The Tuesday, August 9, 2014 city council agenda has an interesting item on it.
Item 12.4 on the regular agenda contemplates renting three parking spaces next to the DoubleTree downtown to the hotel corporation. They plan to use it to park tour busses. These three parking spaces occupy 612 square feet of Missouri Street. The hotel will pay the city $2,040 per year for the exclusive use of the spaces.
A previous post, Valet Parking, addressed a similar situation downtown. The upscale restaurant in the Mills building wanted to use part of Oregon street to facilitate valet parking. The city provided them with 1,376 square feet of space for $1,000 per year.
Both facilities are owned by people that have close ties to city government. Evidently some are closer than others.
We deserve better
Brutus
elpasospeak 
This isn’t just an issue of preference. This is another taxpayer subsidy for a privately owned business. Allowing Doubletree to buy up spaces is one thing. Giving spaces to them at that price will most definitely result in less parking revenue just weeks after council was considering jacking up prices on the rest of us.
So, let’s look at the math: $2,040 for three spaces is $680 per space. That is only $13 per space per week. Even if you only assume 250 meter days annually, $680 comes out to just $2.72 per day.
I don’t know the actual revenue per meter in that area, but I am willing to bet that it is substantially greater than $2.72 per day or $13 per week.
The city wants to jack up fees for this budget cycle, so how about they start by showing some integrity and applying supply side economics to this deal. Charge the Doubletree a big premium for these spaces.
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CC can’t say “no” to the downtown investors who finance them. If you could get the voters here to get off their lazy asses and turn out for an election, well that could turn things around in this city pronto. Good luck trying.
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Only if they read something factual about city government before getting off their butts and voting…LA is considering giving voters lottery tickets to improve turnout, but what will be the result of an influx of voters motivated only by the receipt of a lottery ticket?
The problem goes deeper – who will be running for office next year to replace, say, Ann Morgan Lilly? What are the chances that it would be anyone who reads this blog??
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Might be me? More important is Niland’s seat.
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We need good people like you to run. Which district are you in?
Brutus
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Most taxpayers in El Paso have two jobs or are on salary, which means they do not have time to keep up with the news or leave work to go vote. Federal and state wage and hour labor laws support slavery. According to these laws an employer can make an employee on salary work 24 hours a day, seven days a week. It is up to us to support activists who invest their time and effort to fight cc, nobody else has time,
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Right now, one of the most pressing issues is Cortney Niland and others who are trying to strip homeless people of their rights and restrict property and business ownership rights of organizations that care for the disadvantaged. What is happening to the Rescue Mission is disgusting and does not reflect well on El Paso. Next, city council will have police picking people up off the streets and putting them on buses out of town, just because they are poor or disadvantaged.
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Unfortunately, its not just city council but judges who are ruling in favor of cc decicions. We need to be proactive and prevent cc from being above the law.
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Maybe that way they could raise enough to cover the costs of Ms. Shang’s paid vacation for 11 months, followed by a lifetime pension…
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By the way, the bargain basement price for these parking spaces is on top of millions of dollars in tax breaks they have already received.
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People have given up, voting for what? They see the corruption on a daily basis and corrupt officials beating the rap on a routine basis.
We have truly become a suburb of Juarez, same politics, same graft, same corruption, same apathy and despair.
Then we have the extreme left wing racist group that want an El Paso with Cuban Revolutionary policies. We have the “I am more Mexican than you” group. And we have the “superior white” group. Let’s not forget ” I have more money than you groups”. Some more there is a small group that believes in and loves El Paso and tries to make it better.
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I live in Dist#1 that, if we don’t do something soon, is going to look just like the east side with service roads along I-10 lined with big box ticky-tacky and mountain slopes that look like Crazy Cat Mtn. I’m guessing that would be Courtney Niland’s and Ann Lilly’s vision for Hunt City, aka El Paso.
There is still time and a citizens petition is being circulated now to preserve the slopes from Transmountain to the NM state line. Really, if there is a workable strategy for this city, I am convinced that it lies in land conservation, wilderness access and sustainability, not vanity projects that are so “Old Economy.” You can find out more on Jim Tolbert;s blog.
One good thing about being at the bottom of the barrel, is that every direction is up:)
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I hear Lyda Ness Garcia is running for Ann Lilly’s seat. That woman is a nightmare!
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