year. While members meet as a body only a few times a year, the group as a whole is divided into task forces that meet regularly, covering, among other areas: downtown; military; health care; education; water; and transportation. The PDNG has been described by members as a group of civic and business leaders that employs members within. The group sponsors speakers for breakfast or dinner meetings; as was the case on Thursday, May 18, 2006. U.S. Energy Secretary Samuel Bodman was scheduled to be a speaker at the El Paso Country Club. The El Paso Downtown Plan It is the Downtown Plan, that recently pushed the PDNG into public view. Although the vast majority of the group's actions have been cloaked in secrecy, a select few details have been developed. Before making the plan public, the PDNG undertook several important steps to ensure the plan's success. The Paso Del Norte Group, under the auspices of its foundation, in cooperation with former city Mayor Joe Wardy, and El Paso City Council, initiated a process in 2004 to create a Master Plan for the redevelopment of approximately in Downtown El Paso. On Feb. 15, 2006, the City Council and Mayor John Cook renewed the process by approving the ongoing development of the Master Plan. The Paso Del Norte Group's Foundation raised funds from the following sources: A Downtown Redevelopment Task Force, a local volunteer group of PDNG members, was established under the criteria that no member of the Task Force was allowed to own any property in downtown El Paso. The Task Force solicited bids from three of the world's leading urban planning firms and hired SMWM (at a reported cost of $284,000.00 to the group) which has extensive experience in planning for redevelopment of urban areas. The Task Force spent thousands of hours on this project with the primary objective to develop a comprehensive Master Plan for Downtown El Paso that would be economically viable and feasible to implement. Once a plan was formulated, a contract with the City of El Paso was forged to establish a loose partnership between the city and the Paso Del Norte Group. The contract with the city for the Downtown Plan actually was with the PDNG Foundation, a 501(c)(3) organization that operates as a supporting agency to the Paso Del Norte Group, a 501(c)(6) business leadership organization. The Task Force leadership is said to meet