elpasospeak

The Tuesday, October 7, 2014 city council agenda has an item on it that once again shows who they think is important.  The answer certainly is not the taxpayers.

As part of the destruction of city hall and the moving of city departments into several buildings the city leased about 8,000 square feet of office space in what we now call the Wells Fargo building.

The department that the city placed in the space is the city tax office.  Taxpayers must now go to the 3rd floor of the building in order to do any city tax business that they want to do in person.  At this point no other city office that they have told us about is in that building.  Before they tore down the old city hall a taxpayer could go in, conduct his tax related business, and then drop by his city representative’s office or the mayor’s office to speak with their elected officials.

Placing the tax office in a building away from every other department and away from the elected officials has resulted in less opportunity for taxpayers to communicate with the city officials. The tax office was probably chosen as the department to be banished to a separate building because it would limit communication.

Now citizens have to pay for parking when they go to the tax office.  The most convenient place to park is in the Wells Fargo parking garage if space is available.

Part of the lease agreement that the city signed required the landlord to provide parking for the city tax office employees “within walking distance” of the offices.

That evidently has become inconvenient for our city employees.  The agenda item proposes a no-cost modification to the lease that requires that the parking spaces be made available in the Wells Fargo parking garage.   Walking distance seems to have become inconvenient for our employees.

If they pass the amendment and the parking garage is full then taxpayers will have to do the walking.

We deserve better

Brutus

I wonder how many fees that the city charges are not directly related to a service but instead just augment the general fund.

So far I have been able to find these:

El Paso water utilities pays the city 10% of the monies it receives from the sale of water.  In the 2015 city budget the number is estimated to be $11.1 million.  This is in addition to the new fee that is being charged to “non residential” customers.  That fee will bring about $3.5 million to the city.

Our international bridges operate at a profit and contribute $13.6 million to the city general fund after expenses.

From what I can see in the city budget, the sanitation department will contribute $22.6 million.

They also plan to receive more than $49 million in franchise fees, which we know are passed on to the consumers.

We pay almost $16 million each year for storm water drainage, a fee that used to be part of the regular city budget.

There are probably more funds like these.  Maybe our readers can help us to figure this out.

As it is the city is receiving almost $116 million that does not add to our property taxes.  However it is still us providing the money.  Our total property tax bill is about $228 million so the $116 million represents hidden taxes of 50%.

We deserve better

Brutus

So far our new rapid transit system has done more to disrupt traffic than anything else.

Brio, as it is known,  was scheduled to be finished in the summer of this year.  I doubt anyone is surprised that summer has come and gone and the construction is still not finished.

They may be close though.  I look forward to trying the service.  Their plan to have a bus arrive at each stop every ten minutes during the busy periods may make bus travel between the west side to UTEP and downtown practical.

If the service is not successful we will have to increase the subsidy that the city pays Sun Metro.

If the service is successful the merchants that are near a Brio station will have to learn how to deal with the extra cars that will be parked in their lots by the bus riders.

Watching the construction and implementation process it looks like the stations have quite a few components.  These components will require maintenance and protection.  Some of the stations even have solar powered trash compactors.  My prediction is that they will not last long.

Sun Metro is having problems with people thinking that the stations are regular bus stops.  They have even had to put up signs explaining that even though they look like bus stops they aren’t yet.  They would do well to start letting us know what is going on and when to expect the service to start.

We deserve better

Brutus