The Times wrote an article about a recent speech the city manager gave. You can read it here.
She spoke of a “game plan” that is in place. According to her the voters approved it. I missed that election. The Times quoted the city manager as saying:
“So part of it is just figuring out how to execute it, how to executed [sic] it successfully without putting an undue tax burden on the residents and working with the mayor and council on their strategic vision on creating wealth and jobs.”
Undue tax burden
Top of the list is an earlier post that explained that property owners in El Paso had the 4th highest property taxes among the nation’s 50 largest cities in 2012.
At what point would she consider our taxes to be too high?
We deserve better
Brutus
elpasospeak 
The Times’ coverage of Wilson’s speech was yet another puff piece. There was no counterpoint whatsoever to her own aggrandizement of the job she has done.
The focus of the story, and I presume her speech, reinforced one of the concerns expressed in this blog time and again over the past year: that city management is basically working for downtown developers, not the city as a whole and certainly not the taxpayers.
The story and Wilson’s own self-laudatory comments were so heavily focused on downtown projects that it made it seem as though her entire mission was downtown redevelopment. The only non-mayoral quote about her speech and performance was obtained from a downtown business association person.
The “poll” which ran along with the story was also focused on downtown redevelopment. The limited choices of answers and the construction of the questions showed a pro-downtown redevelopment bias.
The story had typographical and grammatical errors. Example: “…they push the envelop a little to [sic] far and a little too fast.” If a newspaper can’t take time to properly edit it’s lead story, there is very little hope.
I was surprised to learn from the story that the Times can state unequivocally that the cost of the ballpark is only $60.2 million. That single tidbit of information might be the biggest revelation in the entire story because Wilson herself said months ago that we will not not the true cost until it is finished. That number also does not include the indirect costs for relocation of city hall, purchase of the Times building, etc., so the Times is still helping to spin the ballpark story. I would have given them a pass on that if they had simply used the word “estimated” or qualified the number in some way. It’s a shame that they haven’t had the courage to report on the true total cost of the ballpark project.
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When Joyce speaks…nobody should listen!
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Downtown has never paid tax and never will. It is a black hole where our property tax subsidizes the investments of a few investors. Either directly by abatements to new or remodeled structures or indirectly for empty buildings (that will receive future abatements should they ever be renovated).
Downtown is the crown jewel of the local billionaire welfare economy.
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If one states something enough (“There is a great game plan in place that the voters approved … “) and the media blindly repeats the statement without question, pretty soon it is the “truth.” Some call that propaganda.
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“game” plan is right. the taxpayers were gamed.
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