We had a lively day on the blog yesterday.
Today is Saturday so the readers get to pick the topics.
We deserve better
Brutus
elpasospeak
City of El Paso debt=$2,670,400,000, county and school district debt=$1,600,000,000. Total $4.27 billion. Your share $19,350
elpasospeak 
Robert Francis O’Rourke has stated publicly, many times now, that the United States of America was founded on the ideals of white supremacy. However, he has not withdrawn himself from the presidential campaign and offered to endorse any of the candidates “of color”.
How can a white person run on a platform of inherent racism by his own race? If he really believes what he himself is saying how is he not obligated to withdraw from the race?
Essentially, his platform is that “America has been racist from the beginning because of white people, and if you elect me (Robert Francis O’Rourke, a white person of Irish descent) I will fix the problem. I will also consider making a female my vice-president, which is not a sexist proposal in any way because a woman deserves to be my helper.”
Anyone who isn’t white and privileged feel free to offer counter-argument. Anyone who is white should remain silent and stop promoting the concept of white supremacy. But you can, if you wish, appropriate the culture of another race to speak as if you were from that race.
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“I know this from my home state, Texas, places that formed the Confederacy, that this country was founded on white supremacy,” he said, according to the Tennessean. “And every single institution and structure that we have in this country still reflects the legacy of slavery and segregation and Jim Crow and suppression, even in our democracy.”
Robert Francis O’Rourke
Left out of his statement were the facts that Democrats were slaveowners and that segregation and so-called Jim Crow laws were products of Democrat legislation. For the record, Robert Francis O’Rourke is a Democrat, former legislator and a white person.
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The Dems have never forgiven the GOP for freeing their slaves from their plantations. Now the Dems are building a new plantation system called socialism.
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Uh, we have ah selves some local folks who also have a plantation mentality and theyz not yello dahg democrats. Theyz big fat cat publicans. Us little ‘ol taxpayers ah like their sharecroppers and thoz plantation owners take our tax dollars to subsdize their bidnesses.
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l find it very asinine to the point of nuttiness, to even remotely compare a plantation lifestyle to what life is like in 2019 El Paso. l don’t believe this is a partisan issue, but your making this so tempting, that l’ll even play this game using your rules: lt’s the local politicians (D) that approved all of this out of control spending. They received the blessing from the public (D). Even before the 2012 bond fiasco, the spending (D) supported by (D) was already getting out of control. ln fact, lf memory serves me correctly, wasn’t it the (R) in Austin, not that long ago, that made an effort to try and slow down the amount of taxes that our local politicians (D) could collect from us?
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So, what are the solutions? I am a long time, faithful reader of elpasospeak. I hear the problems. I don’t hear the solutions. That we are overtaxed is an understatement. Once again the city wants to raise taxes. I want to hear what people think can be cut in city government expenses and how the debts should be managed.
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Great point. I think that instead of having a new billion dollar bond issue, Nov’s ballot should let El Pasoans vote on whether they want the remaining Q of L bond projects to be built or if they prefer that money be redirected to the police, fire and road projects that we now need to pay for. If we build out the remaining q of L projects we literally do not have enough tax revenue coming in to pay for their operating costs. Taking out another billion in debt won’t change that—debt service cost will reduce the budget available to pay operating costs further. The state has mercifully lowered the cap on how much our corrupt politicians can raise taxes without a vote on the increase so this is their Hail Mary solution. The freeway construction will make downtown a place to avoid for at least the next 4-5 years. The tourism strategy will not work. A few years ago someone downtown told the merchants inconvenienced by the trolley construction they needed to cut expenses and accept that construction would hurt their businesses for a year or so. The city needs to accept the same reality with this freeway project.
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And attribute that last comment to ticked off taxpayer
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Good ideas. We need common sense to survive. More debt is not practical.
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So, you would have us to continue voting again on a proposition until we achieve the results YOU wanted? Uhm, I think I see the problem…
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Given that voters were lied to on the Q of L in three ways, yes I would have us vote on this. The Paso del Norte Group’s education campaign promised three big things: this would give us nice stuff that would keep taxes from going up, it would attract new businesses and it would include money to do street repairs. In fact, the street repair was touted highly because people were complaining back then. Now that we are seeing that it did none of those things and in fact is generating more cost than our incoming tax revenue can cover, yes it is appropriate to vote on it. And if anyone believes that road would actually be fixed as a result of the new billion dollar bond issue, I’ve got a bridge I can sell you.
