Fired for telling the truth

May 22, 2016

The Daytona Beach News-Journal printed confirmation of what we saw happening to one of our former deputy city managers but were never able to prove.

From their Saturday, April 25, 2015 edition:

Shang explained she had gotten into a clash with her boss, the city manager, when she answered a City Council question about the cost of a ballpark.

“I was asked a question during a council meeting. I answered honestly, and it contradicted her and it embarrassed her,” Shang said.

She was placed on administrative leave, given a severance package and ultimately the manager left and Shang’s position was eliminated.

Shame on our former city manager and city council.

We deserve better

Brutus

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

Unbelievable

May 20, 2016

EPISD just lost some votes for their upcoming $400 million bond election.

The former chief financial officer of the City of El Paso has just joined EPISD as deputy superintendent of finance and operations.

Our new deputy superintendent was intricately involved in providing the financial analyses for the ball park and the demolition and moving of city hall.  The projects have been completed and her numbers were grossly wrong.

Now EPISD has put her in a position to mishandle bond funds if the district can convince the voters to approve them.

There is also an ethics problem here in my opinion.  She was on the state-appointed board of managers of the district up until May of last year.  Now she is becoming an employee.  Did she make decisions while on the board that facilitated her hiring?  I don’t know but many people have different standards than her and believe that she should avoid even the appearance of impropriety.

From the Texas Education Code:

Sec. A11.063.AA  ELIGIBILITY FOR EMPLOYMENT. A trustee of an independent school district may not accept employment with that school district until the first anniversary of the date the trustee ’s membership on the board ends.

The state-appointed board of managers stepped down May 18, 2015.  She started at the district May 18, 2016 according to the Times.  Couldn’t she have waited one more day?

This does not bode well for the bond project.

We deserve better

Brutus

17 Comments | Ball park, City government, El Paso Independent School District, El Paso Times | Permalink
Posted by Brutus

Still paying

May 14, 2016

Do you remember that ball park that we won’t have to pay for?

This slide is part of the April 11, 2016 presentation made to the Downtown Development Corporation (city council in sheep’s clothing):

ballparkapril112016financing

Its only $782 thousand or $484 thousand or whatever it really turns out to be.

The numbers don’t include our other costs like public safety and the fact that we pay half of the water bill at for the ball park.  Nor are the costs of moving city hall even considered.

Does it bother you that our former city chief financial officer is now on the board of our county hospital or that our former city manager is in charge of the organization that helps our unemployed?

We deserve better

Brutus

 

 

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

Pay to play

April 18, 2016

I wrote this post the other day and had it scheduled for publishing:

*****************************

The Times ran a front page article the other day telling us about the home season opener at the ball park.

I suppose that promoting the team is a good idea.

I wonder though why I don’t recall seeing a front page article promoting the Miner’s new season.

On second thought I don’t need to wonder why.

We deserve better

Brutus

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Then the day after the original article the Times took more than half of their front page to tell us about the arrival habits of the fans.

They also ran an editorial that was an advertisement for the new food items available at the ball park.

We deserve better

Brutus

4 Comments | Ball park, El Paso Times | Permalink
Posted by Brutus

I bought it on sale, so I saved money

April 15, 2016

The city is planning to issue $20 million of revenue refunding bonds relating to the ball park.

Step one was to meet as the Downtown Development Corporation:

downtowndevelopmentapril112016

Five minutes later they planned to meet as city council:

citycouncilapril112016

Then they considered:

citycouncilapril112016item8

You and I would probably think that they did this to save us some money because of lower interest rates.

Unfortunately, according to the resolution the refinancing will end up costing us money.  From the resolution:

…notwithstanding the fact that the aggregate amount of payments to be made under the Series 2016 Bonds will exceed the aggregate amount of payments that would have been made under the terms of the Series 2013 Tax Exempt Bonds which are being refunded; the maximum amount of such excess shall not exceed the amount specified in Section 5 hereof;

And then from section 5:

(c) the aggregate amount of payments to be made on the Series 2016 Bonds shall not
exceed the aggregate amount of payments that would have been made on the refunded Series 2013 Tax
Exempt Bonds had the refunding not occurred by more than $13,285,000, net of any issuer contribution;

You can read the resolution here.  Don’t be surprised if the city takes this link down once people start looking at it.

The mayor, the city manager, and the city’s chief financial officer are each individually empowered to sell the bonds.

We deserve better

Brutus

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

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