More than one person has suggested that I look into the possibility that the controversy over the pension board director may be a diversion away from what some members of city council and city staff are up to.
Then this comment was posted to Part of a story:
“In the city e-mails that attorney Stephanie Townsend-Allala obtained and thar are in Chucoleaks.org, there is an August 14, 2012 message exchange here Joyce Wilson tells Rep. Cortney Niland that the pension fund director is a “boozer and a partier” and that she should request info on operating and travl expenditures. But she tells her to wait before requesting tecords. Why? This would appear to atrongly indicate that Wilson knew what was going on with the oension fund and in dereliction of duty, chose to keep it hush until it suited her fancy. Niland was also complicit and now appears hypocritical in asking for investigations and talking about fiduciary responsibilities. There are other emails from city reos also talking about shortfalls. They all have some serious questions to answer, but Joyce Wilson and her employees especially.”
It is hard to find things on http://www.chucoleaks.org since it is so slow and there does not appear to be a search feature, but giving the commenter the benefit of the doubt about the August 14, 2014 messages, many questions come up.
Why would the city manager ask a city representative to wait before requesting information that would show something was wrong?
Why would pension board members that work for the city manager give the director a “Superior” rating (if they did) when the city manager was ready to launch an attack? Don’t these people talk?
Does the city need a scandal to hide what they are doing?
Is the land deal with the railroad part of this?
Muckraker
elpasospeak 
I thought it a bit odd when Councilperson Niland spoke up in outrage re the pension fund. It was reported in the El Paso Times that the city of El Paso (using taxpayer monies) is responsible for 60% of this fund (1.1 BILLION dollars). If that is true, and she’s truly concerned about fiduciary responsibility to the taxpayers, then it’s easy to believe our illustrious city manager knew of possible issues back in 2012 – and said nothing. Which makes it even easier to believe that Ms. Niland speaking out now is an attempt to divert attention from council’s current actions and spending spree. After all, who doesn’t like a good scandal?
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Many of the City’s financial shenanigans remind me of “off balance sheet financing”, “special purpose entities” and other tricks used by large companies to make their financial results and balance sheets look stronger than they really are. These tactics are basically designed as clever ways to raise debt levels, while hopefully avoiding scrutiny. Cook, Wilson and others will be long gone when the fallout from these decisions wreak havoc on the city and taxpayers.
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The copy of the e-mail is floating around. You really should allow the link. People need to read and see the evidence of this conspiracy.
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Please send the link.
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