Let’s make a deal

June 11, 2016

I spoke with someone the other day who related an experience he had with the city trying to get permits to build a new building.

In short he expected to get final permits in December of 2015 according to his team (architect, builder, engineers).  He finally got the permits this May.

When he went to get the permits down at the city he was told that the fee would be a number that he considered to be outrageous.

He argued his points and ultimately the city settled for a permit fee that was one third of what they had demanded originally.

We deserve better

Brutus

3 Comments | City government | Permalink
Posted by Brutus

The collective we

June 10, 2016

One of our eager participants took it upon himself to send this note to the city’s purchasing director and attorney:

We would be happy to print a clarification if one is justified.
May we have your comments?
https://elpasospeak.com/2016/06/09/city-staff-lies-to-city-council-again/
Brutus
Let’s see what happens.
Brutus

1 Comment | City government | Permalink
Posted by Brutus

City staff lies to city council again

June 9, 2016

Our fire chief and purchasing director came before city council Tuesday May 31, 2016 with item 4.3 on the consent agenda.

You’d have to be pretty quick to catch this one.  Thankfully one of our loyal participants gave us a tip and documents to backup his claim.

The item’s backup material asked permission to extend a contract by exercising the city’s option to extend the contract “pursuant to the initial award on December 4, 2010”.  The extension was to be for no more than four months and would allow the city to finish the bid solicitation process for a new contract.

The item passed without discussion.

Liars

The lie here is that the city had a remaining option to extend the contract.

The original contract was awarded for three years on December 14, 2010.  On September 24, 2013 and September 30, 2014 council approved one year extensions that they were entitled to.

That would bring us up to December 13, 2016.

What has been going on from December 14, 2015 to May 31, 2016?

Well, in an October 29, 2015 letter from the purchasing department the city exercised a six month extension.  From the letter:  “The City of El Paso is exercising the following clause of the Bid Contract:  Under Section F, Item 1, Type and Term of Contract, 2nd paragraph states, “In the event the City has not obtained another service contractor by the expiration date of the term contract, the City, at its discretion, may extend the contract on a month-to-month basis not to exceed six (6) months until such time as a new contract is awarded.”

The city awarded a three year contract, then awarded two one year extensions, and then because it did not have its act together it took a final six month extension that it was legally entitled to.

That extension will expire June 13, 2016.

The city is not entitled to any more extensions and the item must be rebid according to state law.

No mention of the October 29, 2015 final extension was made to council.  I cannot find a record of the final legal six month extension coming before council.

They were lied to!

You can probably convince me that the fire chief did not know that the law was being violated although an open records request might be a real problem for him.

The purchasing director has no excuse.  Will anyone hold him accountable?

We deserve better

Brutus

5 Comments | City government, State Government | 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

Pretty simple to do a good job

June 6, 2016

Evidently many of our local board members do not share our thoughts about what their  jobs are and are not,  so let’s talk about it.

The number one job of your board is to see to it that your entity provides the public with cost effective services according to your charter.

You do that through deciding policy and then managing your director/executive/administrator/manager .  Lets call this person your director.  Your director works for you.  You do not work for your director.  Your should see to it that your director executes the board’s policies morally, legally, and efficiently.

You are not there to be a rubber stamp for your director.  Not all ideas are good ideas.  You should question each and every action that comes before you as a board.  Unfortunately we see many cases in El Paso where agency staff flat out lies to their board.  Read your agendas.  Ask questions.  Reach out to people who know about the issue that are not involved with the agency.

Stop the favoritism.  If you were once a board member do not later take a job with the agency.  Do not hire your director and then let your director hire you.

Do not take money from your agency.  If they need something and you can give them an advantageous deal, give it to them for free.  If it looks bad you should avoid it.

If you must travel for your entity, pay for it yourself.  If you cannot afford it, don’t go.  Junkets look bad.

Don’t take a board position to advance your resume.  Be active, work for us!

Stay tuned in the coming days as we write about some examples of poor behavior on the part of boards and their directors/staffs.

We deserve better

Brutus

3 Comments | City government, County Government, Federal Government, Open Government, Purchasing, State Government | Permalink
Posted by Brutus

« Previous Entries
Next Entries »