Of course EPISD needs bond money to fix our schools. Past school boards have neglected basic maintenance that should have been paid for out of maintenance and operations funds, not future bonds.
What they don’t need is a lot of money all at one time.
Take the case of the new Jefferson high school stadium. The school board voted this year to spend $2.8 million dollars “leftover” from their 2007 bond issue.
By the way, we are not opposed to Jefferson having a stadium. We are opposed to Jefferson having a stadium that the voters did not approve.
Leftover my foot
The voters did not authorize building the stadium when they voted nine years ago in 2007. If for some reason the district ended up with unspent money it should have been returned to the voters by reducing debt.
Can you imagine what will happen nine years from now if we give the district over six hundred million dollars all at one time?
They can’t handle the construction involved with that much money in just five years.
The reasonable thing for the district to do is to ask for a smaller sum, say $100 million. Tell us specifically what they want to do with it. Convince us to approve the money. Then do exactly what they said they want to do with the money in a short period of time. Earn our respect and trust. Then ask for another dollop.
We deserve better
Brutus
elpasospeak 
Brutus, while you appear to be presenting Jefferson in a bad light, is there any reason you are not putting up the Franklin Stadium in the same breath. The building of both these stadiums were approved by the Board of Managers at the same time, but it only just recently that the Jefferson stadium is getting built. But also consider, will it be exactly like Franklins? Of course not. It will only be a 3,000 seat capacity. Talk about disparity!!!
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Yes, I think that the Franklin stadium should not have been built without voter approval.
My choice of the Jefferson stadium was as an example. Unfortunately if I was to have included every item that they have re-appropriated from that bond issue the article would have been much longer.
Thank you for your readership and concern.
Brutus
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Well, what do you expect? Jefferson isn’t in the heart of new real estate development, which benefits a particular set of people who also worked with Margo to push through open enrollment. The motives of some aren’t to improve education. They are to sell more homes. Football really has very little to do with education.
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Bingo. its all about real estate.
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Franklin has a much larger student body and therefore needs a larger stadium. Please do not try and make this a discrimination issue. It is not.
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You’re right. It’s not a discrimination issue. It’s an issue of who has power and who doesn’t. The westsiders who are shoving this down the throats of voters are all rich and elite. They throw crumbs at the rest of El Paso and keep take the lion share for themselves. It’s not discrimination. It’s indecent, immoral opportunism disguised. And it is disgusting.
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Get Real … I agree the bond money is disproportionately tied to the westside. Funds for Coronado are particularly excessive.
Having said that, there is a strong contingent of “no” votes on the westside. Will be interesting to see the math on how the votes play out. Many westsiders (not Shapleigh insiders) don’t like how public money is being used by many of our local governmental bodies.
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Alamito has been boarded up for over a decade. Will the schools that are scheduled to close suffer the same fate?
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$100,000,000 as your “reasonable sum” is a number that you pulled out of the air and has no basis in reality, other than it sounds nice. YISD passed a $430,000,000+ bond and you are not saying a thing about that particular amount. Why is $430+ million okay in YISD which is smaller than EPISD but you want only $100 million in EPISD?
How about this for a reason for asking for more now and not later: Interest rates. Right now Interest rates are insanely low. Guess which is the only way they can go? Up. In a few years, using your logic, the EPISD would have to go back and ask for incremental additions at higher interest rates, which would hurt taxpayers more in the long run. And you are assuming that the taxpayers in say 3 years or so will be in a good mood enough to pass another bond. And then another a few years after that. Each time, the interest rates will be higher and cost the taxpayers more.
It looks like here is your solution: Smaller sum bonds spread over a period of years. The district wants a large bond as a one time vote. The effect would be the same except you are makng a big assumption that the situations will be somehow “more trusted” in the future.
Are you saying now Brutus that you simply do not Trust the current Board of Trustees? And that is based on…past school boards and past Superintendents?
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Deputy,
1) As far as I know you have no authority to define reality. Let me know if I am wrong.
2) The Ysleta bond has been passed and there is nothing that we can do about it.
3) You do not know what interest rates will be like in the future.
4) You are the one making assumptions.
5) This is not so much a matter of trust as it is not creating a situation where we need to have trust.
We differ not on the need for the bond, but over the amount and the subsequent time that it will take to administer it.
Brutus
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Dawg,
EPISD, the City and County and other entities have proven time and again that they can’t and will not deliver projects on a reasonable timetable.
You defend extreme borrowing now because current interest rates are low, as if you can predict the future. But you conveniently overlook the fact that we continually find ourselves paying interest on money for years before projects are ever delivered and before the money is actually needed, if the projects are ever even delivered at all. We’ve been paying interest on the 2007 bond for nearly a decade and millions of dollars from that bond are still unused. So we’ve been paying interest unnecessarily. That’s not a savings. In fact, it’s stupidity.
But when it comes to a project like the ballpark, which benefits certain individuals personally, local government moves heaven and hell (and lots of buildings), to get things done in a timely fashion.
Your defense of over-borrowing just because you want to extract lots of money while the taxpayers are in the mood to say yes makes me think you’re a government employee, possibly even an EPISD employee.
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Likely an EPISD employee who doesn’t live in the district. Classic arrogance — “I know the best way to use your money.”
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Your reason for approving a large bond — interest rates are low — is one of the worst reasons I’ve ever heard. EPISD is asking for too much money, period. The increased school taxes for the $650 million bond puts too big of a burden on the property owner and is too much to manage for any school district the size of EPISD.
I know that EPISD wants to be the City’s premiere school district but this bond will not get them there. I cannot help but wonder what in the world the board of managers and their “select committee” were thinking. It borders on ludicrous.
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What bugs me the most is that the board of managers approved open enrollment that makes EPISD a goody-bag for Woody Hunt’s west side home development. The elected board did not rescind this action and compounded the matter by hiring Team Mountainstar.
Declining enrollment was an opportunity to consolidate and downsize, saving taxpayers money. A school district is not a business that has a mandate to grow every year. Shrinking government is a good thing, not a bad thing when circumstances, i.e., demographics, call for it.
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Don’t worry. If you’re over 65 you wont have to pay additional taxes. That cowardly statement alone is enough to make me vote against the bond. They’re spending a lot of money and effort to shove this down our throats.
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All of the communication regarding the bond is BS. The proposed EPISD bond is not $668 million. It’s $1.2 billion when you include the interest on the $668 million. Of course Deputy Dawg says we should load up because interest rates are low.
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