More taxes

February 20, 2014

It seems that paying taxes to governments does not entitle us to get what we pay for.

The El Paso Times reported that the city of El Paso will pay $1.5 million dollars over 3 years to the feral government.  The money is to be used to pay salaries and overtime so that more agents can staff the ports of entry.

According to the article, the goal is to reduce waiting times on the bridges to “15 minutes and no more that 30 minutes”.  I have difficulty believing what the Times publishes especially when in the same article they wrote “City officials said last year that 2.6 vehicles crossed El Paso bridges.”

Not the point

The Times’ sloppy publishing is not my point.  Rather, why do we have to pay extra here?

Trashy

Similarly, why do downtown property owners have to pay the Downtown Management District to handle “sanitation and security” when the city is supposed to do that for them?  Recently the district has been involved in a controversy over a process that would allow them to double the taxes on members over a period of years.

Lucky us

The Texas legislature does not seem to want to pay to fund new roads in El Paso that some think are necessary.  Our city council formed the Camino Real Regional Mobility Authority whose purpose essentially is to raise money to fund transportation projects.  Our money.

Coming soon?

Might we see Neighborhood Investment Tax Watching Interior Transportation (NITWIT) zones soon?  These zones could impose an extra tax on individual neighborhoods to fund fixing our local streets.

We deserve better

Brutus

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

Congestion Mitigation

February 18, 2014

Not being an engineer, to me congestion mitigation is the same as coughing.

I guess they want us to cough up more money.

Item 3.4 on the February 10, 2014 city council agenda increases the cost of the ball park.

The September 25, 2013 El Paso Times editorial had this statement in it:

“Mayor Oscar Leeser made it clear the city will not add another cent to the now-$64 million project. He and City Council deserve credit for being firm on that.”

Crossings

The agenda item considers the construction of two pedestrian crossings over the depressed train way into the new ball park.  The project amount is set at $2,875,410.

This money clearly is part of the ball park cost and adds almost $3 million to the total.

Under “AMOUNT AND SOURCE OF FUNDING:”  our city engineer entered “NONE”.

Not so

The project requires an agreement between the city and the state titled “LOCAL TRANSPORTATION PROJECT ADVANCE FUNDING AGREEMENT For A Congestion Mitigation & Air Quality Improvement (2014 CMAQ STP-Flex) Off-System Project”.

The second page of the backup material is a proposed resolution that states “for a total project amount of $2,857,410 with a local contribution by the City of $239,976”.

That works out to 23,997,600 more cents when the mayor and council evidently said not a cent more.

And climbing

One document says no local money will be spent.  One page later a document says that $239,976 will be spent.  Then attachment C of the same document says that the “Local Participation” will be $545,400.

You can read the whole mess here.

Not one cent more

The vast majority of the project will be paid for with state and federal funds.

It seems obvious that someone was not telling the mayor and council the truth when they said no more money would be needed.  Otherwise I doubt that they would have said “not one cent more”.

Will council ever hold anyone accountable?

We deserve better

Brutus

4 Comments | Ball park, City government, El Paso Times, Federal Government, State Government | Permalink
Posted by Brutus

Something’s up

February 17, 2014

The February 18, 2014 city council agenda has an item on it that raises an eyebrow for me.

Discussion and action to direct City Manager to create a fun zone in the entertainment district on game days.

OK, maybe I should be optimistic about this but I’m not.  I looked for backup material, but other than an image none is posted with the agenda.

I wonder who will get the financial benefit from this and how much it will cost the citizens?

We deserve better

Brutus

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

Not my job

February 16, 2014

If you go the portion of the city’s web site where you can look at city council agendas you will see the following”

*DISCLAIMER: Please be aware that only agenda documentation from 2014 and on may be searched via this search bar. Archived agenda documentation prior to 2014 may be found on the ‘2008 − 2013 Archive’ tab and is not searchable. You may contact the Municipal Clerk about any record not found on these pages”.

I wrote a small piece about this in Cover up.

Thinking about it again, the word “disclaimer” got my attention.  I googled “define disclaimer” and got this gem:

a statement that denies something, esp. responsibility.

We deserve better

Brutus

1 Comment | City government, Open Government | Permalink
Posted by Brutus

Biting the hand that feeds you

February 13, 2014

Plans were announced recently to build a $64 million dollar hotel on airport land.  The hotel is to have 220 rooms and 80,000 square feet of retail space.

It is being touted as being of four star quality.

That’s good

Having 220 high quality rooms should be good for tax revenues, right?

Well actually the city gave the hotel developers tax breaks.  Among them is that they will not have to pay hotel occupancy taxes for 11 years.

That’s bad

Hotel occupancy in El Paso is down.  Now we have a situation where existing tax paying hotels will have to compete with a new hotel that has tax advantages.  That could mean that up to 220 rooms a night will not be paying hotel occupancy taxes, the supposed prime source of funding for our ball park.   According to an article in the El Paso Times:

It is to receive millions of dollars in city incentives, including property and sale tax rebates and won’t pay land lease fees for three years under a 40-year lease with the airport. The City Council approved the incentives and lease in May.

I don’t know why the Times article neglected to mention the hotel occupancy tax abatement.  Most of us can probably guess.

Call me crazy but I don’t think that we should use local tax dollars to hurt local tax payers in favor of out of town interests.

Locally beneficial

Well there is one local company that is probably interested.  The company that has assumed operations for our local contractor  that is building the ball park expected to be hired as the building contractor according to the Times.

Bad plan

Airport traffic volumes have been declining for at least the last ten years.  If the city wants to encourage an upscale hotel they should look at having one built at our nationally ranked municipal golf course.

It seems to me that making El Paso a golfing destination would offer us better economic hope than cannibalizing existing trade.

We deserve better

Brutus

9 Comments | City government | Permalink
Posted by Brutus

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