Last week city council finally discussed the fact that the ball park financing cost us $22 million more than it should have because someone(s) decided to delay issuing the bonds until after the municipal election.
We don’t have a clear picture of who caused this. Some think that city council members intervened. Others think that it was our former mayor. Our former chief financial officer may be to blame.
What was not clear to me until I had a chance to calm down is the magnitude of the problem. The bonds were supposed to be issued for $60 million. The mistake cost us another $22 million.
That’s a massive mistake. We probably won’t be able to hold those who did this to us responsible.
We can however find out who did this and then let them know what we think of them.
We deserve better
Brutus
elpasospeak 
Dont forget. . . . Paul Foster and Woody Hunt started the ball rolling on this along with cover-ups, deceit, lies, half-truths, promotion instead of discussion, and free baseball caps for City Council to show their support for corrupt salesmanship and as a bribe.
Those are $100,000,000 dollar baseball caps.
From there, it all went downhill as the words Rush Rush Rush were the words of the day so the public would not have much chance to figure out the long term results, let alone City Council.
I remember a day watching City Council when one of them actually said: “Is this legal?”
How corrupt must the City Council and Mayor be before the State Of Texas walks in and arrests the whole bunch?
What does the City Council and Mayor have to do to go to jail for bushwhacking and deceiving the public?
LikeLike
If it were illegal there would have been action. Stupid, incompetent, self serving are not illegal.
LikeLike
You’re absolutely right. The city is already morally and ethically bankrupt. Financial bankruptcy might be next.
LikeLike
And now. . . it continues with Rent A Bikes downtown that no one is using, a Streetcar project with rebuilt antique World’s Most Expensive (2-3 million dollars EACH) and non-replaceable and non-fixable streetcars, speed bumps on public streets meant for the public, where there are clear speed limit signs, that are a danger to emergency vehicles in route. Emergency Vehicles can pass stop signs and red lights but for the Speed Bumps, there are no flashing lights they could install that would let the Emergency Vehicles pass. They must slow down over and over and over and over.
And Speed Bumps are just great for Emergency personnel to get an IV started / or changed/ or help an injured passenger in route to the hospital.
Total jackasses at City Hall.
LikeLike
I’ve even passed Speed Bumps that have been broken off, or come loose, or parts of them, and are now. . . . . . . . .WAY down the street causing havoc all during the night.
Chunks of Speed Bumps . . . . WAY down the street from the Speed Bump SIgn.
Fantastic for Emergency Vehicles !
LikeLike
Ortega got way more than a baseball cap. Once again the media looked the other way.
http://deepinsideelpaso.blogspot.com/2014/06/steve-ortega-receives-late-contribution.html
Tuesday, June 3, 2014
Steve Ortega receives late contribution of 50 Grand from Hunt and Foster
In the January 2014 Campaign / Officeholder Report, former city representative and mayoral hopeful, disclosed that he received $50,000 from Woody Hunt and Paul Foster.
Conveniently, these contributions were made about a month after the mayoral runoff and the day after the post-election financial report was due.
LikeLike
As Witch Hazel Hillary said, “At this point, what difference does it matter?”
All you straight ticket voting Democrats can just smile and giggle when your taxes go up again.
Oh, and wouldn’t it be interesting to know how many biycycles have been rented thus far?
LikeLike
Yes, we’d all like to know:
How much money has the City collected from renting bicycles?
And the: Cost of Repairs /maintenance/ and damage to the bicycles?
(I KNOW that when riding MY Bike. . . there is something, always SOMETHING that has to be fixed or tightened or adjusted after just a couple hours of riding.)
LikeLike
You can turn this into a partisan attack if you want, but the truth is that the Hunt and Foster, the ony people who benefit financially from the taxpayer-funded ballpark, are Republicans. Same for most of the people benefiting from all the public money being spent on downtown development. Those are the same people who funded the campaigns of Niland and others. There is plenty of blame to go around, so let’s not pretend that all of our problems are the result of one party.
