El Paso County Judge Anthony Cobos told the county purchasing agent on Monday not to notify the companies and law firms that submitted proposals to become the county’s federal or state lobbyists. Then he called a special meeting of Commissioners Court for today to hear presentations from and possibly take action on prospective lobbyists.

Only two representatives of two lobbyist firms, both with local offices, showed up, but that didn’t keep Cobos from inviting them to make their presentations in the absence of the other competitors.

Hector Delgado, representing the Austin-based law firm of Bickerstaff Heath Delgado Acosta LLP, declined on ethical grounds.

“I would prefer not to,” Delgado said. “We’d like to keep a level playing field.”

Delgado and former County Commissioner Carlos Aguilar were the only two representatives of prospective lobbyists present. Aguilar is associated with the firm of Hector Uribe, a former state senator for Brownsville.

Before today’s meeting started in the county judge’s conference room, the issue of the propriety of hearing presentations arose in discussions involving county Purchasing Agent Piti Vasquez and deputy Purchasing Agent Joe Lopez and with Delgado and Aguilar.

“Did they call you?” Aguilar asked Delgado, who resettled in El Paso last year.

“No, we just saw it on the Internet,” Delgado said, referring to the posted notice of today’s special Commissioners Court meeting.

“So did I,” Aguilar said.

Vasquez said Cobos specifically told him on Monday – the day the proposals were opened – not to notify the respondents that there would be a special meeting today for presentations.

“Well, it’s not fair,” Vasquez said when asked if it would be proper to hear presentations under such circumstances.

“If they’re going to do presentations, then we’ll have to speak up and say we can’t because we didn’t give proper notification,” Lopez said.

Vasquez added, “I was told 'no notifications,' that nobody was going to do a presentation, that all the Commissioners Court was going to do is review and either short list or make recommendations for a later date to come and make presentations.

“That’s what I was told Monday.”

But that day, Cobos’ office set up today’s special meeting with an agenda calling for Commissioners Court to “receive presentations … regarding state and federal lobbyists” and to “discuss and take appropriate action.”

Vasquez repeated his statement that he was “told not to notify” during today’s meeting in response to a question from Assistant County Attorney Lee Shapleigh.

Cobos did not explain why he directed the purchasing agent not to notify bidders for lobbying contracts about a meeting today.

After being advised that it would be improper to go forward with presentations, Commissioners Court discussed hearing presentations after the November election.

Cobos said he would like to eliminate some of the lobbyist firms without hearing from them, but Commissioner Veronica Escobar challenged the idea of eliminating competitors before hearing from them.

Commissioners Court voted to hear proposals from all nine bidders at a meeting on an unspecified date after the election.

Commissioner Luis Sarinana said he was disappointed more firms didn’t have local representatives and seemed to indicate a preference for an El Paso firm.

Newspaper Tree was unable to visit with Cobos or his chief of staff, Jaime Perez, after the meeting.

Commissioner Veronica Escobar said she was troubled by Sarinana’s comment because she worked with Cobos on the specifications for the lobbyists’ qualifications and having an El Paso office never came up.

“I don’t remember anyone fighting for that when we drafted the specs,” she said. “When you have the court now indicating that it’s a key component but they didn’t bother to tell the competitors that in the specs, then it shouldn’t be a disqualifier for anybody.”

She said she was surprised that Cobos would call a meeting to hear presentations without bothering to tell the competitors and then offer to hear presentations from the two that came.

“What would have done is create a tremendous disadvantage for the others,” Escobar said. “I was very impressed with the ethics of Mr. Delgado, who rejected it as unfair and said he wouldn’t do that.”

She said she was also surprised that Cobos spoke in favor of eliminating certain competitors even though he said he had not read their presentations.

“Why would you eliminate competitors when you yourself haven’t read though their packets?” Escobar said.

The firms that submitted proposals to become the county’s lobbyists in Washington are Alcalde & Fay, Austin Copelin & Reyes LLC, McAllister & Quinn LLC, Patton Boggs LLP and Van Scoyoc Associates Inc.

Those interested in competing to lobby for the county in Austin are Bickerstaff Heath Delgado Acosta LLP, Hector Uribe P.C., The Garcia Group, The Solutions Group.

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To reach David Crowder, write to dcrowder@epmediagroup.com.