Not their kind of sports

December 7, 2016

Once again our city has found a way to run off a good thing.

The El Paso Border Youth Athletic Association (EPBYA) is an established non-profit organization that has been creating educational and developmental opportunities for children through athletics for a number of years.

They have been trying to negotiate with the city to locate some of their programs at Cohen stadium for years–back to the time of our former city manager.

The group is not asking for handouts.  They are willing to pay the bills.

The Cohen stadium plan included setting up a national youth world series baseball facility that would have brought talent from all over the country to play at Cohen stadium.

After years of trying to work with the city EPBYA has decided to move on.  They are now working with our county government to use improve Gallegos park in Canutillo.

Take a few moments to examine the association’s web page.  Their program called “The Base” is a 14,000 square foot indoor facility of batting cages and pitching tunnels right here in El Paso.  The facility does not cost the taxpayers a dime.

I guess the city thinks that they only have room for tax payer supported, for profit, sports.

We deserve better

Brutus

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

Drying up

November 25, 2016

There has been some talk on the blog lately about the invigorating effect the arena is expected to have on the downtown economy.

In Please don’t revitalize us any more! we compared the mixed beverage gross receipts taxes for March 2014 (around three months before the ball park opened) to the same taxes for June 2014 (one full month of the ball park operating).  The result was that tax receipts went up about 8%.  Unfortunately for the independent restaurant owners the ball park accounted for about 13.8% of the new total while the independent’s sales dropped by about 7%.

Two years later

Looking at the numbers for April 2016 we find that the mixed beverage gross receipts taxes for the 79901 area fell to $75,166.12 meaning that total sales (including the ball park) are now down about 25%.

Sobering.

We deserve better

Brutus

 

 

5 Comments | Ball park | Permalink
Posted by Brutus

Significant impact all right

September 20, 2016

This came in from Helen Marshall the other day:

3 Comments | Ball park, City government, El Paso Inc., El Paso Independent School District | Permalink
Posted by Brutus

Who to believe

June 7, 2016

We unfortunately have a situation down at city hall where our city manager can fire contracted senior staff and pay them hush money to silence them.

There is no appeal.  In many cases this means that the senior staff member will go along with anything that our city manager wants to tell city council and the public.

This was not the case with our deputy city manager who got fired for telling the truth to city council.  She courageously told the truth and was immediately fired.  They then kept her quiet with hush money.

Where that puts us is that it is hard to believe anything that these people say.  Their statements of fact may in fact be lies that the city manager wants to put forward.

I’m not saying that our current city manager has done this.

We do know that our former city manager did when she fired a deputy for telling the truth.

It seems that we have a system where our city manager can have subordinates make presentations to city council that are not true.  How can we believe anything that they say?

Shouldn’t there be some kind of an appeal process so that our senior executives can tell us the truth without fear of retaliation?

We deserve better

Brutus

1 Comment | Ball park, City government | Permalink
Posted by Brutus

Doing great

May 29, 2016

Checking up on how our former deputy city manager that was fired for telling the truth is doing as the city manager of Deltona Florida, I found this in the Monday, November 30, 2015 Daytona Beach News-Journal:

In her first six months as city manager, Jane Shang has brought progress to Deltona, which, in turn, brought praise from her bosses, the City Commission.

Shang has engaged Deltona in a beautification program, forwarded plans to construct a community center, arranged a community visioning session and begun evaluating her own staff. In an interview, Mayor John Masiarczyk said Shang is “doing great.”

And we allowed our former city manager to fire her for telling the truth.  I have to wonder how much more talent was run off.

We deserve better

Brutus

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

« Previous Entries
Next Entries »