Well April has come and gone and we have seen no sign of this:
At the February 24, 2015 city council meeting we were told that this $500,000 project would be finished and installed at UTEP in April of 2015.
Is anyone surprised? Anyone willing to speculate as to when we will have this to enjoy?
We deserve better
Brutus
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City government | 
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Posted by Brutus
I wonder if the lack of honesty and accuracy that we have seen in the city’s financial numbers the last few years contributed to the firefighter’s victory.
The city posted a lot of numbers on their web site. Did anyone believe them?
Council lost big time on this issue. If council was in touch with the voters they would have made different offers. Obviously they misread the public.
We deserve better
Brutus
7 Comments | City government | Permalink
Posted by Brutus
The voting in our city election Saturday ultimately showed that those candidates with the most money won.
Looking at the numbers however we can see some remarkable things.
In the district 8 race the two candidates showed $31,194 and $4,464 of campaign spending in the campaign finance report filed 8 days before the election. One candidate outspent the other by almost seven times. How did they end up? The incumbent and the one with the larger amount of money got 1,950 votes while the challenger got 1,641. That works out to a cost of $16 per vote for the winner and $2.72 for the challenger.
In district 5 we had another incumbent and challenger. The incumbent reported having spend $13,363 and the challenger $1,460. The result? Each vote cost the incumbent $7.58 while the challenger paid $1.59.
We deserve better
Brutus
6 Comments | City government | Permalink
Posted by Brutus
The election results are in.
In the city elections the incumbents seem to have done a better job raising money than getting votes. The incumbents won but not in proportion to their war chests.
The firefighter’s won all three of their issues.
At the Ysleta school district the school board lost their bond election. One incumbent was voted out and one narrowly won.
The question now is will these elected officials start paying more attention to the voters or will they continue on their present course?
We deserve better
Brutus
14 Comments | City government, El Paso Independent School District | Permalink
Posted by Brutus
We learned the other day that the fee that city council imposed on our water utility last year will now be assessed to homeowners.
Back in September council imposed the fee on the utility to help balance the city’s budget. They told the board of the water utility that they wanted “nonresidential” customers to be charged.
A local church made a claim and we are now being told that assessing the fee on only “nonresidential” customers is not legal.
Rebates will evidently be made to the water customers that have already been charged and homeowners will now have to pay part of the bill.
One thing that is unusual here is how quickly the water utility changed course faced with the claim of illegality. Often local governments fight rather than obey the spirit of a law.
If only charging “nonresidential” customers has proven to be illegal we have to ask why the city attorney did not know this when council took their action.
Then again maybe she did.
Wouldn’t it be nice if council would stop imposing hidden taxes. The water utility should never have been involved in this issue.
We deserve better
Brutus
6 Comments | City government | Permalink
Posted by Brutus
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