The El Paso Times printed an article January 3, 2013 titled “Wilson: Times building remodel on schedule”.
The article indicated “the City Council approved issuing a purchase order of nearly $650,000 for the remodeling of the Times building…”. According to the report the city manager “said the authorization was a formality because individual purchase orders of more than $500,000 issued under a previously approved job-order contract must be approved separately by council.”
I like to use the Oxford Dictionaries to help me understand the meaning of words. They define formality as “(a formality) something done or happening as a matter of course and without question”.
Once again it seems as though the city manager does not understand her place. The Texas legislature required that the approval be brought to city council. The legislature did not do this to waste our city representatives’ time, it did it to require the council to pay attention. If council had to vote on the issue it was not a “formality”. They had the right to disapprove. Evidently the city manager thinks of council as her personal rubber stamp.
Also troubling is the discrepancy between the costs reported by the El Paso Times in it’s November 7, 2012 article “El Paso City Council OKs buying 2 buildings for move” and this new January 3 article.
On November 7 they reported that the city would spend $9.4 million to buy the Times building and $2.1 million to remodel it. The January 3 article reports the purchase price as $9.75 million and the remodeling at about $3 million.
Oops! There goes $1,250,000 of our money.
The November 7 article reported the costs associated with the Texas Street properties as $2.3 million for the purchase and $9.5 million for renovations. The January 3 article reported the costs as $2.4 million and $8.5 million respectively.
The reporting on the Luther building had the same kind of differences.
So the question at hand is why did the same newspaper print different reports?
Possible answers (without being unkind) are:
- One or both of the reporters was wrong
- The city provided different numbers for each report
If the city provided different numbers why were they not reported as being different in the second article?
Do the reporters read their own newspapers, or do they not care about accuracy?
I support the El Paso Times, otherwise I would cancel my subscription. Let’s encourage them to do better.
The price of liberty is eternal vigilance.
elpasospeak 