Is there no end to this mess?
The city manager announced a week or so ago that he was going to shake up the capital improvement management team. He called upon the lady who runs our airport to head the team. Now the city will do a better job.
This week we saw a presentation about the status of San Jacinto Plaza made to city council by the new boss. This was the cover sheet of the presentation:
We were told that the project will have to wait while a specially engineered cable is manufactured and delivered from Germany. No one has told us how we got into a situation where what we are building is so exotic that we had to go to Germany.
The cable is one of several that will fasten the pavilion cover to the special columns.
The picture above does not show columns or a cover for that matter.
Is this a sign of things to come?
We deserve better
Brutus
elpasospeak 
Nothing to see here citizen, move along.
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The cover is that grayish area at the top that looks like digital camo or a graveyard with markers. So, yeh, this rendering could have been an omen. The two tan things standing up in the upper area of the rendering are the columns.
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I had to jump back in after seeing today’s newspaper. As Niland said in today’s paper, in which she defended the city manager’s big raise, “you are not seeing the big picture.”
That’s from the same person who quoted the Bible during the ballpark debate, saying that “Without vision, the people perish.”
Don’t you just love self-proclaimed visionaries?
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I don’t think we all have the same delusions she has like when she looks at herself in the mirror and sees GOD!
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Where is the bathroom????
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Yes, the drawing does show the shade providing cover. If you click on it to enlarge it, you can see the cables running to and from what looks kind of like a net. I agree totally with the major question, though: why can’t our city construct a “new” plaza with materials made in America? Meanwhile, what has happened to the city engineering department? These people have screwed us badly.
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I see it now. I suppose it’s a good thing that we don’t have high winds in El Paso.
Brutus
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Damn right, the services they are delivering “stand out”…like a sore thumb that keeps getting wallopped over and over again!!!
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The city website says the project includes “a 50-square-foot shade structure to protect Luis Jimenez’ Los Lagartos sculpture.” It was never intended to provide shade for people. Another great use of tax dollars.
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Why does so many people care about this plaza. If IDIQ finishes it for 6 million that would still be 1 million less than the other bidders.
i wont step foot in that park or downtown anyway and most of you wont either, but at least the homeless and drug addicts will have a place to hang around other than the Library. What we still should be looking into are things like the City being charged 5k per month for a parking lot for City Hall ? How did Wilson miss not buying the parking lot too ? Could it be a payoff to the Times for supporting
the Ballpark and Wilson ? Romero was right on that point, but wrong on the raise. A contract is a contract is a contract. No one else wanted Gonzalez and no one wanted Wilson at what she was asking either. Even in Florida.
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Romero is a clown. He shouldn’t blame the Times for cutting a good deal. He should blame his cohorts sitting beside him and his predecessors who approved all the transactions related to the ballpark. This once again proves that Wilson and city council were going to build the ballpark at any cost and that the private business guys are way smarter than the people we elect and hire as city managers.
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And there is NO WAY for a local company to twist 2 cables or 5 cables or 19 cables together to make a NEW CABLE that will fit?
Really?
And no Local Welder could put HOOPS or fasteners on the end on the NEW CABLES ? (The telephone poles and electric poles are all held steady with HUGE cables sometimes.)
Really?
So, these cables have to be made by the same people that harvest the wood for and make a Stradivarius violin.
Really?
Its just THAT CRITICAL that no Local Welder could MAKE or put together a steel cable?
And if the Special One-Of-A-Kind Worlds Best Cable breaks in this constant 40 mph wind and 60 mph gusts, then they have to call Germany again?
Really?
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I am Italian, not German, and I used wood from the Italian Alps, not from the Black Forest. Really.
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Just looked at the open/ ventilated / “Floating shade” above the fiberglass alligators on the city diagram/ drawing.
Looks like a great place for the pigeons to sit above the alligators and people’s heads. . . . . . and just poop and poop and poop and poop.
Will our pigeons enjoy the German made cables?
(As much as we will?)
Do these German cables come with coupons for a free bratwurst
for everyone?
Are they pigeon friendly?
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They’ll probably be looking into getting an out of town consultant at about 150K to suggest how to control the pigeons. I’m sure with all the picnic tables around the center that people won’t like the pigeons’ company.
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As many people in the Food Courts at the malls. . . just leave their trash and empty paper cups on the tables.
Who do I call for a Table Reservation for the Plaza?
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1-888-lagarto
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