Needless delays

May 13, 2016

Our local traffic has become severely congested for reasons that could be avoided.

Many of us see that several construction projects have been launched simultaneously and have impeded traffic flows.

In addition we are seeing examples of traffic lanes on significant arteries being blocked off with absolutely no construction activity occurring.

How long will this go on without someone, somewhere stepping in and managing the situation to our benefit?

We deserve better

Brutus

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

Awkward Times

May 11, 2016

Our congratulations to Jim Tolbert, the newly elected city representative.

The Times again showed how their views differ from those of the public.

Landslide

In a race with 8 candidates Mr. Tolbert took 59 percent of the votes.

The candidate that the Times endorsed received 15 percent.

Relevance

Some are asking if the Times is relevant in our community.  They seem to be–the voters look at who the Times endorses and go the other way.

The Times, I ween, is on the wrong side of many issues.

We deserve better

Brutus

 

6 Comments | City government, El Paso Times | Permalink
Posted by Brutus

Board Transparency

May 6, 2016

I would like to thank the people over at EPISD for the quality of the board information on their web site.

The items almost always include backup material and the videos of the board meetings are conveniently indexed to the agenda items so that one can watch the video for only those items of interest.

El Paso Community College and the County of El Paso lag far behind.

I have not been able to find either videos or backup materials for YISD board meetings.

Socorro posts their video on YouTube but does not provide backup material.

The county hospital does not grace us with details about it’s agenda items but does provide a video of their board meetings.

The city still has agenda items with no backup material often times, depending on how important the person who put the item on the agenda thinks he or she is.

We deserve better

Brutus

Leave a Comment » | City government, El Paso Independent School District | Permalink
Posted by Brutus

Mountain Shadow

April 27, 2016

This came in from Helen Marshall:

Take a drive to Mesa and Shadow Mountain, where the new 22-storey building with “ 228 luxury apartments and 219 luxury hotel rooms” will be built, with 715 parking spaces.  The City Plan Commission (or rather, the City “Plan” Commission) approved it unanimously despite recommendations from the city plan department itself to reduce the height.

City Council must now approve the rezoning.  Let’s guess what will happen.  An article in El Paso Inc (http://www.elpasoinc.com/news/local_news/article_facf2acc-0b05-11e6-94b3-63ffc7cf05c4.html) describes developer Stuart Meyers’ connections in El Paso – one of his wife’s sisters is Dori Fenenbock, the EPISD president and another sister is wife of prominent local lawyer Mchael Gopin. His mother-in-law was the wife of bootmaker Tony Lama.  Meyers is a long-time friend of Jerry Rubin, Meyer Marcus (chair of Mimco) and Mayor Oscar Leeser.  Hmmm…Only those who live within 300 feet of the new building, which is a handful of people on the other side of Shadow Mountain, were notified of the plans in advance and given the opportunity to raise questions, resulting in very few questions.
Leaving aside the puzzling question of what the demand for luxury housing and luxury hotel rooms at Mesa and Shadow Mountain might be (anyone?) let’s consider the implications of those 715 parking spaces. Presentations about this structure have said it will have no impact on traffic, as it is near the “rapid transit” on Mesa!  For example, the project is in District 8, whose egregious city representative, Cortney Niland, is quoted as saying that “By placing the bus rapid transit on Mesa, we really hoped to encourage new retail, new housing and new development….we’ve seen it’s working.”
 What is the traffic load on Mesa?  Can anyone produce a recent traffic survey???  What will the traffic be like when the Drafthouse opens, and more houses above it, and the Aldea development is built? Given the terrain and the existing buidlings/malls/etc along Mesa, it cannot be expanded.  Meantime a search of Sun Metro bus schedules stilll shows nothing leaving downtown for the westside after 8:15 pm; the Brio system stops at 6 p.m on Saturday and does not run on Sunday.   Can someone explain how the hundreds of occupants of this building will get around town?  Will they take the bus to get their groceries at Whole Foods, and/or walk across the street to shop at Goodwill? Anyone want to bet they won’t be using their cars?
While it is nice to contemplate the jobs and spending that this project will produce, for a while, it is hard to see how this will work out positively in the long run…but then I am not a developer, so maybe I just don’t have the insider info I need.

9 Comments | City government | Permalink
Posted by Brutus

Traffic destruction

April 26, 2016

Would someone be kind enough to explain to me why we must endure construction on I-10, Trans Mountain, Doniphan, and Stanton all at the same time?

We deserve better

Brutus

12 Comments | City government, Federal Government, State Government | Permalink
Posted by Brutus

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