El Paso Mayor John Cook said the City Council could refuse to give the U.S. Corps of Engineers permission today to cross city property and establish a staging area to start building a new border fence.

The 15- to 18-foot-high, reinforced steel mesh fence is to start in the Ascarate Park area and go 56 miles along the Rio Grande to two miles east of the port of entry at Fort Hancock, said Doug Mosier, the spokesman for Customs and Border Protection.

Irritated, Cook said that was more information than he had been able to get from the agency.

He said a briefing he was to have gotten about the project Monday from Bureau of Customs and Border Protection officials fell through because “they didn’t have permission from Washington to tell us what they were doing.”

Cook said Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff and CBP Commissioner Ralph Basham had both assured him that the agency would seek input from communities “before any fencing decisions are made.”

The fact that the press had received more information about the project than he had was, Cook said, “pretty weird.”

Federal officials plan to brief City Council on the project and will be seeking the city’s OK today to cross city land to a planned staging area for the project on International Boundary and Water Commission property.

Cook said they may be in for a surprise.

“The access they’re asking for would allow them to store property on IBWC land by the Zaragosa Bridge,” he said. “The question we’ve asked them is what it is exactly that they’re doing? Is it something that some on the City Council would be opposed to? Is it a new wall or replacing a replacing wall? But they haven’t answered the questions.

“Depending on what it is that they’re proposing to do, I could see some members of City Council supporting a denial.”

The City Council meeting starts at 9 a.m. Tuesday on the second floor of City Hall at Durango and W. Missouri. It will be broadcast and then replayed at 7 p.m. Tuesday on cable Channel 15.

Council meetings are also streamed live via Internet at www.ci.el-paso.tx.us/realplayer.asp

Information on the agenda is available at www.elpasotexas.gov or 541-4010.

David Crowder can be reached at dcrowder@elmediagroup.com or at (915) 351-0506.