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I’ve seen lots of suggestions, but apparently they are not being considered. Among them have been the suggestion that the remaining QoL issues be scrapped, that the City just stop the entire waste that is the push for an arena that nobody wants, to simply stop the spending frenzy, to stop the incentives that are offered to every new ‘business’ or building, and to dump the City Manager and all the costly deadwood that goes with that office. You ask for solutions? Fine, you offer us some!
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Here is an article about 2 El Paso Superintendents that got into a fight in San Antonio last month. I thought it was funny that it happened at 12:30 PM and the report said one of them was drunk or had been drinking heavily.
I checked the agenda of the Leadership conference they were attending and no drinking was scheduled the 13th. We know that the Socorro Super was one of them but the San Antonio Police department has redacted all mention of the other superintendent.
Whichever one it was they deserve to be fired. I cannot understand how they could have a guy handcuffed and turn him loose with no other police action. I guess if you are a Superintendent you are treated differently.
The public deserves to know who the other Superintendent was!
EL PASO, Texas (KTSM) – KTSM 9 News first broke the story online last month about reports that the head of the Socorro Independent School District was assaulted outside a San Antonio Whataburger.
KTSM 9 News checked in with other school districts to see if their superintendents attended the conference and if they were the victim of an assault.
We also asked if any of them was a witness to or party to the assault on Jose Espinoza. A San Antonio police report shows the incident happened at about 12:55 a.m. on June 13.
The El Paso, Clint, Canutillo and San Elizario school districts told KTSM 9 News their superintendents were at the same conference as Espinoza, but were not assaulted or present when Espinoza was head-butted.
The police report shows the suspect was an individual who was detained but released by police since Espinoza elected not to press charges.
In response to the same questions to YISD, the district said Superintendent Xavier De La Torre was at the conference. But when asked of any involvement in an assault, KTSM was told the district could not comment on “personal matters.”
Background
The police report obtained by KTSM 9 News two weeks ago shows SISD Superintendent Jose Espinoza was in San Antonio for the Summer Leadership Institute Conference.
The report also shows the unnamed suspect told Espinoza, “Where are you coming from? Soccer practice?” in reference to what the SISD superintendent was wearing.
When Espinoza asked his alleged attacker to repeat the question, the other man “repeated the same question and head-butted” Espinoza in the face.
Espinoza punched the man in the face as a means of self-defense, the report shows, knocking the suspect to the ground.
Both Espinoza and the suspect were detained by an off-duty police officer for fighting. According to the police report, the officer and a witness saw the suspect head-butt Espinoza, who responded with a punch.
Espinoza, who is listed as the victim in the report, was given a case number and left the location.
An SISD spokesperson told KTSM 9 News that Espinoza was not injured in the assault and chose not to press charges. He also added the superintendent does not plan to press any charges in the future.
The suspect “appeared to be intoxicated due to the odor of intoxicants emitting from his person, slurred speech, and red bloodshot eyes,” according to the report.
The handcuffs were removed and the suspect was released to the custody of a third-party, listed as other, and they walked back to their hotel.
The names of the suspect, the witness and the “other” person were redacted in the police report obtained by KTSM 9 News.
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Dan, you got your times messed up. The article said the incident happened at 12:55 a.m. (shortly after midnight, before the events sceduled for the 13th) and tou mentioned 12:30 pm (shortly after noon).
Other than those ‘minor’ details, you are correct. We deserve to know who the other individual was, since they outed one of the participants.
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We hire only the best.
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This is a good example of why people should use
fake names. I read all the articles about this incident and came up with the incorrect time. I won’t even look for the one that gave my time because I posted a different article and should have read it.
Sorry!
However, I still think he should have been fired or at least sanctioned by his board of trustees.
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Honestly, Dan. I’m amazed at how many of our local leaders get involved in “police get called incidents” either at a restaurant (Leeser) or after midnight in fast food parking lots (think that was a one of our self serving county commissioners). I’ve managed to live 61 years without having police called on my behavior (perhaps it is because I don’t hang out in fast food parking lots after midnight). Honestly, given the salaries we pay superintendents this behavior should be scrutinized and punished. It is inconsistent with the behavior expected of private sector executives (several drunk and disorderlies have been fired after viral videos and consumer backlash over the last few years).
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I didn’t know Whataburgers in San Antonio served booze.
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