And the winner is

October 31, 2019

The district 6 city representative has just announced that she is a candidate for the state legislature.

State law considers that to be an automatic resignation from city council.

Now we have to pay for yet another city election.

If she had resigned a few months ago we could have voted on her replacement next week without paying for a special election.

Rush job

The city plans to call for this special election December 14, 2019.

That does not give potential candidates much time to run an effective campaign.

I wonder who the powers-that-be have chosen.

This is another example of flagrant disregard of the voters.

We deserve better

Brutus

9 Comments | City government | Permalink
Posted by Brutus

Go ahead–do what you want

October 30, 2019

Are they nuts?

The agenda item authorizing the city manager to sign a new agreement with the water park people contains this language:

“that the City Manager be authorized to sign an Economic Development Initiative Agreement in a form substantially similar to the attached documents…”

This involves more than $100 million of our money and they don’t even want to approve the final agreement.

What does “similar” mean here?

We deserve better

Brutus

8 Comments | City government | Permalink
Posted by Brutus

They must think he is guilty

October 29, 2019

Most of us do not know what Dr. Morgan did or did not do.

City council will be taking this issue up at its Tuesday, October 29, 2019 meeting:

Discussion and action that the Mayor and City Council Representatives censures and condemns Representative Sam Morgan for conduct that violates the values of El Paso in a way that is not befitting of an elected member of the Council; Representative Sam Morgan will be presented the pronouncement of censure; and Representative Sam Morgan will be censured by the public reading of this resolution at the conclusion of the City Council meeting.  Further, that Mayor and City Council do not condone domestic violence, and believe Representative Sam Morgan is entitled to due process under the law.

Talk about double speak.

The want to censure him but point out that he “is entitled to due process under the law”.

We deserve better

Brutus

7 Comments | City government | Permalink
Posted by Brutus

City budget challenges

October 28, 2019

Our city manager’s office included this slide in a budget update for city council:

They are now talking publicly about our lack of revenue growth and the costs of operating the quality of life projects.

If the proposed public safety bond passes this November what will be the effect on operating and maintenance costs?

We deserve better

Brutus

18 Comments | City government | Permalink
Posted by Brutus

Gotcha

October 27, 2019

In a special city council meeting Monday, October 28, 2019 they will be changing the water park deal.

They do these things in special city council meetings to avoid exposure to the citizens.

They first plan to cancel the earlier agreement with Great Wolf.

Why?  Probably because their plan to give Great Wolf 100% of the sales taxes collected near the water park was going to run into trouble because the water park was not really a convention center.

Now it is

Our Texas legislature passed house bill 4347 in their last session.

One of the things the bill did was to qualify facilities that have at least 4,000 square feet of meeting space as a convention center.

In the agreement being cancelled the city promised to give the developer up to $40 million if Texas decided that our facility did not qualify as a convention center and thus would not be able to get the sales taxes collected from facilities around the water park.

Now that the water park and its adjoining meeting room will qualify the city is off the hook.

We however are not so lucky.

The sales tax money from stores near the water park would normally go into our general fund.

Now they will be used to fund the privately owned water park.

We deserve better

Brutus

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

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