The city manager is scheduled to present her proposed 2014 city budget to city council today (July 16, 2013).
It will take a few posts to cover just the obvious issues.
Let’s start with some of her proposed priorities:
Complete AAA ballpark on time and within budget. What budget? We were told that the ball park would cost $50 million. Now the cost estimate is up to $64 million. A recent El Paso Times article quoted the city engineer “In the next 30 days, the final cost and amenities of the ballpark are expected to be set as the majority of its construction bids should be received and start being awarded …”
Finalize relocation of city departments to permanent spaces. According to the home page of the city web site “The City Hall relocation is complete”. Oh, they have a couple of buildings yet to remodel. And some city departments are scattered over town in parks and recreation facilities and rented office space. This says nothing of her hope to create a new government complex in entirely different buildings after this move is finished and the dust settles.
Enter into Public Private Partnership with Customs and Border Protection to alleviate bridge wait times. Public Private? What part of this would be private? Give us a break. Tell the truth once in a while.
Explore concession agreement with CRRMA (or some alternative) for more effective oversight of International Bridges. This one is huge and will be covered in a later post. In the mean time is she saying that oversight of the bridges is deficient now? Then get to work and fix it.
Stay tuned.
We deserve better
Brutus
elpasospeak 