Our current county judge was quoted recently in the Times:
“…we can’t afford to go backward now, as there’s still too much work to do.”
Work means money
The county judge is entertaining tearing down our 1980’s jail building, building a new county administration building, and expanding the Camino Real Regional Mobility Authority as a few of her projects that will require “work”.
Remember that this year the commissioner’s court voted to spend $160 million to remodel our county hospital (which the hospital’s chief executive officer claims is profitable) and to build health clinics that will compete with private physicians.
I believe it was the city manager that claimed that the county judge was part of our local “dynamic trio”.
Three of a kind
The trio is evidently our new congressman (who has already had a brush with the House Ethics Committee), our tax and spend county judge, and a former city representative who lost the election for mayor by 74%.
I like the congressman and think that we should give him a chance. He has hopefully learned that elected officials are not above the law, at least at the national level. He’s not in El Paso anymore.
Our former city representative hopefully learned that giving the voters a say in what goes on might help you get elected.
Since we should be enjoying baseball in the spring remember that three strikes make an out.
We deserve better
Brutus
elpasospeak 
its funny how the county hospital says “they make money”. take away our tax money away and lets see if they make money. they dont make money. its just that sometimes they dont lose more than they receive. that is what they mean when they say that and when they dont bring in more than they pay out they have to raise taxes. these clinics will not make money if our tax money didnt go towards them. just like Wilson, that $@#% (sorry I missed that one–ed.) of a judge we have needs to go.
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Even though I agree with you, your language is disgusting. I would hate to see the comment section of this blog go the way of other blogs. So far, it’s been thoughtful and civilized.
Seems like if the county hospital is making so much money they could reduce some taxes sometime — or use some of that extra for the clinics that we are being taxed to build.
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Balmorhea,
I apologize for missing the bad language. I agree with you that the comments are generally civil. We can disagree with each other without getting personal.
Thank you for working to achieve that goal.
Brutus
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I think Escobar is taking her orders from the same people who are giving Wilson her orders. Unless there is a repudiation by voters of the tax-and-spend insanity, we are doomed to higher tax bills. It does not seem likely to me that there will be such, given the margin by which the QoL bond passed.
Follow the money trail to figure out who benefits and who loses.
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I will make another comment since the common thread running through these massive expenditures (QoL excepted) is, “You don’t get to vote on it.” It was, I believe, in 2003 that Joe Wardy made this an issue in his successful campaign against then mayor Ray Caballero. The Caballero administration was using the CO vehicle to finance spending that Wardy maintained should be the matter of a citizen approval in the ballot box. (Disclosure: I personally like both Ray and Joe).
The problem is that there is a good use for COs, generally for big-ticket depreciating assets like firetrucks and buses and some buildings. I (and Wardy at the time) think that large QoL-type expenditures, such as the clinics, should be put to a yes/no citizen vote.
Clearly, our CC and County Judge do not agree when it comes to Woody World and UMC. I’m waiting for the shoe to fall on the next surprise mega-project that we don’t get to vote on.
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Brutus, the issue with Rep. O’Rourke was not that he had to learn that “elected officials are not above the law.” He broke no law. The House Ethics Committee has a RULE that prohibits trading in IPOs, on the curious grounds that the public does not have access to them. Given that IPO stands for Initial Public Offering, it is difficult to understand the sense of this rule. In any case no one has shown that Rep. O’Rourke had any special access to the IPO, and it was his broker who made these routine purchases. The El Paso Times grudgingly reported (on page 5) that it was improbable that any offense had been committed, after putting the initial story on page one….O’Rourke reported himself immediately and repaid much more than the profits his broker made for him. When you consider how much money is being lavished on federal legislators, especially post-the Citizens United decision, this is simply not an issue worth a “pitcher of warm spit” as one of our less-remembered vice presidents once said.
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O’Rourke reported himself only after he was outed by a government watchdog group, and he paid a fine, which his friend at the L Paso Times enthusiastically reported as if it was a goodwill gesture on his part. Honest mistake? Well, only if you consider his own acknowledgement that he didn’t bother to read the memo warning members about breaking this ETHICS rule. Guess in O’Rouke’s El Pasoworld of privilege. He thought the rules of normal men, be it driving drunk or breaking and entering and much less ETHICS rules didn’t apply to him. Irony how he and his friends at the EPT excoriated his predecessor for allegedly breaking ethics rules… Do as I say not as I do Beto.
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Nah, he just learned from his mother(restructured cash deposits) the tricks of how to do business and was caught.
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Yes, the laws were not violated.
Try calling your broker and asking for stock in an IPO.
His account was involved with several transactions. Was it because of his status as a representative, or because of his father in law?
For his broker and the broker’s firm not to know that this was against the rules is hard for me to believe.
Once again, I like our new representative and hope that he will be more aware of what is happening in the future.
Brutus
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