Washington Post advertising

May 26, 2014

The May 20,2014 agenda of the EPISD board of managers has another example of what goes on in many of our local governmental purchasing units.

Item E8 on the consent agenda seeks approval of contracts for structured cabling products and services.  They want to make the purchase through a buy board, The Allied States Cooperative.

A visit to the cooperative’s web site  tells us that they are a “national government purchasing cooperative”.

Local schools

The EPISD agenda item explains that the purchases will be for data wiring of local schools, including a new elementary school.

EPISD staff has not even published the specifications yet.  They want permission to hire one of the four local firms each time they are ready to start a project.  Formal bidding will not be used.  They want to ask the four   “to provide competitive quotes based on walk-throughs conducted for each project”.

Ignoring the kinds of mischief that situation could foster let’s focus on how they (the cooperative) advertised their “bid”.

They published their announcements in the “Washington Post”.  No kidding.

National cooperative

Allied States tells us that they are a national contracting organization.

Maybe they are.

Reviewing their web site you will see that they are part of our local Region 19 Education Service Center.  They offer contract administration so that government organizations across the county can avoid competitive bidding and use their buy board.

All of the contact information for Allied States points us to employees of Region 19 here in El Paso.

Restrictive

Why would our local education service center advertise this in the Washington Post?  Could it be that they did not want other local vendors to know about the opportunity?  Did they reach out and inform their favored few?

We deserve better

Brutus

 

4 Comments | El Paso Independent School District | Permalink
Posted by Brutus

Revived

May 25, 2014

I don’t know much about our interim city manager so I went to the city’s web site to see what I could learn.

The page below was what the site showed May 21, 2014 in the afternoon.

McGlynn

He must not have been a favorite of our former city manager if she did not move his office before she blew up city hall.

Even more remarkable is that city hall was imploded April 15, 2013.  City documents on April 30, 2013 still show him as the director of a city department, not as a deputy city manager.  In other words it would appear that the web page above was created after city hall had been blown up.

Now I guess the worm has turned and he will get her office.

Does anyone pay attention over there?

We deserve better

Brutus

3 Comments | Ball park, City government | Permalink
Posted by Brutus

Bridge to nowhere

May 24, 2014

One change that should not be attributed to our new city manager concerns the woman who holds (held?) the job of deputy city manager for transportation and public works.

After her dustup with city council on April 24, 2014 (Necessities first) she seems to have disappeared.

City hall insiders tell me that she is nowhere to be seen.  The rumor is that she was fired.

Our news outlets have not covered the story.  Maybe the rumor is not true.

I would think that the city would let us know.

We deserve better

Brutus

 

5 Comments | City government | Permalink
Posted by Brutus

Another city projection proven wrong

May 23, 2014

Southwest Airlines has announced that they will be cutting 6 flights a day out of their El Paso routes.  They have 26 flights currently each day.

That means fewer people will be flying into and out of our airport.  Some will argue that the remaining flights will be more full.  That is probably true but will not make up for the decreased capacity and convenience.

Passenger traffic is already down 4.4%  from last year.  Southwest represents about 50% of the daily flights at the airport.  Six flights out of 26 is about a 23% decline.

Meanwhile our city’s chief financial officer tells us that it’s all good.  New and de-proved told us about a presentation she made to city council supporting the spending of $45 million to build a new airport parking garage for the rental car companies.  Her projection was that we would see a 1% annual increase in car rentals.

This will also affect the hotel occupancy taxes that are supposed to pay for the new ball park.

We deserve better

Brutus

 

2 Comments | Ball park, City government | Permalink
Posted by Brutus

City budget audit

May 22, 2014

I don’t have a crystal ball, nor do I have an inside line to what our mayor is thinking.

The other day he announced that the city will bring an out of town firm in to audit our upcoming city budget.

There is not a lot to audit relative to something that has not happened yet.

I suspect that the focus of the review will be centered on revenue projections and the necessity of certain expenses.

Is the “audit” part of a movement to get a new chief financial officer at the city?

Maybe we will start seeing realistic projections instead of whatever number the city manager needed to  support her agenda.

We deserve better

Brutus

2 Comments | City government | Permalink
Posted by Brutus

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