Reality Checker wrote a comment the other day that no one else commented on. The original post was about how the city appears to be using almost $3 million from Texas state funding sources to build two pedestrian crossings for our new ball park.
The comment deserves to be promoted to a post so that more readers see it. It is reprinted below:
You just opened Pandora’s box. I believe the pedestrian crossing was included in the original ballpark budget, which makes the city council’s actions of greater concern.
Here’s what the El Paso Times’ Cindy Ramirez wrote in a Q&A on July 15, 2012:
“A preliminary study by Turner Construction shows design and construction costs of about $39 million; $2 million for a pedestrian crossing; and $2 million to demolish the City Hall and Insights buildings. The $50 million allows some wiggle room in construction, though any surplus would be deposited into the debt service fund to help pay off the construction, used to provide additional parking or deposited into a capital repairs reserve fund for future maintenance.”
They are now using state taxpayer funds which were not originally intended to be a source of funds for this project. This is really pretty simple: the ballpark is more over budget than we even know and that city management, council, and the car salesman are once again engaged in a manipulative shell game to obscure the truth. They are also once again robbing Peter to pay Paul Foster.
The only “wiggle room” in this situation is the wiggle room that is allowing city management, city council, the mayor and the Mountainstar principals to continue to do these things without any personal consequences.
Ms. Ramirez stated on July 15, 2012, that the answers in her Q&A were provided by city officials and the Mountainstar principals. If she were not so busy these days serving as the de facto public relations person for downtown redevelopment, perhaps she could have done some reporting on the disconnect between the July 2012 statement and the actions taken in the February 10 council meeting. Then again, maybe she and the Times chose to ignore the discrepancy and deception.
We deserve better
Brutus
elpasospeak 
Since our city became a wholly-owned subsidiary of Mountainstar, why is anyone surpised?
LikeLike