Insider?

March 22, 2016

Over the last week, Max Powers discussed El Paso Times coverage of Marissa Marquez’ lobbying gig, while the paper has neglected to report on other elected officials, who also may have conflicts between their elected position and their private gigs.

I’ll add one more case to the discussion, although it doesn’t involve an elected official – Bryan Crowe. Crowe serves as the the City of El Paso’s Managing Director for the Quality of Life departments and a member of the City Manager’s Executive Leadership Team. Yet, formally, he is employed by SMG – a firm based in suburban Philadelphia, contracted to manage El Paso’s convention center.

The potential conflict – SMG is likely to apply to manage the city’s soon to be built “Multipurpose cultural and performing arts center” (re: the arena). The city currently has an open RFP for these services. One would presume that the Managing Director for the Quality of Life departments would be involved in the selection process.

I wonder why the El Paso Times spent such print space questioning Marquez, but has not discussed the potential SMG/Crowe conflict of interest. … Or, the other potential conflicts discussed by Mr. Powers.

Not sure what we deserve.

Caligula’s Nephew

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

Deja Vu all over again

March 21, 2016

Our county commissioners court is scheduled to consider an economic development plan today, Monday, March 21, 2016.

Among the ideas being considered is the redevelopment of our county coliseum.

Based on events from our recent past we might see something like this being approved:

Cultural, children’s, satellite, ball park, arena, sportsplex

The plan will be to build this vitally necessary facility quickly.  Because our elected officials feel that they are better qualified than us “crazies” the project will be handled with absolutely no public input and all records and correspondence related to the project will instantly eviscerated.

We will probably be told that:

  • They need to do this immediately because a regional roller derby team franchise is available and some other city like Van Horn will snap it away from us if we hesitate.
  • It can’t be built on the existing coliseum site.  Instead the only practical solution is to drain Ascarate lake and use that land for the new facility.  Ascarate lake can easily be moved to where the old coliseum was.
  •  The facility will not cost local taxpayers anything.  Roller derby fans from around the world will voluntarily pay high ticket prices to fund the project.
  • The facility will have no operating costs since with a seating capacity of 12 seats several charitable foundations will do the work.
  • The new facility will actually save taxpayers $17 million each and every year because of reduced trips to the emergency room.
  • Roller skaters deserve a cultural facility.
  • We need to do this for the children because there is no place for them to go for entertainment.
  • The county’s inability to finish the sportsplex is not indicative of what will happen here.  This project will be handled differently.
  • Traffic control, security, and sanitation responsibilities will be foisted on the city.  They have plenty of money.

Help us help you

There will be a small technicality in that the voters will have to approve the project in a special election.  Plenty of false flyers will be distributed to help alleviate our concerns.

Citizens should not be worried about the original plan because it will be changed once the election has been won.

We deserve better

Brutus

 

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

Daily reminder

March 17, 2016

It is hard to ignore the fact that to this day the El Paso Times and the City of El Paso share a building.

The part of the building that used to be the administrative offices of the Times was sold by the newspaper to the city.  Some of us think that the price the city paid was significantly higher than would have been paid in an arm’s length transaction.

The Times wanted to get out of their building so they  sold part of it to the city.  Moving the production facilities was evidently deemed to be too expensive.

So now we have a situation where city executives work with Times personnel in the same building on a daily basis.

If the opprobrium of the many current  city scandals ever goes away we will still have to see our city government and what should be an independent newspaper residing in the same building sharing common financial goals.

We deserve better

Brutus

 

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

Feeding Brio

March 16, 2016

Sun Metro is planning to add bus routes on the west side of El Paso.

The routes will originate at three different Brio stops (Balboa, Resler, and Bartlett), will circulate through the adjacent neighborhoods and then return to their original Brio stop.

The routes will operate from 6 AM to 10 AM and from 3 PM to 7PM Monday through Friday.

The Balboa route will run every 15 minutes:

Balboa

The Resler route will take 30 minutes to complete:

Resler

The Bartlett route will run every 15 minutes:

Bartlett

Brutus

11 Comments | City government | Permalink
Posted by Brutus

Prepare but don’t deliver

March 14, 2016

How long will it take for our former city manager to follow through with her latest promise?

The city’s investigator is trying to find out who influenced her to delay selling the ball park bonds.  Some say that her delay will cost us $27 million.

In their Friday, February 26, 2016 edition the Times wrote:

Wilson told the El Paso Times on Friday that she and her attorney will prepare a formal statement about the delay in the bond sale, but that she will not participate in an interview with Fischer.

Prepare

Maybe she has prepared a formal statement.  She did not say that she would release it.

Haven’t we had enough duplicity?

We deserve better

Brutus

 

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

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