There has been quite a bit of discussion lately about a lighting display in a local park that a city representative asked for.
His request seems to me to be out of character with his stated position that he only wants the city to be involved in those things that the city is required to do.
This post is not about the political ramifications of the situation however. Other bloggers seem to think that the political situation is the important thing here.
Competence
City council voted to fund the display.
City staff did a miserable job implementing it.
Did they do such a poor job to try to discredit the city representative?
Did they do such a poor job because they are not competent?
Either way I think that corrective steps should be taken.
We deserve better
Brutus
elpasospeak 
During a radio interview ths weekend Rep. Holguin shed a bit more light on the subject when he stated that the planning on this was going smoothly months ago with Parks and Rec being fully cooperative, but suddenly from one day to the next the communication and cooperation came to a halt due to a directive from someone from the city (either Joyce Wilson or “legal”) to cease witth any further planning or communications on the matter. This information has not been publicized to my knowledge other than in this interview. I question the fact that the city manager or even the legal dept. could “trump” a representative’s honest and ordinary dealings with a city deparment in this manner. He is one of their bosses, not vice versa. Exactlywho works for whom here?
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Actually part of the problem/benefit with the city manager form of government is that the staff works for the city manager, not the elected officials.
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bingo!
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Easy way to tell: Release the emails!
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Uh – go back to the meeting. Staff repeatedly told Holguin and the rest of council that there was not enough time to execute a proper display. It was made clear this it would not be good nor great.
There was no planning of an event previous to the council item being brought up – Mamboman. Holguin admits he didn’t think to put the celebration in the budget even though he knew of the downscaled downtown christmas lights. No work at all was being put into planning this event because Holguin even admits that he invented the whole thing just in time to get it on the council agenda, so you are flat out lying at this point.
Holguin knew – he just didn’t believe it would get this much attention.
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David K, you refer to the meeting, but I refer to Rep. Holguin’s comments on Saturday’s talk show. He also stated that he didn’t bring it to the whole city council until the communication he was having with parks and rec came to a halt. Check with anybody else who may have knowledge of the interview…maybe Ms Townsend-Allala or maybe former US Rep Reyes, both of whom I doubt you would call liars.
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Oh, you don’t know DK. He has, would and will call all of those people liars.
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I have the clip – I have listened to it ten times and he tells about three different stories if you count two similar accounts as one. If not – he has four (4, quatro) stories of how the project came to be. Which one are you referring to? The one the record is the council meeting where he gets mad that he peronally can’t direct a city department to start a project. No city council person can direct a department to do such a thing.
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Unfortunately, one’s rep is one’s rep.
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The Christmas lights fiasco is only the beginning of the campaign season. I’m sure those in City Hall are capable of dirty tricks. I’ve heard that from those who work there. They are also capable of incompetence. Sometimes it’s hard to tell the difference.
Critics of Eddie’s Lights site the cost. For cryin’ out loud, the city and county both spend 10 times that at the drop of a hat to hire consulting firms for team building, or to do studies to prove what they already know. I hope a benefactor steps forward to pick up the cost of Eddie’s Lights.
In the meantime, the fact that this issue has created so much acrimony shows the lack of rational discourse in El Paso.
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Oh please with the “someone from the city” brought everything to a halt. Is this the same someone who buried Jimmy Hoffa? If there are emails, release them! Show us how “smoothly” things were running! This is a case of Eddie saying, “Hey kids, let’s put on a light show”, and then watching the whole thing go to hell because he didn’t bother to follow up on his own damned project! And he wants to be County Judge? Lord help us.
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So are you suggesting that Jimmy Hoffa is buried here in El Paso? And to think, all this time the Feds have been looking up along the northern border.
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Yup, same Jimmy Hoffa perp(s)…had to be more than one … conspiracy, you know. Emails pending FOIA request. Be ready, breaking story, it’s all good, baby!
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This could be good for tourism!
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And how much are they spending on the Ball Park Parking survey after its all done and all these anti Holguin people are bitching about 25 thousand ? Lets see, Ball Park is 75 million, tearing down City Hall, buying New buildings, and remodeling others around 100 million before its over. The way our City Manager financed the Park with all the interest for the first 10 years with a balloon at the end and we still owe the total amount 10 years later. Schector was right, its basically a car lease deal , but why is everyone for all this useless spending on the Ball Park up in arms about Holguin spending 25k for Christmas lights ? 25 thousand wouldn’t pay the interest on the COO’s for 8 hours on all the Ball Park Fiasco. The only reason the hypocrites are crying about Holguin spending 25k is because he is running against Escobar. Thats it, end of story.
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Ditto! Then it’s a sad state when they couldn’t even spend half the money on the display because so much went for “security” So in answer to Brutus’ questions: an attempt to discredit the representative? Yes; an instance of demonstrated incompetence? Yes. Also a lack of pride, effort, and taste by doers responsible. BTW…are there ties to certain security companies… when you ask for 25K and you have to allocate so much to security?
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Since it appears that l’m the only one left in town that hasn’t commented on this whole Christmas light silliness, l guess it’s my turn. Is this a case of ‘The lights are off, but everybodys home?’ A half a friggin’ year to figure out what to do for lights? In less time we could launch expensive electronic junk on a different planet but we can’t figure out lights? I apologize for over reacting. Now that l think about it, l have the utmost conifidence that next year our local gov will do a comprehensive, in-depth study on how to wisely spend the 25k on lights and only spend 135k for the study.
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Rage on, little guy. $25,000 buys a lot of doggy treats.
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I find it rather crazy when these politicians speak sometimes. In this case, the ask was for 25K but the cost was something like 11K for the display and then something like 8K for security….so he says we actually have a “SAVINGS” coming to us for the difference. HA! How did we save anything??? I’m starting to get the lingo these people like to use.
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