January | 2017 | elpasospeak

City attorney throws a balk

January 26, 2017

Our city attorney has rejected two ethics complaints related to the serial council meetings that appear to have been held in violation of state law.

Our city ethics ordinance requires the city attorney to take one of four actions within twenty days after a complaint is filed:

Refer the matter to the ethics review commission if the complaint meets the necessary requirements.
In the event of deficiencies the city attorney “may” notify the complainant and request correction.
Dismiss the complaint if the matter would not violate the ethics ordinance.
“Refer complaints that cannot be readily assigned to the ethics review commission because of deficiencies, complaints that lack specificity in identifying the alleged violations of this chapter, and complaints that appear to have been frivolously filed to a panel of the commission.”

According to a recent Times article the city attorney wrote two letters that say the complainant “failed to identify a specific section of the ethics ordinance you believe has been violated.”

See number four above.

She also did not act within twenty days as the ordinance requires.

New complaints can be submitted that would make the city attorney’s action moot.

Choice

Here the city attorney could have chosen to do the right thing and follow the actions required in number four above. Instead she has chosen to setup a road block. She does after all work for council.

It would appear that she chose to try to protect her bosses instead of obeying the law.

We deserve better

Brutus

10 Comments | City government, State Government | Permalink
Posted by Brutus

Ethics vs. city attorney

January 25, 2017

Our city attorney continues to try to stretch the rules.

Our ethics ordinance requires the city attorney to refer ethics complaints to the ethics review commission (if the complaint is properly filed and the city attorney does not find grounds to dismiss the complaint) within 20 days.

That has not happened in the recent cases relating to city council members.

The chairman of the ethics review commission pointed this out to an assistant city attorney the other day in a public meeting and was told that the city “was counting based on business days”.

The chairman, who is a lawyer, said that the ordinance did not specify “business” days and thus the term did not apply.

Ethics

Why is it that so many of our government employees now play fast and loose with our laws?

Aren’t they supposed to be representing our interests?

Shouldn’t our city attorney be our foremost advocate for doing things legally?

We deserve better

Brutus

6 Comments | City government | Permalink
Posted by Brutus

Rubber stamp? or stamped out?

January 24, 2017

The EPISD board promised us that there would be a citizen based bond advisory board to oversee the spending of the bond funds.

The district board recently approved the bond advisory board’s charter. You can download it here : episdbondadvisoryboard39936866

Neutered before they began

The group has been named the Citizens’ Bond Advisory Committee (CBAC).

The superintendent is evidently too busy to deal with the CBAC so he has delegated the “Deputy of Finance and Operations (DFO)” to deal with the group.

From the charter:

The Trustees retain sole authority to disband the CBAC.

…the Chair shall consult with the DFO to establish a meeting schedule for the CBAC

The Chair shall consult with the DFO to establish agendas for each CBAC meeting.

Coordinate with the DFO to visit District facilities and grounds …

The DFO, through the Superintendent’s Board of Trustees Weekly Update process, shall provide periodic status reports on the CBAC’s work.

Any reports prepared by the CBAC shall be provided to the Superintendent.

So the CBAC will meet when the DFO says so, shall consider items that the DFO approves, get the DFO’s permission to visit projects, report to the school board through the DFO, and run reports through the Superintendent.

Who is this DFO?

None other than our former city chief financial officer.

We deserve better

Brutus

4 Comments | City government, El Paso Independent School District | Permalink
Posted by Brutus

District attorney takes action

January 23, 2017

Well it seems that our local district attorney has stepped up to the plate.

It would appear that some members of city council may have violated the Texas Open Meetings Act.

A violation could be punished by a fine of between $100 and $500, or confinement in the county jail for not less than one month or more than six months, or both the fine and the confinement.

If a citizen wants to report a crime here in El Paso they would normally report it to either the police department or the sheriff’s office. The law enforcement agency would then take it to the district attorney if they feel prosecution is warranted. The district attorney would then accept or decline the case.

The chief of police works for the city manager. The city manager works for city council. If either the city manager or police chief were to file charges a difficult political situation would exist between them and their bosses on city council.

We can’t see an excuse for the sheriff’s lack of action.

The district attorney has asked our Texas Rangers to investigate the actions of some of our city council members. This is probably a smart way to handle the situation.

Look for this to become a big issue.

We deserve better

Brutus

5 Comments | City government, State Government | Permalink
Posted by Brutus

Jud Burgess

January 22, 2017

Another voice has joined the blogosphere here in El Paso.

Jud Burgess can be followed at https://www.facebook.com/JamesNoEPISDBond

Mr. Burgess filed an ethics complaint against members of city council because of their recent serial meeting.

Brutus

6 Comments | Uncategorized | Permalink
Posted by Brutus

elpasospeak