The situation at San Jacinto Plaza is getting worse.
The local blog elpasonaturally has published some posts telling us that the city’s Christmas tree has been damaged by the contractor during the re-re-re-modeling of the park.
According to the blog the city and the contractor have both violated the city’s rules that specify how trees are to be handled during construction.
Now it appears that the city may not try to save the tree and will remove (kill) it.
Another problem
Also troubling is what the city manager wrote in an email to city council:
“Staff has proposed alternatives to me, and apparently somehow the information has made it out to the public.”
The very thought of a public servant serving the public is evidently an abnormal event and it sounds like he plans to investigate the leak. Maybe they should kill the tree in executive session.
Not complex
Holding someone accountable should not be difficult here. The city has a project manager assigned to the job. Where has he been while the contractor has been killing the tree?
The contractor should also be held accountable.
That is unless the plan has been to get rid of the tree all along.
We deserve better
Brutus
elpasospeak 
That is interesting, our freshman City manager is concerned about information being revealed to the public. His words speak volumes, I do not know if I can trust him now. Buildings burn downtown, historic properties are torn down, the pine tree was damaged with the intention of it’s removal. I’m not surprised, we do deserve better that’s why I vote and use this forum to speak.
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What did you expect from a City Manager? Full Disclosure? Hell, other than the added administrative costs and salaries, all a City Manager is for, is to create another layer of interference between voters (taxpayers) and elected officials! Read my lips: El Paso does not need a City Manager! Beyond that, I think is indeed becoming apparent that somebody downtown does not want that tree to survive, so its days are numbered.
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City management and council continue to make it clear that the rules and laws do not apply to them. Brutus often says that once a person abandons his or her principles, everything else is easy. Doing the wrong thing has become all too easy downtown and at City Hall.
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Man’s mind once stretched by greed never regains it’s original dimensions.
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That tree may be the sacrifice made to reveal to the voters that Tommy is party to the collusion going at City Hall and that the collusion is real and intentional and goes far beyond this poor tree and the San Jacinto project. They can fool some of the people all of the time, all of the people some of the time, but ….well, you know the rest!
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That poor tree may just be the sacrifice made to reveal to the voting public that Tommy has joined in the collusion going on at City Hall and more importantly that there is real and intentional and pervasive collusion to hide information from the public, not only as concerns this tree or the San Jacinto project but in many, many areas. You can fool all of the people some of the time and some of the people all of the time, but…well, we know the rest…
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What did we really expect given the city manager’s history in Irving? City council totally disregarded and discounted his problems in Irving; or then again, maybe they knew they had found just the right guy for them.
http://www.elpasotimes.com/news/ci_25681817/el-paso-city-manager-finalist-tommy-gonzalez-was
http://www.wfaa.com/story/news/local/investigates/2014/08/18/14046456/
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I propose that should the Christmas tree not survive, the entire council and mayor (please note I did not cap “council” nor “mayor”) be replaced. Maybe someone new can see what is happening to our historic downtown if only they look. Thanks for continuing your vigil and many kudos to Jim Tolbert for his tireless work on behalf of our City.
Mandy Chew
>
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Let me renew my call from yesterday…if we speak on this forum its readers will hear us, but we need to go beyond that – write/call your representatives and the mayor (missing in action) and the manager and make your views known! I doubt, sadly, that they are reading here.
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Is there a source, blog or whatever, for the City Manager’s email? More to know about this?
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http://www.elpasotimes.com/News/ci_27335966/El-Pasoans-petition-to-save-pine-tree-at-San-Jacinto-Plaza
Brutus
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Egad, how did I miss that!!! I even wrote a post about it. Time to retire.
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just foia the city managers emails. martin paredes does it daily. its on the city website
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This tree was a gift to the city in the spirit of helping it to save money, something which is the farthest thing from the minds of those on council and in management. They would rather spend money to dispose of the gift. Remind me not to make any gifts to the city.
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But how much will the damn plaza cost us? Does anyone know?
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