Wireless and truth less

March 3, 2014

Consent agenda item 4.2 on the March 4, 2014 city council agenda is about network wiring for the new ball park.

The posting indicates  “This is a Venue Project purchase exempt from the competitive bidding laws”.  Nice, huh?

The backup material indicates that  the project was bid out,  however, through the construction manager at risk process.  Three bids were received.  What is unusual here is that the bid tabulation sheet showing who bid what is not shown.  Nice, huh?

Some may feel that the omission is not important.  It is to me if city staff is not telling the truth.

The backup material for item 4.4 on the same agenda recommends spending over $300,000 with the same company for  a wireless access system for the ball park.  City staff wrote that the project was also bid through the construction manager at risk process.

Not true

I follow much of the city’s bidding.  This project was not bid through the construction manager at risk process.  Further, I don’t see where the city issued a formal bid request.

We deserve better

Brutus

7 Comments | Ball park, City government, Purchasing | Permalink
Posted by Brutus

Suggestion for the Times

March 1, 2014

A suggestion to the El Paso Times:

Write a story about what has happened to the case where our west-side city representative was under investigation on suspicion of threatening a city employee.

For those of you who don’t know about it, please read this.

The incident occurred last October.  We have heard nothing.

Is this a cover-up?

We deserve better

Brutus

4 Comments | City government, El Paso Times | Permalink
Posted by Brutus

What’s good for the goose

February 28, 2014

This El Paso Times editorial talked about the recent revelation that the El Paso Independent School District is considering closing some schools.

The Times pointed out that while the EPISD student population is approximately the same as it was 25 years ago, the district has added 3.7 million square feet of buildings in that period of time.

The district tells us that changing population concentrations have been the cause of the building spree.  That is partially true.

The Times insists that the public must be involved in the planned changes.  They wrote “The discussion must start now and must be frank and transparent”.

Frankly

Most of us probably agree with the Times on this.  Frankly we would have liked for the issue of tearing down city hall to have had public involvement and been frank and transparent.

The Times did not call for that.  We know why.

We deserve better

Brutus

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

Impact fees

February 24, 2014

Refuse the Juice makes good points when talking about the increases in impact fees that the city is considering through it’s water utility.  Their article included:

Do remember that every other utility bears the cost of adding rate payers to their system.  Electricity, gas and cable come to mind immediately.  They will gladly extend their services into new neighborhoods because they know the new rate payers will more than pay for growth – they understand the concept of economies of scale.  Think about that in this argument as it goes forward.  The city wants to charge you $3,000 to get on their water system.  Cable, gas and electricity = $0.00.   Somebody has their math wrong or is fibbing a little.

Privately owned companies are willing to connect new users for free, but the city owned water utility charges thousands of dollars to connect each new home to their water and sewer systems.

This is nothing other than another tax.  We already have the 4th highest tax among the 50 largest cities in the country.

We deserve better

Brutus

3 Comments | City government | Permalink
Posted by Brutus

Astute comment

February 21, 2014

Reality Checker wrote a comment the other day that no one else commented on.  The original post was about how the city appears to be using almost $3 million from Texas state funding sources to build two pedestrian crossings for our new ball park.

The comment deserves to be promoted to a post so that more readers see it.  It is reprinted below:

You just opened Pandora’s box. I believe the pedestrian crossing was included in the original ballpark budget, which makes the city council’s actions of greater concern.

Here’s what the El Paso Times’ Cindy Ramirez wrote in a Q&A on July 15, 2012:

“A preliminary study by Turner Construction shows design and construction costs of about $39 million; $2 million for a pedestrian crossing; and $2 million to demolish the City Hall and Insights buildings. The $50 million allows some wiggle room in construction, though any surplus would be deposited into the debt service fund to help pay off the construction, used to provide additional parking or deposited into a capital repairs reserve fund for future maintenance.”

They are now using state taxpayer funds which were not originally intended to be a source of funds for this project. This is really pretty simple: the ballpark is more over budget than we even know and that city management, council, and the car salesman are once again engaged in a manipulative shell game to obscure the truth. They are also once again robbing Peter to pay Paul Foster.

The only “wiggle room” in this situation is the wiggle room that is allowing city management, city council, the mayor and the Mountainstar principals to continue to do these things without any personal consequences.

Ms. Ramirez stated on July 15, 2012, that the answers in her Q&A were provided by city officials and the Mountainstar principals. If she were not so busy these days serving as the de facto public relations person for downtown redevelopment, perhaps she could have done some reporting on the disconnect between the July 2012 statement and the actions taken in the February 10 council meeting. Then again, maybe she and the Times chose to ignore the discrepancy and deception.

We deserve better

Brutus

Reply

1 Comment | Ball park, City government, El Paso Times, State Government | Permalink
Posted by Brutus

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