LikeLike
Actually, Wilson admitted in her email she delayed the bond at request of some CC reps until after the Mayoral election.
Only Ortega stood to benefit.
It’s common knowledge and demonstrated in the chucoleaks emails and former council actions that Wilson, Ortega, Byrd, Escobar, and O’Rourke acted as surrogates for each other to circumvent their problems with ethics deficits, conflicts of interest, non-disclosure, and voting for personal and financial benefit of self, family, and bed-buddies.
Wilson, Ortega, and Byrd have pulled this financial “stunt” on the taxpayers before.
Below is an example.
Interesting how no one in the media reported on this email.
If you remember Wilson denied knowing about this and threw Kilgore under the bus and tried to have her fired to deflect accountability for the Wilson-Ortega-Byrd era of financial malfesance.
You can visit this blog link to view the email.
http://deepinsideelpaso.blogspot.com/2013/05/guilty-of-fiduciary-malfeasance-steve.html
Friday, May 3, 2013
Guilty of Fiduciary Malfeasance?
The expected financial impact is between $11.3 to 17.3 MILLION Dollars in budget shortfalls countywide.
An email obtained via the Texas Open Records Act and posted at Chucoleaks.org shows that City Representatives Steve Ortega, Susie Byrd, and Courtney Niland knew on August 24, 2012 that the Western Refinery Property Tax appraisal would be between $216 to $280 million dollars.
On August 24, 2012, Susie Byrd forwarded an email to Steve Ortega and Courtney Niland stating that the Central Appraisal District (CAD) board will not allocate funds to go to court and instead will negotiate a settlement with Western Refinery and the expected property tax appraisal would be between $216 to $280 million dollars.
Byrd attributed these statements to a conversation with Dinah Kilgore, Director Central Appraisal District proving that Dinah Kilgore is telling the truth about giving the City notice.
City Manager Joyce Wilson and the Chief Financial Officer Carmen Arrietta Candelaria had a responsibility to amend the budget and submit a truthful accounting of expected property taxes in July 2012 when notified by both Dinah Kilgore and Western Refining.
Steve Ortega, Susie Byrd and Courtney Niland could have prevented this from happening in August 2012 at the beginning of the budget year. Ortega, Byrd, and Niland had a responsibility to post an agenda item to review the impact on the budget rather than “keeping it quiet” until May 2013, the last quarter of the budget cycle when the budget shortfall would have triple the impact.
LikeLike
Here is the Ethic webpage for the City of El Paso, on the right hand side your can find the form to file an ethic complaint.
http://www.elpasotexas.gov/city-attorney/ethics
Any one interested? People they expect the vast majority of you to just whine at them. Time to move from whining to filing ethics violation complains against the CC and the City. If about 25 to 50 of you file individual complaints these morons may just sit up and take notice. Whining and bitching will get you nothing, light a fire under their asses than you may get a response.
LikeLike
Snow Bunny Wilson is claiming that Cook and Lilly made the decision to stop the sale of bonds which was put forth by to unidentified CC members. Cook and Lilly claims they never had such a discussion with Wilson and Wilson cannot remember who the two CC members were who wanted to stop the sale of bonds before the election.
It is interesting to note that Snow Bunny Wilson got the job as CEO of El Paso Upper Rio Grande work force which happens to be where some one very closes to Snow Bunny Wilson worked who was government liaison between the workforce and the City. Also not a word why Reyes, the last CEO, left after so many years of disasters he created at the work force and suddenly he’s is out to make room for Snow Bunny Wilson. Any One connecting dots if you add Stevo and Vero in the mix.
In addition there is just no way around it Snow Bunny Wilson was working as a unregistered lobbyist for Mountain Star as she held her position as City manager. Yep some one needs to step up to the plate and call these people out and hold them accountable but it’s El Paso and you will not.
And the Band played on!
LikeLike
Again, Maybe we need to disband city/county government like some people in SUNLAND PARK ARE WORKING ON
LikeLike