Tuesday’s (January 29, 2013) city council agenda has an item (5g) that proposes that the city sell a little more than 15 acres of land to the El Paso Independent School District.
I don’t know if this is the right thing to do or not. I do know that there is a problem with the process though.
The city’s chief financial officer is member of the board of managers that the Texas education commissioner appointed to strip the elected trustees of their powers.
City — school district. Is it fair to assume that the word “chief” means that the chief financial officer is in charge of all finances? The sale of the property is for money. Which pocket is being represented here?
Let me spell it out for them. C O N F L I C T that’s conflict!
Maybe the commissioner was not thinking when he made the appointment. The chief financial officer however should have declined the new post.
Why even take the chance of looking ike you are not doing the right thing? Maybe the chief financial officer does not care what us “crazies” and “amateurs” think. After all we are only citizens.
We deserve better
Brutus
elpasospeak 
The city’s CFO, like most in local government, could care less about a conflict of interest, real or imagined. She’s like others has been spending too much time reading her own publicity clippings. She probably views her new appointment as simply more power and another great credential on her resume.
City management and elected officials see themselves as beyond reproach. Our CFO and CEO (Joyce Wilson) are lucky that their financial management and reporting is not subject to Sarbanes-Oxley financial responsibility and accountability rules.
There are stringent laws and rules to protect shareholders of public companies, but no such rules to protect government taxpayers from mismanagement.
As someone wrote recently, there’s no “sunshine” in Sun City government and management.
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