This slide from a Monday, May 15, 2017 presentation to city council tells us a lot about what some in the city think is important:
Note that street resurfacing is considered “critical”, right after new vehicles and equipment and repairs to city buildings.
We deserve better
Brutus
elpasospeak 
I was driving down I-10 this weekend and looking at how quickly the painted medians have deteriorated in to faded skid marked eyesores. How long before our local idiots are going to realize that their beautification efforts are simply adding cost and creating maintenance nightmares. No one notices the condition of an unpainted median–they blend in. But when you color a median, deterioration is very obvious. These medians are just a couple of years old. Move to our local streets and you see mandated landscaping blocking driver views at intersections. The city even takes call in about that. Why can’t they figure it out to begin with.
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Ummmm… it would help if you realized that I-10 is 100% TxDOT and very little to do with it is decided at any sort of local level. All those pretty medians and other beautification measures (aside from the egg beaters those are all ours) were decided at a statewide level and none of the “local idiots” had any sort of say in it. Your points are still valid, but you have to realize that it’s state level government that’s doing this stuff.
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But a lot of these “improvements” to I-10 and Mesa (also, a state highway) happened while an El Pasoan was the Texas Transportation Commissioner.
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Keep in mind that the vehicles are almost all for PD and FD. Chief Allen keeps saying wee need more cops and more equipment for them and the City keeps spending more and more money without really asking for any accountability from PD.
After that I guess you forgot about the buildings that have holes in their roofs due to a ridiculous level of deferred maintenance. It’s not good that they got to this point but the city does need to invest in fixing some roofs and other basic stuff along with fixing roads. This is all stuff that impacts us so I don’t get why you’re busting their chops for noting that they need to spend money on facility maintenance. That’s no different than wanting the City to fix the streets you think need it the most and that I might say “I don’t use those so why bother?” those two items are maintenance and in many cases both have been put off for a lot longer than they should have been and after all these years now we have to pay the piper.
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Notice that it reads ‘RESURFACING’ .Does that mean that all that is going to be done is to splash some liquid asphalt on top? I drive over potholes that have been there for some time and all that happens is that the potholes get wider and deeper.
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Perhaps the vehicles are the police cars, which are probably more important that your pothole.
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I don’t see this level of highway bling in other cities. I can’t help but believe our local crazies were lobbying for it because it started happening at the same time they started beautification efforts on local streets. Let’s face it, folks in Austin don’t wake up in the morning and say let’s spend tons of money on the road bling in El Paso because we’ve neglected them
for so long.
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The EPPD fleet of cars is awful. Say what you will, but most officers are driving P71 Crown Vics that are at least 10 years old and have well over 200,000 miles and 100,000 idle hours. This really is a disgrace. We’re a banana republic.
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