The Times complained the other day in an editorial about how our local council of judges “unilaterally” (even though it is their job) raised the rate that court appointed attorneys get paid by the county. The new rate gives the attorneys $90 per hour while they are in court — less than some plumbers and IT firms charge.
I thought I would look into how the Times has been doing at the public trough.
Various laws require the city to publish notices in local newspapers. The contract currently being used was bid in 2010. The one previous to that was bid in 2007.
According to the two documents below the Times circulation dropped between 2007 and 2010.
The 2007 city council agenda item gave the city staff permission to spend an estimated $100,000 dollars annually with either of two newspapers, the El Paso Times or El Paso, Inc.
Let’s leave it to your imagination to figure out how city staff decided which newspaper to use.
Incredible
The 2010 contract raised the annual amount to $225,000. That’s a lot more noticing activity. I wonder why but doubt that the cause was a doubling of material that had to be published.
Could it be that the extra money bought editorial space?
Why was the editorial written?
Was the editorial another effort to pay someone back?
We deserve better
Brutus
elpasospeak 
Don’t forget all the other public entities that have to use the newspapers as well: Pretty much any taxing entity. It appears that the low bid was El Diario. Why didn’t the city go with the low bid?
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El Diario didn’t give knee-jerk support to the stadium and worked to expose the scam. In Spanish,
The Inc. would be my choice for the notice contract as it does try to give voices competing with the Horde some space and is a generally positive influence here,
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Think this editorial will garner him another editor of the year award from his peers?
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