District attorney takes action

January 23, 2017

Well it seems that our local district attorney has stepped up to the plate.

It would appear that some members of city council may have violated the Texas Open Meetings Act.

A violation could be punished by a fine of between $100 and $500, or confinement in the county jail for not less than one month or more than six months, or both the fine and the confinement.

If a citizen wants to report a crime here in El Paso they would normally report it to either the police department or the sheriff’s office.  The law enforcement agency would then take it to the district attorney if they feel prosecution is warranted.  The district attorney would then accept or decline the case.

The chief of police works for the city manager.  The city manager works for city council.  If either the city manager or police chief were to file charges a difficult political situation would exist between them and their bosses on city council.

We can’t see an excuse for the sheriff’s lack of action.

The district attorney has asked our Texas Rangers to investigate the actions of some of our city council members.  This is probably a smart way to handle the situation.

Look for this to become a big issue.

We deserve better

Brutus

5 Comments | City government, State Government | Permalink
Posted by Brutus

Unopposed county commissioners

January 17, 2017

Two of our county commissioners were sworn in for their second terms January 1, 2017.

They were both unopposed.

Choice

Whether you like their past performance or not, wouldn’t we be better off if there was real competition for political offices in El Paso?

An article in the Times wrote this about one of them:

He said there are a lot of challenges in the coming years, including reducing the cost of jail operations, and reversing the tax burden from residential to commercial properties.  He said he expects the county to work toward attracting new businesses to the area to improve the commercial tax base.

Wow!

We have the third highest tax rates among the top 50 cities in the United States and are headed for second place.

Does that make us attractive to businesses?

We deserve better

Brutus

6 Comments | City government, County Government, El Paso Independent School District, El Paso Times | Permalink
Posted by Brutus

Can’t this be fixed?

January 16, 2017

*****edit*****

We were looking at the wrong property.  The post was not correct so we are taking it down.

Our apologies.

Brutus

 

 

5 Comments | City government, El Paso Independent School District | Permalink
Posted by Brutus

Half used

January 15, 2017

The operators of our ball park will certainly have something to say if the city moves forward with plans to tear down our convention center and build a new arena right next door to the ball park.

That is unless the folks from the ball park end up running the arena too.

From what we can see hosting events at both facilities at the same time will be an absolute nightmare.

Does this mean that the arena will sit empty whenever the ball park is hosting an event?

We deserve better

Brutus

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

Sun Metro continues to sink

January 14, 2017

How much longer should the situation over at Sun Metro be allowed to continue?

At the November 15, 2016 board meeting the results for the 2016 fiscal year were presented.

They missed all but one goal on the slide.

Ridership was down 8%

Cost per trip was up 10%

Collisions were up 17%

Workers compensation cases were up  33%

sunmetro2016eoy

The column on the far right is meaningless.

Isn’t it time that the board (city council) takes corrective action?

We deserve better

Brutus

10 Comments | City government | Permalink
Posted by Brutus

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