I was relaxing with the understanding that city council would not meet last week or this because Tuesday, the normal city council meeting day, would fall on Christmas and New Year’s day.
It seems however that council needs to meet this week so they will meet on Wednesday.
The agenda is not a very long one, there are three potential board appointments, a couple of zoning requests, a few other matters — generally housekeeping issues.
Oh wait, there is another item. It seems that the city wants to spend $648,841.22 to remodel part of a building using that no-bid indefinite delivery contract method that I have written about so many times. Council voted on December 4, 2012 to grant another no-bid contract valued at $4 million through a buy board. The Houston based Harris County Department of Education will get 4% (or up to $160,000) of our money under this deal. Now the city wants to use that contract to remodel 30,000 square feet for the new offices of the city council, mayor, and the city attorneys.
Remember the El Paso Times building that is so ideally suited to be our next city hall? On September 18, 2012 the Chief Financial Officer of the city told council (on slide 4 of her presentation under “Improvements Needed”) that they were “Minimal due to condition of building”. Well it appears that the $648,841.22 is needed to make our city functionaries comfortable.
Remember the buy-board contract that is for “minor” projects? The city wants to use that contract to do the construction. But wait! This is not minor. Who says? The Texas State Legislature says. Section 2267.403 of the Texas Government Code requires all deals over $500,000 issued under indefinite delivery contracts to be specifically approved by the governing body (in this case city council) of the local government. Why? Because evidently they believe that half a million dollars is not so minor.
The backup material for the agenda item refers to specifications drawn up by an architect. Those specifications are not part of the backup material. Why? City ordinance 017616 paragraph 8 requires that the contract be posted on the city’s web site The material must be given to the city clerk by 5 PM the Thursday before the meeting. Council must now separately determine that failure to take action on this item would be detrimental to the interests of the city before they vote on this item. Council’s failure to do so puts them in violation of a city ordinance.
Section 2.92.050 (G) of ordinance 017112 makes that an ethics violation which is punishable under 2.92.150 (A). “The failure of any officer or employee to comply with this chapter or the violation of one or more of the standards of conduct set forth in this article, which apply to him or her, shall constitute grounds for expulsion, reprimand, removal from office or discharge.”
Don’t call your city representative, that would probably be a violation of the city’s ludicrous “cone of silence”.
In summary we have:
- A sneak attack city council meeting
- We were lied to about the suitability of the El Paso Times Building
- A non-bid construction project of almost $627 thousand dollars where $25 thousand will go to Houston schools, not ours
- An agenda item that is improperly (illegally?) posted
- A city council that will probably ignore it’s own ordinance
- You might get in trouble if you call your city representative about this
Then, in the spirit of waiting for the other shoe to drop, please realize that we have not heard the end of this. The contractor actually wants another $450,000 to demolish the old offices before starting on the new ones (read the backup material, such as it is). Did the city forget to post this item? Maybe they have some other creative way to handle the other half a million dollars.
Stay tuned!
We deserve better.
elpasospeak 
We the citizens of El Paso need to file a class action lawsuit and criminal lawsuit against this criminal behavior and investigate the criminal coverup by the FBI and the state of TExas
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Let’s do it! I’ll put my name on the document!!
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