elpasospeak

This week’s city council agenda includes an executive session item to consider the former mayor’s claim against the city for more than  $700,000 in legal fees that he claims to have incurred. 

He was the subject of a recall election that he chose to fight through the legal system instead of the ballot box.  He won. Now he claims that city council got bad advice from his own city attorney’s office.  His claim is that they caused him to accumulate more than $2.5 million in legal bills fighting the election.

On what?

The amount is absurd.  Even if somehow this is a legitimate bill he clearly did not do his job managing his lawyers. The 2013  city budget for the El Paso city legal office is  $3.1 million dollars for personal services (that amount does not include the money for the cases that they lose).  There are 39 positions in the budget.  How can this have cost $2.5  million?  Why didn’t he fire the city attorney?

Principles

My recollection is that the former mayor has said that he took on the fight as a matter of principle.  It seems to me that his position is that he is entitled to use taxpayer money to fight against letting the people vote on a matter.  I have a hard time defending that argument.

Is he special?

Let’s for the moment say that he is precisely right.  The city attorneys gave him bad (incomplete) advice.  He actually did need to run up a $2.5 million dollar legal bill.

Does that mean that the taxpayers are entitled to financial relief when city staff wastes our money?

Or is he really special?

Now the former mayor tells us that wants to run for election to the office of Texas Land Commissioner.  He wants to be the first El Pasoan elected to state-wide office.  As a democrat.  Is this campaign really just a ruse to raise campaign money?  Will he now argue that his prior legal expenses are legitimate campaign expenses?

Let council hear from you

The city has a web site that allows you to send comments to the mayor and city representatives without leaving your name or email address.  http://home.elpasotexas.gov/city-representatives/district-1/contact-district-1.php will get you to the district 1 representative.  Change the two “district-1’s” to your district number  to contact your representative.  You can write to the mayor at http://home.elpasotexas.gov/mayor/feedback.php.

Take a moment to let them know what you think about this.

We deserve better

Brutus

I’ve been thinking about the move of city hall.

The old city hall has been torn down and city staff has moved into new offices.  City functions are up and running.  The public is being served.

Then why?

Why then are we remodeling two additional buildings for city use?  According to the central appraisal district the one at 801 Texas is about 62,400 square feet while the one at 218 N Campbell (the Luther building) is about 64,000 square feet.  Between the two of them the city has told us about $20.4 million in remodeling costs.

If city functions are running well why do we need these buildings?  Are some departments crippled?  Has the rush to get the ball park built caused some city functions to be sacrificed?

Both of these buildings are old, almost one hundred years old.  Their construction style required giant concrete mushroom pillars in the middle of each supporting floor.  These pillars occupy a lot of space and must be built around.  In short, they restrict the floor designs that can be used.  We seem to be paying over $200 per square foot to remodel the Luther building.  Would a new building have been cheaper and better?

Why do we need these buildings?  Can’t we leave the city departments where they are?  Or are things not running well?  Has the haste to tear down city hall caused service to the public to suffer?

We deserve better

Brutus

The city manager’s proposed 2014 budget presentation lets us know that in 2013 she transferred the chief financial officer (CFO) to work directly for the city manager.

Previously the CFO worked for the deputy city manager in charge of finance and management support services.  The presentation tells us the deputy city manager position will be eliminated at the end of this budget year.

After all finance and management can be handled directly by the city manager and her lock-step CFO.  That way any chance of independent review will conveniently be eliminated.  Things can be a lot simpler when you don’t have to follow the rules.  Remember that most of the poorly conceived or down right phony financial presentations relating to the ball park and city hall move have come from either the city manager or the CFO.

Word on the street is that the deputy city manager in question is being eased out (could it be that he disagreed with the financial presentations?)  and will magically reappear as some sort of city consultant.

It looks to me like the CFO is being positioned as a possible replacement for the city manager.  Watch out.

We deserve better

Brutus

The city manager’s proposed 2014 budget includes an increase of $5.9 million to start paying for certificates of obligation that city council issued without asking the voters in 2012 and 2013.

That’s not too bad until you look at the total cost.  If they are 25 year bonds the total cost will be over $147 million.

Why can’t we save up some money for a couple of years and then pay cash for a new project?  We could then save some more, take any financial benefits from the prior project, and then build a second project.  At 3.5% interest over 30 years this approach would save us more than 60%.

Bridges used as barriers

The budget proposes an $816,854 increase in bridge revenues.  Bridge revenue has been running about $17 million per year.  In 2012 the city transferred $10.5 million of that to the general fund evidently because the bridge operations do not need it.   Of the $816,854 the budget proposes that $724,644 be added to the $10.5 million making the profit number over $11.2 million.

Between the ball park, quality of life bonds, city hall relocation, and other projects city council is spending a lot of money downtown.  Now we see that the city is using high crossing fees to supplement the general fund.

Economists talk about elasticity when they speak of rates.  The theory is that as something costs more, fewer people buy it.  Do we want people to come downtown?  Isn’t the downtown revitalization dependent upon more people frequenting downtown?  Would lowering the crossing fees bring more people downtown?  Or is it that we don’t want those people?

We deserve better

Brutus