I guess that I should not be surprised.
I wanted to see what our former city manager was up to so I went to the Borderplex Workforce Solutions web site.
Navigating to the screen that offers board meeting agendas, this is what I got:
That’s it. No meetings were listed. No links were offered to read about meetings. Nothing. Nada.
We deserve better
Brutus
5 Comments | 
City government, State Government | 
Permalink
Posted by Brutus
This article in El Paso Inc. highlights situations where city officials do not make themselves available to the news media.
From the article:
El Paso Inc. was unable to reach Mack directly, but she responded by email to a question about contacts between the city and Uber.
Further:
Last week, El Paso Inc. sent emails asking about the enforcement issue to Mayor Oscar Leeser, city manager Tommy Gonzales and Assistant Police Chief Michelle Gardner, who is responsible for enforcing the vehicles for hire ordinance, but received no response.
The article was a comprehensive piece about the disparity between the way the city treats cabs and Uber.
We deserve better
Brutus
10 Comments | City government, El Paso Inc. | Permalink
Posted by Brutus
The city recently awarded a bid for newspaper publishing services. Looking at the document below you can see that bidders were to base their prices on an anticipated volume of 5,300 lines per year. Using the numbers that the Times submitted that comes to about $43,000 per year.
When it came time to award the business the city allocated $250,000 per year to the Times. The contract was for three years with an optional two year extension bringing the amount to $1.25 million.
This was the wording of the agenda item:
Discussion and action on the award of Solicitation No. 2016-450 Newspaper Legal Notices (Re-Bid) to Texas New Mexico Newspapers Partnership dba El Paso Times for an initial three (3) year term estimated award of $750,000.00. The award is to include a two (2) year optional amount of $500,000.00 for a total five (5) year award of $1,250,000.00.
Department: Purchasing & Strategic Sourcing
Award to: Texas New Mexico Newspapers Partnership dba El Paso Times El Paso, TX Item(s): All
Initial Term: 3 years Option to Extend: 2 years
Annual Estimated Award: $250,000.00
Initial Term Estimated Award: $750,000.00 (3 years)
Total Estimated Award: $1,250,000.00 (5 years)
Account No.: Various
Funding Source: Various District(s): All
This is a Low Bid, unit price contract. The Purchasing & Strategic Sourcing Department recommend award as indicated to Texas New Mexico Newspaper Partnership dba El Paso Times, the lowest responsive, responsible bidder. Recommend Investor Publications, Inc. dba El Paso Inc be deemed non-responsive due to failure to bid on all items. In accordance with this award the City Manager or designee is authorized to exercise future options if needed.
Would the other bidder have placed a different bid if they knew what the real volume would be? Would other newspapers have placed a bid if they knew what the real volume was?
In the interest of clarity the contract is to be used to publish official notices. I don’t think that the city is actually paying the Times to publish its press releases as though they are news. I suspect that the Times does that for free.
We deserve better
Brutus
1 Comment | City government, El Paso Times | Permalink
Posted by Brutus
Have they done it again?
According to local news reports the city has hired a new deputy city manager to oversee the capital improvement, streets and maintenance, environmental services and mass transit operations.
His job will pay $183,300 per year.
Reading about him on the web, he appears to have many years of experience working at the city level. Surprisingly he holds only a bachelor’s degree in civil engineering if I haven’t missed something.
This Friday, March 18, 2016 BaltimoreSun article might give us pause. According to the article our new deputy city manager was involved in at least two situations that are reminiscent of what goes on here in El Paso.
According to the “Baltimore Sun” he received over $14,000 in homestead tax exemptions on a property that he owned that he did not live in. More troubling, they report that he received a bill from the state and did not pay it until several months later and then only when the Sun asked him about it.
Most of us can probably understand how a mistake was made when he moved out of a house and did not change his exemption status. Few of us can accept a highly placed city official not paying the tax bill when the state discovered the problem.
The article also points out that our new guy was involved in a failed speed camera system–“Zaied previously supervised the city’s speed camera system, which failed to monitor the rush of tickets it generated and was shut down nearly three years ago after repeatedly issuing erroneous citations.” According to other Sun articles the speed camera system was supposed to generate money for Baltimore but ended up costing millions.
It could be that the new guy does not deserve criticism for what happened in Baltimore. He might have been on the periphery of the situations and just got slimed as part of the process.
What we know for certain is that for the money we are paying we could hire someone with much better credentials and with less baggage.
Then again he might fit in well at the city.
We deserve better
Brutus
12 Comments | City government | Permalink
Posted by Brutus
The Sunday, March 20, 2016 Times editorial started this way:
“Mayor Oscar Leeser and a majority of the City Council appear to believe that repeating the incantation “moving forward” will somehow restore the public’s battered trust in city government. Instead, their actions continue to undermine their words.”
In a recent article about the ball park bond mess the Times printed this quote from our former city manager:
“After that I expect the city to move on”
The Times evidently thinks it is quite acceptable for our former city manager to tell us what to do.
If they way to talk about battered public trust they should start by looking at themselves first.
The hypocracy from the Times continues.
We deserve better
Brutus
10 Comments | Ball park, City government, El Paso Times | Permalink
Posted by Brutus
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