There has been quite a bit of talk about the ball park not fitting on the city hall site. There has also been talk about the roads downtown not being able to handle the crowds that might be brought to the ball park after the new team miraculously becomes a winner instead of a loser.
Here comes the two step.
Step one:
- Tomorrow’s (December 11, 2012) City Council agenda introduces an ordinance to change the classification of streets around the ball park.
- Durango is the street that runs in front of city hall (the west side) and around it (the north side). It is currently classified as a “minor arterial”. That is evidently inconvenient for their yet to be revealed plans. They want to remove the classification.
- Santa Fe is the street that runs behind city hall (the east side — most of us think of that as the main entrance). It is currently classified as a “major arterial”. They want to classify that street as a “minor arterial”.
Will this be step two?
- Build the ball park on top of Durango
- Build the ball park onto half of the width of Santa Fe
If there is going to be a traffic problem, removing those streets can only make it worse.
You can see the details here (there are some nice maps a few pages into the document).
Also on the agenda you can see the city considering a purchase of “wireless phone service, mobile broadband services, and related products” funded through the “Capital Equipment Lease Agreement” whatever that is. Services are not considered “capital” items on any legitimate financial document that I am familiar with. It is item 10 on the regular agenda. Note that once again they are using a buy board instead of bidding. I would think that for $845,048 we would have gotten some competitive rates.
Also on the agenda you can see the city proposing to spend $122,527 with an out of town vendor instead of $61,107 with an El Paso vendor. The city did actually bid this item, then they used their rating system to justify spending twice as much. You can see this here.
We deserve better.
elpasospeak 
The document your referenced included: “Goal 4.5: El Paso’s network of major thoroughfares will become the “Great Streets” of tomorrow.” Are we supposed to be impressed with their use of undefined planning terms that are merely marketing buzz words and phrases intended to make them sound visionary? To quote one of Popeye’s friends, “I will gladly pay you on Tuesday for a hamburger today.”
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