Money must not be important now that EPISD has had their bond approved.
The district’s board of trustees voted recently to hire an out of town firm to manage most of the bond projects.
The scope of work and the amount that the firm will be paid are yet to be negotiated.
Now that the firm knows that they will get the work I suspect that their negotiating position will be enhanced.
We deserve better
Brutus
elpasospeak 
Out of town consultants, out of town contractors, out of town bond managers, out of town superintendent candidates (when we’re searching for a new one)……everything is out of town. We’re run by out of towners who have no connection, no loyalty, no history, no vested interest in El Paso. We have no trust, no confidence, no reliance and belief in our own people. Let’s bring back the board of managers and let outsiders run things since we like out of towners so much and we love giving them our money even more.
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And what is funny is that the Chambers of Commerce support them always 100%. Guess those people just like to keep some kind of jub. 😦
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And don’t forget the out of town advertising agency…the one that gave us the dummied up pictures of a school bus from the local wrecking yard. Or maybe that was a picture they purchased using taxpayer money. Probably of a bus from Honduras because they don’t need school buses anymore. All of their children are here, probably a lot of them at EPISD.
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The fox was guarding the hen house. This is just one more case of self-dealing by a vendor who had a blatant conflict of interest. They had a future financial interest in their own recommendations. The same firm that helped generate the big bond budget and rationalized all the closures and spending is now benefitting yet again by getting a big piece of the pie it helped bake.
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This is exactly why our best and brightest young people leave in droves, to seek a better life anywhere but El Paso, each and every year. They want a better university experience, so they choose to go to school a long, long way from home, and most never return, except to visit the old folks. Until and unless we stop this constant searching outside El Paso, for leadership, consultation, construction, development, and building, we will never achieve the dream of elected officials to truly revitalize downtown El Paso.
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They may also feel uncomfortable using El Pasoans since 80% are related, at least by cousins or marriage.
It’s like an Island.
People move away and don’t come back, so those that ARE in El Paso are interbreeding with cousins and friends.
If you think, or know, that we are all related to Kevin Bacon, by 7 steps, 7 people, and THAT is US WIDE, imagine how close, less than 7 people, in an isolated island like El Paso are connected.
In El Paso, probably 80% are related by 3-4 people.
So, they all owe each others favors as well as many don’t necessarily like each other, because they KNOW how they are.
Thru the backyard party grapevine. BUT, they have to PRETEND to like each other, since they are going to show up at a backyard party !
El Paso, . . . like a proverbial . . . . Island !
(It doesn’t help that everyone leaving or coming thru the Island, is subject to Unlawful Search and Seizure by the Border Patrol at checkpoints on all sides of town with machine guns and drug sniffing military dogs.)
Most other towns are not like this. Most other towns, and states, you can travel freely without military checkpoints.
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If they enforced the legal military checkpoints at the border, would we need the para legal ones around the island?
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“And the band played on”…well, I guess that ‘it’s for the children’ was OK before this thing was approved. Now that it is approved, it’s business as usual, huh? Anyone want to bet that next year we will see another multi million dollar bond ‘for the children’???
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I’m thinking that we should have had an “Out of town firm” come in and ACTUALLY count the votes. Maybe Texas Rangers, FBI?? Bonds for EPISD ALWAYS pass Isn’t that a bit too strange?. Talk to people in the voting lines, people around the town, friends, relatives and NOBODY was going to vote FOR this BILLION$$$ slush fund. Would be interesting to know how many actual HOMEOWNERS, the payers of all these outrageous taxes, INFLATED property values, voted FOR this slush fund. Corruption is inherent in politicians, these Public Officials at EPISD and all the “Out of Towner”, carpetbaggers changes nothing in El Taxo.
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