elpasospeak

Our public service board has decided to follow the law and charge the city council imposed additional franchise fee on both residential and non-residential customers.

The PSB had previously followed the city’s request and was charging the fee only to non-residential customers.  That turned out to not be legal.

There should have no surprise there with the advice coming from our city attorney and one of her number one assistants, Scrivener.

What was surprising was to see that our former chief financial officer attended the PSB meeting to complain about how the fee will affect her company.  According to the Times:

“Arrieta-Candelaria said 6-inch meters are used by rental complexes that her company manages. The new higher fee will mean raising customers’ rents, cutting expenses or taking a financial hit.”

Taking a hit

I suppose that now that she is out in the private sector she is beginning to see that damage that the city’s wanton spending and poor financial planning has on the community.

In part it was her inaccurate forecasting that has allowed the city to get in the budget mess that we have.

After the meeting according to the Times, ” Arrieta-Candelaria, the city’s former chief financial officer, asked why commercial customers must pay more now since the fee is being spread to include residential customers.”

In other words “don’t make me pay so much, stick the citizens with the bill”.

We deserve better

Brutus

This came in from Helen Marshall:

And you thought you’d heard the worst!  I am trying to find out who and what the devil this is all about.

Some  good things happened the other day at city council.

In Disorganized or dishonest? we wrote about several items that were on the council agenda without any backup material.  One of the items was a presentation about the city’s second quarter financial results.  We commented that not making the report available to the public before the meeting made it difficult for members of the public to exercise their rights when the report is not made public.

The budget report was item 15.4 on the agenda.

When the item came up the chief financial officer of the city prepared to  speak.  At that point the mayor allowed city representative Emma Acosta to interrupt the presentation and say that since the report was not posted with the agenda members of the public would not have an opportunity to question or comment on the results.  She indicated that she had received the report that morning and had not had time to review it herself.  She made a request that the item be postponed for one week and that the report be posted on the web.

The chief financial officer indicated that he would be out of town next week and asked if the presentation could be postponed two weeks.  Council postponed the item.

Ms. Acosta suggested that in the mean time the report be posted on the web so that the public could exercise it’s right to be informed.

Even better

Later in the meeting the item relating to the notification of intent to issue $62 million of certificates of obligation was addressed.  Representative Acosta interrupted the presentation and asked if the city could not make the breakdown of the $62 million available to the public.  She evidently feels that we have the right to know these things.

And better

The city’s chief financial officer told council and the public that the certificates would be used to pay for projects that have already been approved and completed.  He went on to say that spending the money first and then arranging the financing was not the method that either he or the city manager preferred.

Before our former city manager changed the process, city council would approve the sale of bonds, the money would be raised and then the project would be built.  This gave council more control over the spending that happens during their tenure.  The process that is currently being used allows a city council to authorize a project, have the project started, and then a future city council is required to pay the bills.

Thank you

Representative Acosta deserves our thanks.  If the city manager and chief financial officer can get us back to a more sane method of handling public works, they will deserve our thanks also.

This is better

Brutus

Things are getting less transparent at city council.  The May 19, 2015 agenda has these items on it without any backup material.  That makes it hard to rally the citizens to speak before council.  These items have no backup material other than the item placing it on the agenda:

13.1  Presentation on status and general overview of Capital Projects, including;

a. Carlos Bombach Park Improvements …

13.2 Discussion and action on Aquatics Plan.

15.4 Presentation and discussion on the 2nd Quarter Financial Report for FY2015.

16.1 Presentation of Strategies Plan – Goal 2

16.2 Discussion and action on the construction of Country Club Road.

16.3 Discussion and action on the construction of San Jacinto Plaza.

In addition the agenda includes an item to approve $62 million worth of certificates of obligation.  As the posts of the two days have discussed this item has backup material that provides a long list of projects but with no indication of how much each one will cost.  Making the item even more confusing is that the backup material that is provided indicates that the money will be spent in the future but according to an article in the Times the city’s chief financial officer has said the money has already been spent.

The lack of the backup material makes it harder for citizens and our city representatives to do their homework before staff makes their presentations and council is required to vote.

Shouldn’t we expect more of city management?  We might point out to them their own Goal 5: Promote Transparent and Consistent Communication Among All Members of the Community

We deserve better

Brutus