This slide came from a presentation at a “special” city council meeting:
If the departments are correct we should be budgeting just under nine million dollars a year to replace the vehicles and equipment that our fire and police departments use.
Ask your city representative and the mayor how much money is in the new city budget to help replace this equipment.
We deserve better
Brutus
4 Comments | 
City government | 
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Posted by Brutus
City council has this item on their agenda for the “special” city council meeting today, August 14, 2018.
Discussion and Action on FY 2018 – 2019 Budget (including adjustments.)
There are evidently some adjustments.
No backup material was posted with the agenda so we probably won’t know what they are proposing until they have done it to us.
We deserve better
Brutus
17 Comments | City government | Permalink
Posted by Brutus
This slide from a city of Austin lawyer’s presentation to city council explains what franchise fees are all about:
El Paso is a home rule city.
City council is thinking about charging the city owned sanitation department a $4 per month franchise fee for each residential customer.
They want to charge us a fee to allow a city department to use streets that we already own.
This is a tax.
We deserve better
Brutus
19 Comments | City government, State Government | Permalink
Posted by Brutus
We should be thankful that we have a new administrator over at the county hospital.
According to a notice recently published in the Times their tax rate for next year will not go up from last year.
Because of increases in property values as well as new construction in the last year the hospital will still collect $1.7 more in property taxes than they did last year.
From what we can see he has made significant cuts to payroll costs this year.
Some may argue that the decision was not difficult in light of the high spending that the previous administrator imposed on us.
Still, this new administrator is not like the city that is thinking about raising their tax rate to the maximum value they can without letting the voters have a say and then adding significant fees to our garbage and utility bills.
This is better
Brutus
Leave a Comment » | County Government | Permalink
Posted by Brutus
Take a look at this jewel from the west side city representative:
One of the most important functions of your City is to collect taxes and fund/support projects that benefit the community as a whole.
At least we know where he stands.
Evidently he feels that we should be grateful for his efforts:
Making these projects a priority in District 1 come from endless hours of advocacy on behalf of its residents and working with our City Manager, Mayor and other council members.
We deserve better
Brutus
18 Comments | City government | Permalink
Posted by Brutus
Talk about shrinking.
This slide came from a presentation to the EPISD board relating to combining Basset middle school with their Young Women’s Academy.
According to the slide the combined enrollment of the two schools this year is 1,261 students.
Three years from now they are predicting 971.
Yet they want to build an entirely new facility.
We deserve better
Brutus
7 Comments | El Paso Independent School District | Permalink
Posted by Brutus
Evidently city council is considering raising the franchise fee on our residential trash collections from $1.10 to $4.00 per month.
Help me to understand this please.
The organization that picks up our trash is a city department. How can a city charge a franchise fee on a department that it owns?
Does that mean that we might see franchise fees slapped on top of our ambulance service, police department, fire department, tax department…heck every department the city runs?
This is not a fee, it is a tax.
This is absurd.
We deserve better
Brutus
13 Comments | City government | Permalink
Posted by Brutus
 | RecallDee on Sneak attack |
 | Mike Schwartz on EPISD at it again |
| Anonymous on EPISD at it again |
| no win situation on Sneak attack |
| Baffled on Another bill being ignore… |
 | Helen Marshall on Another bill being ignore… |
| Baffled on Another bill being ignore… |
| Helen Marshall on Sneak attack |
| Anonymous on Sneak attack |
 | John Dungan on Another bill being ignore… |
| T Rex on Sneak attack |
| JerryK on Sneak attack |
| Anonymous on Sneak attack |
 | Anonymous on Sneak attack |
| voter on Sneak attack |
