer that was more nuanced.
"The difficulty with this gang that is coming up through Venezuela is they are a sophisticated network and that we cannot legally say that there is a TDA in there because they're not meeting the criteria as set by state law," said Pacillas.
One of the biggest controversies surrounding the city's handling of the Gateway Hotel has been the hundreds of calls and complaints against it, and the city's seeming inaction.
According to Leeser, however, of the 693 calls recorded over a two-year period - roughly 28 per month - not all of them were emergency calls that went through 911.
Rather, some were 311 calls about noise, trash in the alley, and people in the street or on the sidewalk.
Nevertheless, KFOX14 anchor Salina Madrid pushed city leaders on why nothing was done earlier - whether those calls were emergency calls or not - and who "dropped the ball."
"I think it's important to know that the ball was not dropped," said Leeser. "We may need to change some things, and I agree with that, but there are ordinances in the city that are being followed."
D'Agositno, meanwhile, spoke to why the Gateway Hotel wasn't shut down, despite the fact that it didn't have the right permits and had failed numerous inspections, and reiterated something Leeser had told KFOX14/CBS4 in a previous interview.
"The laws require us to work with somebody, if they're actively doing the repairs to the facility and they're working on their corrective action plan so that they can meet those requirements, then we have to continue working with them," said D'Agostino.
De La Cruz with the planning and inspections department echoed the sentiment, adding that over a three-year period, permits were being requested and inspections were being conducted.
"The department was actually coordinating inspections from 2018 when the certificate of occupancy was issued to the establishment, all the way up to 2021," said De La Cruz. "Our obligation is to continue working with an establishment owner so long as there's progress being made to rehabilitate [the building]."
De La Cruz added that there are "very strict guidelines" when it comes to shutting a building down.
"Those are pretty much determined based on an imminent danger. A structure has to be in structural risk of collapse...risk of explosion, different items like that," said De La Cruz.
Despite all of this, Leeser said that the city isn't "making excuses," and conceded that "if there's not red flags coming up, that we figure out how red flags do go up at certain points."
However, he asserted that the Gateway Hotel is an issue city and county stakeholders have been working on for some time.
"I think everyone thought that it just happened and no one had been aware of it," said Leeser. "The city has been well aware of it, the county's been aware of it, and we have been going there. But we can always improve the process."
According to Police Chief Pacillas, building a case for an injunction against the hotel has been a "process with the county attorney's office."
"We were getting calls down there, different types of minor criminal activities. We've made some arrests and we started seeing different issues going on down there," said Pacillas.
Madrid again pushed the local leaders to assure not only residents but also out-of-towners, that the problems that persisted at Gateway Hotel are not a widespread issue.
"Is there any other hotels operating in a capacity like this?" asked Madrid.
"Not that I'm aware of," said De La Cruz.
Throughout the press conference, more than a few of the speakers called the fallout from the Gateway Hotel a "learning opportunity."
"When we look at something like the Gateway Hotel and some of the things that were going on, we can look at policies, change policy, and make sure that we learn and get better from it."
It's been more than 10 days since El Paso County Attorney Christina Sanchez filed an injunction to shut down the Gateway Hotel, a downtown residence that housed low-income families and individuals, as well as alleged members of TDA.
The injunction was filed with the courts on Aug. 27, however, it wasn't made public until Sept. 9.
Since then, city and county leaders were relatively silent about the allegations made against the hotel.
According to the injunction, the Gateway Hotel operated for years without proper permitting, failed numerous fire department inspections and was the source of hundreds of complaints.
