The Times’ editorial the other day was another example of their hypocrisy.
They were advocating the discontinuance of the new water franchise fee. I found myself agreeing with them.
They called the fee a tax. They pointed out that the new city manager suggested cutting expenses instead of ordering the tax. They pointed out that the tax was a last minute suggestion and that the public did not have an opportunity to participate in the process.
Then they did it. They wrote:
Rushed public policy is almost always bad public policy.
Are they saying that their support of the rushed ball park (the team franchise must be purchased now, or else some other city will get it) and the tearing down of city hall with the subsequent sale of the Times building to the city, all done at breakneck speed, was bad public policy?
We deserve better
Brutus
elpasospeak 
Ah no, there’s plenty of wiggle room in that “almost always” escape. Only rushed policy that the editorial board does not like is bad policy.
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Rushed reporting is almost always bad reporting.
The Times bought what Mountainstar and Joyce Wilson were selling and did so without asking hardquestions. Mountainstar could have purchased the team without manipulating the city into building the ballpark on the current site. The downtown site of the ballpark was never a Pacific Coast League requirement. Yes, PCL preferred that Mountainstar build a substantially new ballpark, but downtown was not a requirement except in the minds of Mountainstar’s owners, who had other reasons for wanting the ballpark downtown. The head of the league actually joked with jouralists about El Paso’s willingness to blow up city hall just to build a ballpark. The Times’ portrayal that this opportunity came up quickly was also misrepresentation. Mountainstar and Wilson and certain city reps worked behind closed doors for a long time to orchestrate things and manipulate the outcome as was later revealed.
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John Cook revealed that manipulation by accident in his farewell interview with El Paso Inc. He never really understood what was happening, but in the end he enabled it by withholding his promised veto.
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the times is a rag. bob moore and joe meunch should be fired and new blood brought into the newspaper. either that or shut it down. its a joke.
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Along with poor reporting and lousy writing, the Times now has to live down the typo in the huge headline yesterday. “Protection” (as in Childrens’ Hospital files) was spelled “protecion.” Not English, not Spanish, not even Spanglish. It was just a big ‘ol two-inch high typo. Makes you wonder if they check anything.
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Yes, they do check some things. They check to see if they still have jobs every day. The Times has lost a lot of good employees.
The rest are just waiting for the axe to fall.
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