EL PASO, Texas (KTSM) -- The City Council approved $750,000 on Tuesday, Sept. 24 to go to the El Paso Metropolitan Planning Organization (MPO) as part of a grant application for the I-10 Deck Plaza Design Project.  The El Paso MPO is applying for $5 million in federal funds from the U.S. Federal Highway Administration, but the program requires a 50 percent match.  On Aug. 26, the El Paso County Commissioners Court approved $1 million in matching funds for the grant application. Funds were also sourced from the MPO and Deck Plaza Foundation. Altogether, commitments total $5.75 million.  However, not all El Paso leaders have backed the large commitment sums.  During the Aug. 26 Commissioners Court, County Commissioner Iliana Holguin voted against providing the million dollars due to the county’s current financial position.  “At that same meeting, we adopted a budget based on the no-new revenue tax rate, which means that we will not be raising taxes for our residents. In order to be able to do that, we had to really make a lot of budget cuts, very significant budget cuts. We had to cut about $40 million from our budget,” said Holguin.  El Paso County adopts ‘no-new-revenue’ tax rate for upcoming fiscal year “It's not that I'm against the plaza itself. I think green space is always a good thing for our community. My worry is the financial impact to our taxpayers. I do not think that our taxpayers should be shouldering the burden of having to construct a potentially $207 million project, which will, in truth, probably cost more than that once you add all the buildings and all the amenities that are supposed to be on the plaza,” she said.  Two City Council members also voted "no" to providing funds to the MPO during Tuesday’s meeting. Representatives Joe Molinar and Chris Canales were the dissenting minority, and Rep. Cassandra Hernandez was not present to vote.  In a statement to KTSM Canales said:  “Before voting to approve this, the Council amended the resolution to change the source of the funds from the Impact Fund, a non-taxpayer funded source of development money paid by El Paso Electric as part of their franchise agreement with the City, to Tax Increment Reinvestment Zone #5 funds, which is local taxpayer money. The appointed citizen advisory board for the TIRZ5 funds had voted unanimously to not recommend their use for this purpose, but the majority of the Council went against their recommendation. I voted against it for this reason, but it was approved 6-2. I made clear in my comments before the vote that I support the general concept and the idea that it makes sense to develop the plan to the point where we can apply for federal construction grants, but also that we should not use local taxpayer money for this purpose when we have other funds available.”  Canales sits on the El Paso MPO board and voted in favor of the $3.75 million allocation but said the money available was state Category 7 Surface Transportation Program funds, not taxpayer funds.  According to the Downtown Deck Plaza Foundation, the benefits of the design project include the ability to apply for additional grants programs, provides more detailed cost estimates for construction and serves as a basis for discussions on land use agreements and development capacity.  The deadline for the USDOT grant application is Sept. 30.