First things first

September 18, 2013

The recent rain and flooding has some of us thinking about the city’s priorities.

We must be patient

  • We have passed a bond election calling for the building of a new children’s museum costing up to $19.2 million.
  • The city has other things to do so the museum will not be built in the next three years.  No one has said that they plan to build it in the three years after that, or after that.  It is not even scheduled at this point.
  • Despite the fact that city council authorized the issuance of $218 million of certificates of obligation over a year ago to be spent on streets, our roads are still a mess and they have not told us what the plan is.
  • Our new city budget decreases spending for libraries, parks, museums, the zoo, public health, transportation, and environmental services while increasing funding for city planning, engineering, the city manager and a host of other “internal” departments.  See City budget
  • After creating a new tax in 2007 (the city calls it a fee — one that you must pay) to improve storm water handling and collecting many millions of dollars the city tells us that it will take time (unspecified) to solve our flooding problems.

On the other hand

  • The city has fast-tracked construction of a new ball park, one that none of us voted for.  Local contractors say that the spending is “wildly high” because of the need to finish the ball park on an emergency basis.  Work is going on in the residential neighborhood 24 hours a day, seven days a week.  The project cost is now well over $60 million.  They evaluated the bids and chose their contractor in only one day!
  • The city needed to sell bonds for the ball park but started construction without them.  That are in a hurry.  The plan is to build the stadium in less than one year.
  • The city tore down our old city hall and bought and remodeled buildings  in less than a year, once again actions that the public did not vote for.  The moves have cost us more than $70 million.  Much of this was done without bidding and giving 4% to Houston schools.
  • The city is closing one of the busiest streets in town for 18 months for reconstruction.  The project is scheduled to cost $12 million.

What’s important

Evidently the city thinks that the ball park and city hall relocation are more important than flooding, road repair, Country Club road, the children’s museum or a host of other projects.  They can move fast when they want to but not for the things that we think are important.

We deserve better

Brutus

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

Local could mean somewhere on the planet

September 14, 2013

The downtown ball park is going to create a lot of work for local contractors.  Right?

The city web site has a section dedicated to the construction of the park.  This sentence tells us a lot:  “For a complete list of bidders and those selected to work on components of the project, please click here.”

Well I did.  We have:

Grant Mackay–demolition–Utah

Berkel & Company–soil retention–Kansas

Night Eyes Protective Services–security–El Paso

Infrastructure Constructors–mass grading–could not find

Berkel & Company–augur cast–Kansas

D’Ambra Construction–augur cast–Rhode Island?

Concrete Specialties–concrete–looks like C. F. Jordan El Paso

W & W Steel LLC–steel–Oklahoma?

Coreslab Structural, Inc–precast–could not find

I certainly did not see any household names that we would recognize here in El Paso.

Maybe now that the big stuff has been doled out some of our El Paso companies will get some crumbs.

Rumor on the street is that the bids are coming in high because of the extremely short time-line and the cost of running crews 7 x 24.

We deserve better

Brutus

3 Comments | Ball park | Permalink
Posted by Brutus

Dark age

September 10, 2013

Where are we on the ballpark?

Has anyone seen the final designs?  Are the construction bids in yet?

What are we getting and how much will be be paying for it?

Isn’t council supposed to be getting regular status reports? The minutes of the May 28, 2013 show council passing a resolution that required council to be given bi-monthly (every other) updates.

Motion duly made by Representative Niland, seconded by Representative Byrd, that the Ordinance be ADOPTED, authorizing the debt only for the amount originally authorized with bi-monthly updates to the Mayor and Council until Ball Park completion plus real time expenditure report and project management status from Jordan/Hunt. Whereupon the Mayor ordered that a vote be taken on the passage and adoption of the Ordinance which when so done resulted as follows…

Are they getting the updates and just not showing us?

These are simple questions that we should not even have to ask.

We deserve better

Brutus

3 Comments | Ball park, Uncategorized | Permalink
Posted by Brutus

Top of the list

September 3, 2013

If paying high property taxes is your goal, El Paso is the place to be.

Getting Better

In For whom the bill tolls we saw that El Paso was the 6th most expensive city for property taxes on a $150,000 home among the largest 50 cities in the country for the year 2009.

We saw us getting closer to first place with a 2011 rating of 5th place.

These numbers come from the Minnesota Center for Fiscal Excellence.  The issues of state income tax, average home values, and commercial taxation were covered in For whom the bill tolls.

And better

The 2012 numbers are out.  El Paso now ranks as the 4th most expensive city  using that same ranking study.

If our goal is to get to the top of that list we are well on our way.  We’ve steadily gotten higher on the list, going from 6th place to 5th and then to 4th.

More to come

The 2012 numbers are before demolishing city hall, remodeling new buildings for city staff, building the ballpark, building new hospital clinics, and the quality of life bonds we passed last year.

Wait until next year

We are seeing the local governments come forward with public and hidden tax increases.  If the cities above us on the list don’t get to work and raise more taxes it looks like we can get to the number 3 spot for 2013.

This 2011 US News and World Report article puts the 2009 median household income for El Paso as next to last among US metropolitan areas of 500,000 people or more.

We deserve better

Brutus

2 Comments | Ball park, City government, County Government, El Paso Independent School District, State Government | Permalink
Posted by Brutus

Jail for the birds

August 28, 2013

Now the county has begun discussions about building a new jail facility to replace the one downtown.

According to newspaper reports the downtown jail costs about 26 dollars a day more to run per bed than the jail annex in far east El Paso.

Cost estimates for a new jail are not available yet.  Hopefully no one will ask the city chief financial officer.

If a new jail is built, what will happen to the old one?

Will they downsize it and open a few floors for other purposes?  There might be some advantages to creating cells for our local officials who end up getting sentenced to jail.  Maybe we could house them in the vacated sections so that they can serve their time while still holding office hours.

My guess is that the old jail will have to be torn down — after all it cannot possibly be made usable as anything other than a jail, we will be told.

Remember that after the public calms down about the ballpark and the wasteful move of city hall we will have to face the fact that city officials have told us that their plan is to move city functions to temporary facilities while plans are drawn up for a new municipal complex closer to the “government corridor”.

Yes, the plan is to tear down the old city hall first.  We all know that they have done that already.  Then they will refurbish a few old buildings downtown as temporary quarters for city functions.  They are doing that now.

After the dust has settled they plan to try to build yet another city hall closer to the county and feral  buildings downtown.  After all it is more efficient to have everyone in the same building.

What about the buildings that we are remodeling?  Those will be sold to developers who will then profit from our remodeling.  I wonder who in town has the money to buy those buildings?

Where oh where?

Don’t be surprised to find that the land under the current county jail turns out to be the site they propose for the new city complex.

We deserve better

Brutus

2 Comments | Ball park, City government, County Government, Federal Government, State Government | Permalink
Posted by Brutus

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