Astute comment

February 21, 2014

Reality Checker wrote a comment the other day that no one else commented on.  The original post was about how the city appears to be using almost $3 million from Texas state funding sources to build two pedestrian crossings for our new ball park.

The comment deserves to be promoted to a post so that more readers see it.  It is reprinted below:

You just opened Pandora’s box. I believe the pedestrian crossing was included in the original ballpark budget, which makes the city council’s actions of greater concern.

Here’s what the El Paso Times’ Cindy Ramirez wrote in a Q&A on July 15, 2012:

“A preliminary study by Turner Construction shows design and construction costs of about $39 million; $2 million for a pedestrian crossing; and $2 million to demolish the City Hall and Insights buildings. The $50 million allows some wiggle room in construction, though any surplus would be deposited into the debt service fund to help pay off the construction, used to provide additional parking or deposited into a capital repairs reserve fund for future maintenance.”

They are now using state taxpayer funds which were not originally intended to be a source of funds for this project. This is really pretty simple: the ballpark is more over budget than we even know and that city management, council, and the car salesman are once again engaged in a manipulative shell game to obscure the truth. They are also once again robbing Peter to pay Paul Foster.

The only “wiggle room” in this situation is the wiggle room that is allowing city management, city council, the mayor and the Mountainstar principals to continue to do these things without any personal consequences.

Ms. Ramirez stated on July 15, 2012, that the answers in her Q&A were provided by city officials and the Mountainstar principals. If she were not so busy these days serving as the de facto public relations person for downtown redevelopment, perhaps she could have done some reporting on the disconnect between the July 2012 statement and the actions taken in the February 10 council meeting. Then again, maybe she and the Times chose to ignore the discrepancy and deception.

We deserve better

Brutus

Reply

1 Comment | Ball park, City government, El Paso Times, State Government | Permalink
Posted by Brutus

Congestion Mitigation

February 18, 2014

Not being an engineer, to me congestion mitigation is the same as coughing.

I guess they want us to cough up more money.

Item 3.4 on the February 10, 2014 city council agenda increases the cost of the ball park.

The September 25, 2013 El Paso Times editorial had this statement in it:

“Mayor Oscar Leeser made it clear the city will not add another cent to the now-$64 million project. He and City Council deserve credit for being firm on that.”

Crossings

The agenda item considers the construction of two pedestrian crossings over the depressed train way into the new ball park.  The project amount is set at $2,875,410.

This money clearly is part of the ball park cost and adds almost $3 million to the total.

Under “AMOUNT AND SOURCE OF FUNDING:”  our city engineer entered “NONE”.

Not so

The project requires an agreement between the city and the state titled “LOCAL TRANSPORTATION PROJECT ADVANCE FUNDING AGREEMENT For A Congestion Mitigation & Air Quality Improvement (2014 CMAQ STP-Flex) Off-System Project”.

The second page of the backup material is a proposed resolution that states “for a total project amount of $2,857,410 with a local contribution by the City of $239,976”.

That works out to 23,997,600 more cents when the mayor and council evidently said not a cent more.

And climbing

One document says no local money will be spent.  One page later a document says that $239,976 will be spent.  Then attachment C of the same document says that the “Local Participation” will be $545,400.

You can read the whole mess here.

Not one cent more

The vast majority of the project will be paid for with state and federal funds.

It seems obvious that someone was not telling the mayor and council the truth when they said no more money would be needed.  Otherwise I doubt that they would have said “not one cent more”.

Will council ever hold anyone accountable?

We deserve better

Brutus

4 Comments | Ball park, City government, El Paso Times, Federal Government, State Government | Permalink
Posted by Brutus

Something’s up

February 17, 2014

The February 18, 2014 city council agenda has an item on it that raises an eyebrow for me.

Discussion and action to direct City Manager to create a fun zone in the entertainment district on game days.

OK, maybe I should be optimistic about this but I’m not.  I looked for backup material, but other than an image none is posted with the agenda.

I wonder who will get the financial benefit from this and how much it will cost the citizens?

We deserve better

Brutus

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

More shortfalls

February 9, 2014

KFOX TV ran this segment about local hotel occupancy the other day.

“I can tell you that hotel revenue in this city is down 3.1 percent from last year,” said Rick LaFleur, president of the El Paso Hotel Motel Association.

The city budgeted a 3% increase for this year.  That comes to a 6.1% shortfall.

Ball park funding

The hotel occupancy tax has been designated as the primary funding source for our new ball park.

The segment showed our city manager deliver this line:  “”All of our revenues are meeting our projections so I don’t know what they’re talking about”.  As though we should believe any financial numbers coming out of her office.

Not to worry

The city manager explained “Well, we have multiple sources of revenue that are going to pay for it. So it’s rent, it’s parking revenues, it’s sales tax”.

If they take money from sales tax revenues (which are not meeting the city’s budget either) then you can expect a property tax increase again next year.

We deserve better

Brutus

8 Comments | Ball park, City government, State Government | Permalink
Posted by Brutus

Seventh inning stretch

January 29, 2014

I don’t know where to start.

I guess the old seventh inning stretch common in baseball is taking on a new role in our ball park construction.  It seems to me that someone is stretching the truth.

El Paso Inc. published an article Sunday, January 26, 2014 telling us that the city’s project manager for the ball park is taking a new job with the city’s water utility.

What’s wrong here

As of Tuesday the Times is silent about this.  Dead silent.  How did the much smaller weekly scoop our daily newspaper?  Can this lack of coverage be deliberate?

As the article points out, two weeks ago the project manager was happy to be working out in the field again.

The city says that a finance man will postpone his city retirement for 60 days to manage the completion of the project.  One of the problems with this is that the contract the city signed says that the ball park will not be complete until the end of August.  There has been talk of playing games during the season if the city will grant certain occupancy variances temporarily.

Who will our finance man consult with when dealing with the construction people?  What does he know about construction other than where to sign the check?   Who will be watching the chicken coop?

The city manager was quoted as saying the project was in it’s last quartile.  The article says the project is 70% complete.  The last quarter starts at 75%.  Then again accurate numbers have never been a part of this project.

Where is city council on this?  The water utility is a city department.  Why not tell the project manager that his new job will start when he finishes the ball park?  Do they want him to go?

Why?

Why would the project manager leave an important project like this and leave us in the lurch?

Could it be:

The project manager was in the way?  Was he insisting that corners not be cut?  Will this give the ball team owners more control over how the park is built like they have publicly have asked for?

Is the ship sinking?

The project manager wanted to get out from under the “sharp elbows” of the city manager?

The project manager giving too many interviews and the city wanted him to shut up?

What looked to me like a case study in how not to build a project seems now to be getting even worse.

We deserve better

Brutus

1 Comment | Ball park, City government, El Paso Inc., El Paso Times | Permalink
Posted by Brutus

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