Poor response

April 25, 2018

It was disappointing to read the Ysleta Independent School District’s superintendent’s comments in the Times the other day:

“I think what’s being irresponsibly promoted is the idea that this district and Parkland Middle school endorsed or promoted a walkout.  Nothing could be further from the truth”

Really?

The superintendent told the Times that the district’s crisis management response team was on hand in anticipation of the event.

The students were allowed to leave their classrooms and congregate on the school grounds.

How can students just get up en masse and be allowed to leave their classrooms without permission from the school?  Shouldn’t we think that the students would be disciplined if they left without permission?  They won’t be disciplined because they were allowed to leave.

An earlier Times article wrote of the superintendent:

He said there were walkouts at almost all the district’s secondary schools — mainly to the football fields or ending in moments of silence.

Irresponsible

The dictionary definition of irresponsible is not showing a proper sense of responsibility.  There is no question that the district did at least facilitate the walkout.  Claiming that the public is irresponsible is ludicrous.

Corrective action

Time will tell if anyone did anything wrong that they should be held responsible for.

What we have not heard from the superintendent is that he will take steps to see to it that this cannot happen again.

We deserve better

Brutus

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Help the blog

April 23, 2018

We are receiving some lengthy and well researched comments on the blog.

Again let us ask for help in writing the blog.

You may remain anonymous.  Please keep your post clean and do not make it personal.

Send your prospective posts to brutusep@yahoo.com

Brutus

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Slight of hand

April 23, 2018

Our central appraisal district has re-appraised all of the properties in the county.

Many homeowners are seeing their appraised values going up.  State law limits the amount of the increase to 10% of last year’s appraisal.

A common misconception is that property tax bills will automatically go up as a result of an increased appraisal.

Actually each taxing entity is required to calculate the “effective tax rate”.  From the state comptroller’s web site:

The effective tax rate is the rate the taxing unit needs to generate about the same amount of revenue it received in
the year before on properties taxed in both years.

Thus if every homeowner’s appraisal goes up 5% the effective tax rate will have to go down 5%.

Where one might see a tax increase is if their home value goes up more than the average increase of all of the other home owners.

When our local elected officials publish their new tax rates don’t make the mistake of looking at the rate (percentage) they publish.

If home values go up 5% and the taxing entity’s rate stays the same as last year they are increasing taxes 5% even though the rate is the same.

We deserve better

Brutus

9 Comments | City government, County Government, El Paso Independent School District | Permalink
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A developing story

April 22, 2018

Tragically  a local sixth grade student was struck and killed by a pickup truck Friday, April 20, 2018.

The incident occurred during a school sanctioned “walk out”.  The walk out was scheduled as a protest against gun violence on the 19th anniversary of the Columbine school shootings.

According to the school district superintendent:

 “This was an isolated group of students who breached the school’s perimeter,” De La Torre said, “We believe this was a group of about 12 to 15 students.”
He also indicated that  the school had about 10 individuals keeping an eye on students participating in a walkout to protest recent school shootings according to a KFOX14 news report.
The students reportedly wanted to go to a park and they had to cross loop 375 to get there.  Here is a picture from google maps:
We all know that people do dumb things.  What responsibility do the school administrators have here?  Are the other students culpable?
We deserve better
Brutus

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Hiring a bully

April 21, 2018

In both the political and business worlds we are unfortunately seeing more situations where the power of government is used to oppress someone’s opponents.

We see it at both the national and local levels.

Adversaries used to fight in their own arenas but now some are involving government to crush their opponents.

We deserve better

Brutus

 

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What law?

April 20, 2018

From what we can see our local central appraisal district is the only local government that obeys this Texas law:

GOVERNMENT CODE

TITLE 10. GENERAL GOVERNMENT

SUBTITLE F. STATE AND LOCAL CONTRACTS AND FUND MANAGEMENT

CHAPTER 2265. REQUIRED PUBLICATION AND REPORTING BY GOVERNMENTAL ENTITIES

Sec. 2265.001. RECORDING AND REPORTING OF ELECTRICITY, WATER, AND NATURAL GAS CONSUMPTION.  (a) In this section, “governmental entity” means:

(1) a board, commission, or department of the state or a political subdivision of the state, including a municipality, a county, or any kind of district; or

(2) an institution of higher education as defined by Section 61.003, Education Code.

(b) Notwithstanding any other law, a governmental entity responsible for payments for electric, water, or natural gas utility services shall record in an electronic repository the governmental entity’s metered amount of electricity, water, or natural gas consumed for which it is responsible to pay and the aggregate costs for those utility services. The governmental entity shall report the recorded information on a publicly accessible Internet website with an interface designed for ease of navigation if available, or at another publicly accessible location.

We deserve better

Brutus

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Free-range parenting

April 19, 2018

We have evidently reached the point where we have to have a “free-range parenting law” to keep from getting arrested for letting our children learn about life.

WebMD has a post about it if you are not familiar with the issue.

How far will we go to get in the middle of a parent’s rights and responsibilities to raise their child?

We deserve better

Brutus

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