Privileged few

August 3, 2015

Item 15.1 on the July 28, 2015 city council agenda was another item concerning downtown.

After council finished their consent agenda the representative from district 8 asked that the mayor bring the item forward for consideration before the lower numbered items.  The people involved are after all important, evidently more important than the rest of us.

The city gave a little more than a third of an acre of land adjacent to the Mills building  to the owners of the Mills building for $10.00.  The building owners have promised to spend more than $400,000 dollars to improve the land.

The individuals were never mentioned by name.  That way many members of the public did not know who the involved parties were.  Council evidently does not want to be too transparent.

The improvements sound like a good deal for the community but I wonder how successful one of us would be getting land for free if we wanted to build something on property  that the city owns.

We deserve better

Brutus

 

6 Comments | City government | Permalink
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Evidently they can get something done when they want to

August 2, 2015
This note came in anonymously:
FYI…
I was heading Downtown on Yandell when the road was closed off at Yandell and Ochoa.
Lots of city owned trucks and equipment along with city workers on the other side of the roadblock..
Then I saw the street is being repaired and they’re putting in new curbs and shrubbery (LOTS of shrubbery).
Pretty obvious that the city is beautifying the street right in front of St Clements Youth Activity Center.
You have to hurry and go by to see the enormity of this project to appreciate how expensive this is probably costing us.
Puts the work being done at San Jacinto to shame………

8 Comments | City government | Permalink
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Visiting Alice

August 1, 2015

Helen Marshall sent this in:

After reading the Times for the past few days I must conclude that I have fallen down the rabbit hole into Wonderland.

Ms. Niland tells us that the citizenry doesn’t need to vote on returning to a strong-mayor system because the city manager arrangement has been very successful. (And the Charter Advisory Committee agrees, with the guidance of former city manger Joyce Wilson, appointed by Ms. Niland, and former mayor Joe Wardy, who came up with the city manager idea).

City Manager Gonzalez then briefed Council on his work in completely overhauling the city administration and eliminating waste and inefficiency.  In Parks and Recreation, for example, irrigation repair jobs that used to take 24 hours now are done in less than rwo hours.  

Unless my memory has completely failed, the first and only previous city manager had responsibility for running the city effectively and without waste for ten years, concluding in mid-2014.  If the city-manager system was so successful, how is it that the successor has to conduct a massive overhaul of city business?  

The reporting about city finances hails the ratings from Standard and Poor’s and Fitch that reaffirmed the city’s AA rating (which is NOT the top rating).  Buried deep in the report is this: Fitch “pointed out several areas to watch, including inadequate reserves, elevated debt and plans for major capital projects. … Fitch believes the city will be challenged to balance ongoing capital needs against an already above-average debt service tax rate, slower tax base growth in the near term, and below-average socio-economic characteristics.”

Couple that with the remark in a report on UMC tax proposals that El PAso County is in a unique situation compared with other counties in Texas; “in El Paso the property tax base is declining and as a result the effective tax rate is going up.”

Mayor Leeser assures us that “with City Council’s guidance we will continue to be good stewards of taxpayer dollars and ensure that we provide the best for the citizens of El Paso.”  And what’s more, it ain’t true that City Council is “dysfunctional” and its members don’t get along.

And so we must follow the White Queen and believe six impossible things before breakfast.

15 Comments | City government, County Government, El Paso Times | Permalink
Posted by Brutus

Don’t blame me

July 30, 2015

The Times Sunday, July 26, 2015 editorial carried the heading “Editorial: Higher wages, better opportunities required to stem El Paso’s exodus”.

Brilliant!

If wishes were horses beggars would ride.

What has the Times done to help here?

Their editorial fails to mention the high  taxes that stifle growth and spending in our community.  They fail to mention our decaying roads and infrastructure.  They don’t talk about our needless spending on luxuries that we cannot afford.  Spending what little money we have on basic necessities instead of pork projects cleverly cast as ones that improve “Quality of Life” was not part of their piece.

Instead they wrote “The public and private sector leaders of El Paso’s economic development efforts must focus on creating and retaining jobs that pay higher wages.”

They also suggested “That means improved governance and government services, as well as improvements in our entrepreneurial infrastructure.”  The failed to mention our former city manager, the financial mess she left us with, and the fact that she now heads the largest organization responsible for getting El Pasoans jobs.

Nor did they mention that they helped lead the charge to bring the current crop of failed “leaders” and vacuous spending on things like a digital wall to our city.

We deserve better

Brutus

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

Challenge to the Times

July 29, 2015

The Times seems to have difficulty understanding reality.

They suggest that employers should pay higher wages.

Okay fine.  Go right ahead Times.

Please raise your wages so that you can attract experienced talent that knows how to, has the time to, and is allowed to write pieces that expose the waste fraud and abuse that permeate our local governments.

The Times might argue that they cannot do that because they are in an industry that is declining.  They don’t have enough money they might say.

Would they understand this reality that many of us live with or would they somehow excuse themselves since they seem to think that they are so special?

Would the Times dare to publish their existing wage scale and then bravely increase it in an act of economic leadership that would help our community?

We deserve better

Brutus

2 Comments | City government, County Government, El Paso Independent School District, El Paso Times, State Government | Permalink
Posted by Brutus

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