elpasospeak

There has been quite a bit of talk about the ball park not fitting on the city hall site.  There has also been talk about the roads downtown not being able to handle the crowds that might be brought to the ball park after the new team miraculously becomes a winner instead of a loser.

Here comes the two step.

Step one:

• Tomorrow’s (December 11, 2012) City Council agenda introduces an ordinance  to change the classification of streets around the ball park.
• Durango is the street that runs in front of city hall (the west side) and around it (the north side).  It is currently classified as a “minor arterial”.  That is evidently inconvenient for their yet to be revealed plans.  They want to remove the classification.
• Santa Fe is the street that runs behind city hall (the east side — most of us think of that as the main entrance).  It is currently classified as a “major arterial”.  They want to classify that street as a “minor arterial”.

Will this be step two?

• Build the ball park on top of Durango 
• Build the ball park onto half of the width of Santa Fe

If there is going to be a traffic problem, removing those streets can only make it worse.

You can see the details here (there are some nice maps a few pages into the document).

Also on the agenda you can see the city considering a purchase of “wireless phone service, mobile broadband services, and related products” funded through the “Capital Equipment Lease Agreement” whatever that is.  Services are not considered “capital” items on any legitimate financial document that I am familiar with.  It is item 10 on the regular agenda.  Note that once again they are using a buy board instead of bidding.  I would think that for $845,048 we would have gotten some competitive rates.

Also on the agenda you can see the city proposing to spend $122,527 with an out of town vendor instead of $61,107 with an El Paso vendor.  The city did actually bid this item, then they used their rating system to justify spending twice as much.  You can see this here.

We deserve better.

On the City’s web site they tell us that relocating City Hall will cost about $33 million.  According to the site that includes acquiring different buildings and parking, Relocation Costs and Land Renovation (the cost to tear down the old city hall I presume).

You can see that here: http://home.elpasotexas.gov/relocation/

Today’s Times tells us that they are spending:

$11.8 million for 801 Texas Street

$13.7 million for the Luther Building (that is for renovation–Mr. Foster donated the building)

$11.5 million for the El Paso Times Building and parking lots

My adding machine totals those numbers to $37 million.  We still will need to pay for the Relocation Costs and Land Renovation.

It also appears that the emergency responder radio system is old and needs to be upgraded and expanded since we bought it way back in 2008.  The radio system is in City Hall and needs to be moved.  The purchase order for that item is $20,063,362.00.  Of course it was not bid out but was essentially sole sourced through a buy-board.  I seriously doubt that the 2008 system would be upgraded now if it did not need to be moved.

Those facts are here: www.elpasotexas.gov/muni_clerk/agenda/10-23-12/10231210B.pdf

The radio system will not show up in their capital figures since the City is leasing it over a 10 year period, but the cost of the lease will certainly show up in our taxes.

So now we are at $37 million plus $20 million and still have not paid relocation or tear down costs.

We are at $57 million and counting when they told us it would be $33 million.

This is not a complaint about the new ball park.  That to me is a separate issue and I am grateful  for what the Fosters and Hunts are doing.

It seems to me that the staff at the City is either lying or is not competent to figure out what this will cost.  Either way we deserve better.