elpasospeak

Our city council created the “Hire El Paso First” local business purchasing preference policy.  Good work.

Pay to play

Actually a local business has to enroll in the program and pay an application fee of $150 dollars.  Maybe the purchasing department does not know who the local businesses are or how to prove that they are local.

What does a business get for their $150 payment?  They could get up to a 5 point evaluation  advantage over an out of town business.

Unless

Unless, according to the city web site, the city choses to use a buy board, or the purchase is for telecommunication or information services, or if there will be a construction contract for over $100,000.  Maybe local businesses aren’t good enough to compete for larger jobs.

Another exemption from the program is when the city decides not to buy from the local bidder.

This sounds like extortion to me.

We deserve better

Brutus

Our local petroleum refinery has announced that it opposes the city raising the franchise fees that our electric company pays.

The economic reality is that the electric company will pass on the increases to it’s customers.  That means you and me as well as the refinery that is a major customer of the electric company.

The refinery will try to pass on the increase in it’s costs to the motoring public.  Lack of serious competitive pressure probably means that they will be able to do that.  Eventually the public will blame the refinery.  The cause of a gasoline price increase will soon be forgotten by the public and the refinery might have to compete with products brought in from other places where they do not have to pay the city’s new fee.

City council’s action is an increase in taxes.  Some will try to tell us that it is not a tax, it is an increase in fees.  I googled the word tax and this is the first definition that came back:

a compulsory contribution to state revenue, levied by the government on workers’ income and business profits or added to the cost of some goods, services, and transactions

Granted it is not an increase in property taxes.  State law requires that property tax increases above certain percentages must be put to a public vote.  Council has once again decided to not let us vote, but their action is a tax and their actions are deplorable.

At this point they are also considering imposing a new fee on the city owned water company.  That too would be a tax on the consumers.

We deserve better

Brutus

The Tuesday, August 9, 2014 city council agenda has an interesting item on it.

Item 12.4 on the regular agenda contemplates renting three parking spaces next to the DoubleTree downtown to the hotel corporation.  They plan to use it to park tour busses.  These three parking spaces occupy 612 square feet of Missouri Street.  The hotel will pay the city $2,040 per year for the exclusive use of the spaces.

A previous post, Valet Parking, addressed a similar situation downtown.  The upscale restaurant in the Mills building wanted to use part of Oregon street to facilitate valet parking.  The city provided them with 1,376 square feet of space for $1,000 per year.

Both facilities are owned by people that have close ties to city government.  Evidently some are closer than others.

We deserve better

Brutus

Along the same lines as the discussion about the sad state of our police cars, another thing that someone would look at when considering whether to move their company to El Paso is the condition of our roads.

Our neighborhood roads are in horrible condition.  Anyone looking at them can tell that there will be a huge tax bill coming eventually.

Maybe the city should reprioritize it’s spending policies to make our city streets look less disgraceful.  Who wants to move to a losing city?

We deserve better

Brutus