The editorial in the El Paso Times July 10, 2015 issue deserves attention. They wrote:
Editorial: El Paso city government owes full explanation on botched transportation funding
Revelations that errors cause El Paso to miss out on more than $20 million in federal transportation funding raise further questions about competence at City Hall. Mayor Oscar Leeser, City Manager Tommy Gonzalez and other officials owe a much better explanation than offered so far.
The problem was first brought to light by political blogger Jaime Abeytia, then became a subject at city budget hearings on Wednesday, City Rep. Claudia Ordaz plans to place an item on Tuesday’s City Council agenda to further discuss the matter.
“We didn’t do it right. We missed the boat. We did the process wrong,” Leeser said at the budget hearing.
That’s not an acceptable explanation. Leeser sits on the El Paso Metropolitan Planning Organization, which reviews funding requests.
It appears that inexcusable sloppiness is the root cause of the problem.
“Overall, it is the EPMPO’s observation that many applications contain errors, ineligible funding sources, missing CMAQ (Congestion Mitigation/Air Quality Improvement Program) analysis, late submissions, and other obligation discrepancies,” Michael Medina, the El Paso MPO’s executive director, said in a June 25 document.
These kind of errors should not be occurring on funding applications from the nation’s 19th largest city.
Responsibility for properly filling out funding requests begins with city employees. City management, up to City Manager Tommy Gonzalez, are responsible for ensuring the staff has the necessary training and are following proper procedure.
The mayor and council are responsible for ensuring the city manager is doing his job in overseeing the city bureaucracy.
If Medina’s critique is correct — and no one seems to be suggesting otherwise — it suggests a catastrophic failure of leadership throughout city government.
City Engineer Irene Ramirez, who was promoted to that position earlier this year, announced her retirement this week. The timing is almost certainly not a coincidence. Ramirez’s department also is a major player in the long-delayed reconstruction of San Jacinto Plaza.
But one sudden retirement cannot be the only answer to this large problem.
The city owes its citizenry a detailed explanation of what went wrong, who was responsible and what is being done to make sure it doesn’t happen again. That needs to begin at Tuesday’s council meeting.
El Pasoans deserve much better than what they’ve been receiving from their city government.
The question
I think the readers will agree with the Times.
Their editorial does raise a question however. Should I close with “We deserve much better” from now on?
Brutus
elpasospeak 
Imagine that: A “catastrophic failure of leadership throughout city government”! Of course we have no leadership on this ship of fools that is just too many chiefs and not enough Indians that is the City (and, the County) of El Paso. Dump the City Manager position, along with all the top heavy administrative costs that have come with it, and elect a strong Mayor.
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The Times’s definition of “better” must not be the same as mine. This is the same newspaper that thinks Jim Valenti deserves to be in control for Children’s Hospital when he can’t even run UMC effectively. They think things will be better with Valenti having a bigger kingdom.
It’s also humorous to watch the Times come down hard quickly on Gonzalez, when they never held the previous administration accountable for its failures. Many of the current organizational and financial problems are attributable to mismanagement by Joyce & Friends, but the Times never says that. I think the Times is praying for the second coming of Joyce and Carmen.
Meanwhile, Escobar is throwing herself across the railroad tracks to protect and defend Valenti and UMC.
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Get ready for a string of San Jacintos. Local government, not just the city, is incapable of managing large complex projects. Unless, of course, it’s for Hunt and Foster. Then there is a brief burst of competence before their inner San Jacinto reemerges and screws it up again. I suppose if we just agreed to turn over title to all the big DTEP projects to Woody World they would get done on time.
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Seems like: So what if they screw up or cause permanent financial damage or destruction and/or blow up buildings or lose funding or dont fill out forms correctly and lose State funding.
So what, all that can be done is getting “Fired.”
So they will go get another job or not work at all and the spouse will pay the bills.
No skin off their nose.
OOOOOOOOOOOOOOOH, the fear of gettting “Fired.”
Or, resigning.
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The Times should take a look at its own catastrophic failures in quality control. This is the text that appeared under a photo from Monday’s MPO meeting. Corrections are in brackets.
“City Reps Peter Svarbein [Svarzbein], Lilia Limon and Emma Acosta sit as the mayors [mayor] asked for [a] second to his motion to postpone the Special [special] MPO meeting for [a] week after City Rep. Claudia Ordaz was not at the meeting. Ordaz is expected to bring up the item during today’s [Tuesday’s] regular meeting. Limon gave the second and the meeting was adjourned.”
Who are they to question the competency and professionalism of others?
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What is all the talk about “free” money? How much dumber can El Paso be before they get it. Must be the lure off the word free
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7/18/15 EP Times reports that Leeser is the new chair of the MPO. So we heard rumors of this some time back, but I can’t help but think of that quote about “if you keep doing the same thing, you can expect the same results.” Now Leeser who we all hoped would bring some positive changes to City Council is supposed to be the guy who will bring positive changes to the MPO??? Look at his record on City council. I haven’t seen the positives and I don’t see how anybody else can expect any change to come at the MPO either. Wasn’t he the first to admit “we blew it!” so now we give the guy more responsibilities so he can do two things even better than he was doing at one. OK, he’s a good businessman, but running City Council and the MPO are different and very troubled animals altogether. Let’s get real.
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And running a city is different than selling cars. But he’s a good boy.
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