Facts vs. fancy

September 6, 2015

Our alert Helen Marshall sent us this letter to the editor of the Times and her comments about the letter:

El Paso Times

Posted:   09/01/2015 12:00:00 AM MDT
Sun Metro provides great, inexpensive service

Sun Metro is the best! The buses are always on time with very helpful bus drivers.

I love to look out the windows and see everything that I never get to see if I am driving.

The new Brio buses are the icing on the cake. I can ride from East El Paso to West El Paso for $3 round trip, which will be 60 cents when I am 65.

The Brio takes me to my doctor appointments, great restaurants, the museums, the ballpark, the Mission Trail, the casino, the Magoffin Home and many more places.

There are two free buses that take you everywhere in the Downtown area.

Sun Metro is El Paso’s best kept secret.

Kaye Hudson

East Side

The New York Times at one time had a rule for letters to the effect that “you are entitled to your own opinion but not your own facts.”  Apparently not in operation at the El Paso Times.   If she is riding the Brio from the East Side to the West Side or into the Mission Trail or to the casino, what planet is she on?  And these buses are “always on time?”  Not even “almost always”???

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

Part timers

September 4, 2015

Another proposed city charter amendment that we will get to vote on in November will be put on the ballot this way:

Should section 3.5 A of the City Charter, relating to city council meetings,  be amended to require Council to hold regular meetings no less than once every other week instead of once every week?

They are putting pay raises for themselves on the ballot.  Now they want to take every other week off.

We have a hard enough time having our voices heard as it is.  First they stopped working on Fridays.  Next they moved the elected officials into a building separate from the buildings where city departments are located.

We deserve better

Brutus

5 Comments | City government | Permalink
Posted by Brutus

Lowering their standards

September 3, 2015

Another proposition on the November 3, 2015 ballot looks sneaky.  Maybe some of our readers will take the time to figure out what they are really up to.

Should sections 7.2, 7.3 A, B, C and D of the City Charter relating to the City’s budget adoption procedures and requirements, be amended to require only that which is required by State law?

I suppose getting them to follow state law would be a good start, but why are they trying to reduce the requirements?

I can’t imagine their efforts being designed to help the citizens.  If there is something in our city charter about the budget process that does not work well why don’t they put their specific modifications in the ballot language?  Instead they are asking to be held to the lowest legal standard.

We deserve better

Brutus

1 Comment | City government, State Government | Permalink
Posted by Brutus

Proposed charter amendments

September 1, 2015

The city has decided to place 9 proposed city charter amendments on the ballot in the November 3, 2015 election.  We’ll spend some time this week highlighting some of them.

We have previously written about two of them.  When resolving is dissolving was about allowing council to use resolutions instead of ordinances to do what they want to do if some other law does not specifically require than an ordinance be used.  The most obvious potential use of this change would be to use a resolution to sell or lease property.  Resolutions only take one council meeting and if properly cloaked like we have seen other agenda items the public will not even know what is about to happen.

Sold out again pointed out that we were not going to get to vote on our form of government (strong mayor vs. city manager) nor will we be allowed to set the terms of office for city representatives back to two years instead of the four year terms that we have been suffering with for the last decade.

Stay tuned for more about the proposed changes.

We deserve better

Brutus

7 Comments | City government | Permalink
Posted by Brutus

Sun Metro performance

August 27, 2015

This is sad.

With all the hope that the Brio system brought ridership is down significantly across Sun Metro’s system.

The mass transit director’s presentation from their July 2015 board meeting was attached to their agenda for the meeting.

The numbers are for the first three quarters of their physical year (ending May, 2015).

sunmetromay2015

What we can see is an almost 15% decrease in ridership for the first three fourths of the year.  Costs per trip are up 12%.  Safety as well as on time service both deteriorated.

The buses run on natural gas.  Gas prices have been declining, yet our costs are still higher.

We deserve better

Brutus

5 Comments | City government | Permalink
Posted by Brutus

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