We need a new plan

April 4, 2014

New and de-proved was about the airport using a 1% growth rate in car rentals compared to the 6.1% shortfall that the city is experiencing with hotel occupancy taxes this year.

The February numbers for the airport show a 6.2% decrease in passenger traffic from last year.  Freight is down 11.4%.

Last week the city revealed that they project city revenues to fall short of budget by 7.35 million dollars.  With hotel occupancy taxes down the city will eventually have to dip into the general fund to pay for the ball park.

Home foreclosures in February doubled over last year.  New home building permits are falling short of budget by 28.54%.

The Wright amendment is set to expire later this year.  We should see fewer airline flights from Southwest Airlines as they will then be able to bypass El Paso on their way to the west coast.

Contracting

We are not growing economically.  None of us know how long this will last or how bad the situation will get.

Isn’t it time that we get the city’s finances aligned with reality?

We deserve better

Brutus

 

9 Comments | Ball park, City government | Permalink
Posted by Brutus

Daytime baseball games during the week

March 27, 2014

The baseball team leasing 600 parking spaces at the county parking garage downtown might be workable for evening and weekend games.

Surprise!

The April 28 and 29 games are scheduled at 7:05 PM and 6:35 PM respectively.  Then we have a surprise.  The Wednesday, April 30, 2014 game is scheduled for 11:05 AM.

That’s in the morning.  They have another game scheduled Tuesday, May 13 at the same morning time.

At first I thought that they plan to play the morning games in order to accommodate the visiting team’s travel schedule.  Both games are the last game in a series.

The Wednesday, May 28 game is in the middle of a series and is scheduled to start at 11:05 AM.  The visiting team will remain in town and play against us the next day.

The remainder of the season doesn’t seem to have any daytime mid-week games scheduled.

Maybe someone can tell us what this is about.

Traffic mess

What will happen to downtown traffic when they play a mid-day game in the middle of the week?  What will happen with the parking situation?

We deserve better

Brutus

10 Comments | Ball park | Permalink
Posted by Brutus

Two sets of rules

March 26, 2014

The Gateway Hotel has been closed, evidently because of city code violations.  If the violations are real and public safety is endangered I guess it should be shut down.  Some wonder if this is a case of selective enforcement.

Code workarounds

Our new ball park is going to be open for the April 28 game we are told.  The construction contract the city signed requires the park to be completed by the end of August.

We have been told that the park will be “baseball ready” by April 28 and that there may have to be some “code workarounds”.

Look for extra costs for policemen and firemen to help manage the crowds and keep them out of trouble in the unfinished facility.

Certificate of occupancy

How will they get a certificate of occupancy for an unfinished construction project?  Look for the rules to be bent.  Evidently it will be judged fair to do it for the stadium but not for the residents of a hotel that needs to be brought up to code.

We deserve better

Brutus

12 Comments | Ball park, City government | Permalink
Posted by Brutus

More ball park parking issues

March 25, 2014

The news broke last week that our new baseball team is considering an agreement with the county to lease 600 of the 800 parking spaces in our county parking garage for use by the ball park’s game day employees.

Some reports indicated that the parking spaces were wanted for game days, while others led us to believe that they were wanted only after hours and on Saturday game days.

Bankruptcy

Granted that I know little about operating a ball park, I am hard pressed to believe that the team will employ 600 extra employees for each game.  With ball park capacity somewhere around 9,000 that would mean that they had one extra employee (beyond the full time employees) for every 15 spectators.

If that is the case then either the per spectator income will have to be very high or the ball team will not make a profit.

More likely to me is that the team may want 600 spaces so that they can resell them to spectators, presumably at a profit.

Citizen inconvenience

Leasing the county spaces to the team could lead to significant inconvenience to those that need to go to the county building.  If that happens I suspect the the public outcry will be significant.

County staff evidently called a meeting to discuss the situation.  The baseball team officials did not show up.

Draw your own conclusions as to why.  Are they not used to doing business in public, or are they having second thoughts about what might happen?

We deserve better

Brutus

 

19 Comments | Ball park, County Government | Permalink
Posted by Brutus

More revenue streams needed for the ball park

March 22, 2014

The March 25, 2014 city council agenda has 3 items on it relating to parking around our new ball park.

Last minute

True to prior form these items are being raised at the last minute.  That way city council does not have the time to consider other options.  The citizens will just have to watch city council do the bidding of city staff.

Item 8.2 on the regular agenda is a proposed ordinance that would “establish a process for the creation of Downtown Parking Districts” that would essentially allow a city representative to propose a new district or a geographic change to an existing district.  That seems logical to me, at least it will require the elected officials to vote on it.

The ordinance would also expand an existing district to include “an area in the vicinity of the El Paso Ballpark and  the Old San Francisco District”.

Parking Meters

City staff wants to install parking meters in the areas that ball park patrons would probably want to park in.  This, of course, is another revenue grab.  The proposed ordinance would provide for residents of the area to receive permits that would allow them to park in the metered spaces without paying the fee.  That’s nice.

Hidden cost

The item is submitted for the agenda with the required “Agenda Item Department Head’s Summary Form”.  The form is designed to convey essential information to city council including the amount and source of funding.

In this case the form indicates “N/A” in the section that would tell council members how much money will be spent.

I hope to publish a post tomorrow about the other two items.

We deserve better

Brutus

5 Comments | Ball park, City government | Permalink
Posted by Brutus

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