Just 8% (again)

January 26, 2015

News was released last week that our water utility has increased our storm water costs 8%.

Evidently they feel that with enough money they can handle both gravity and nature’s ability to send massive amounts of water into our city streets from the long and steep mountain slopes.

Handling storm water used to be a city function, paid for from the general fund.  Now that the water utility is handling the problem we call the money a fee instead of a tax.

We’ve written about this before so rather than being repetitive, here are the links to previous posts:

We got to vote and we blew it

Money down the drain

Never waste a crisis

Once again our local leaders are choosing to put us into debt rather than pay as we go.

We deserve better

Brutus

3 Comments | City government | Permalink
Posted by Brutus

Utility consumption

January 24, 2015

Our central appraisal district is the only local government entity that I have found that obeys this state law:

Sec. 2265.001. RECORDING AND REPORTING OF ELECTRICITY, WATER, AND NATURAL GAS CONSUMPTION.

(a) In this section, “governmental entity” means:

(1) a board, commission, or department of the state or a political subdivision of the state, including a municipality, a county, or any kind of district; or

(2) an institution of higher education as defined by Section 61.003, Education Code.

(b) Notwithstanding any other law, a governmental entity responsible for payments for electric, water, or natural gas utility services shall record in an electronic repository the governmental entity’s metered amount of electricity, water, or natural gas consumed for which it is responsible to pay and the aggregate costs for those utility services. The governmental entity shall report the recorded information on a publicly accessible Internet website with an interface designed for ease of navigation if available, or at another publicly accessible location.

We deserve better

Brutus

1 Comment | City government, County Government, El Paso Independent School District, State Government | Permalink
Posted by Brutus

Wolves in sheep’s clothing

January 23, 2015

We have an important set of elections coming up in May.  The school districts combined with the city account for 75% of our local taxes.

Now is the time to encourage people to get involved.  Run for office.  Find someone to run for office.  Support someone running for office.  We don’t deserve better if we don’t get involved.

I ran across this quote from Thomas Jefferson the other day:

“If once the people become inattentive to the public affairs, you and I, and Congress and Assemblies, Judges and Governors, shall all become wolves. It seems to be the law of our general nature, in spite of individual exceptions.”

Thank you

A number of our readers publish links to this blog on a daily basis.  We thank you.

Our purpose is to stimulate involvement without regard to position.  We encourage those of you who would like to contribute to the blog to let us know.  We try to stay away from being personal or vulgar.

We deserve better, but we have to work for it.

Brutus

 

7 Comments | City government, El Paso Independent School District | Permalink
Posted by Brutus

San Jacinto update

January 21, 2015

The city has a web camera that lets us look at San Jacinto Plaza today as well as what it looked like going back to May of 2014.

The original contract was let in January of 2014 with a one year completion planned.  The contractor that won the bid offered to do the work for $4.5 million while the losing contractors were each asking for more than $7 million.  Various news outlets and the city itself are now telling us that it is a six million dollar project.

Looking at the city’s web site the other day this was their claim:

The project will be largely completed by the end of January 2015; under the contract authorized by City Council in January 2014, contractors would then have the month of February to complete any minor items and put finishing touches in place.

How are they doing?

The camera archive provided this picture of what the site looked like on May 30, 2014.

sanjacinto05302014

On January 12, 2015 with two and a half weeks left before scheduled completion this is what it looked like:

sanjacinto01122015

It looks like they have been able to kill a few trees.

Will anyone be held accountable for this mess?

We deserve better

Brutus

14 Comments | City government | Permalink
Posted by Brutus

Naturally secret

January 19, 2015

The situation at San Jacinto Plaza is getting worse.

The local blog elpasonaturally has published some posts telling us that the city’s Christmas tree has been damaged by the contractor during the re-re-re-modeling of the park.

According to the blog the city and the contractor have both violated the city’s rules that specify how trees are to be handled during construction.

Now it appears that the city may not try to save the tree and will remove (kill) it.

Another problem

Also troubling is what the city manager wrote in an email to city council:

“Staff has proposed alternatives to me, and apparently somehow the information has made it out to the public.”

The very thought of a public servant serving the public is evidently an abnormal event and it sounds like he plans to investigate the leak.  Maybe they should kill the tree in executive session.

Not complex

Holding someone accountable should not be difficult here.  The city has a project manager assigned to the job.  Where has he been while the contractor has been killing the tree?

The contractor should also be held accountable.

That is unless the plan has been to get rid of the tree all along.

We deserve better

Brutus

 

15 Comments | City government | Permalink
Posted by Brutus

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