EL PASO, Texas (KTSM) – El Paso city Rep. Chris Canales held up a flyer with the word “caution” in large bolded words from his seat on the dais at City Hall.
The flyer said “your water may be contaminated, call us immediately,” mimicking similar literature left at El Paso homes. Canales’ example also had a made-up phone number with the last digits spelling out “we-scam-u.”
“This particular leaflet is a generic one I made. Other than that phone number, every element on that flyer is one that has appeared on a real advertisement here in El Paso,” Canales said. “Some of them also show a generic water droplet logo that looks very similar to El Paso Water’s logo or elements that look like the City logo.”
Canales said an estimated tens of thousands of these letters have caused confusion and harm for residents who are led to believe they need to contact numbers listed on the flyers thinking it is a notice from the El Paso Water utility.
“This is one of those issues that sounds really small until you talk to people about it and you realize how widespread of a problem it is,” he said.
The City Council unanimously approved Canales’ proposal to draft a new city ordinance requiring letters to identify what businesses are making them and to state they are not on behalf of the City or El Paso Water. The flyers would also be required to be bilingual or risk penalties.
Not complying with the proposed ordinance could result in a warning, a civil penalty or end up as a Class C misdemeanor charge.
It is unclear when the city administration will bring back a drafted city ordinance for the council to vote on.
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