Unfair criticism

February 4, 2014

I agreed with almost everything in this post the other day on Refuse the Juice.

A bidder on a construction project evidently did not quote a number on a line item.  On a bid this  should disqualify the bidder.

According to the post, city staff recommended awarding the bid to the bidder anyway.  The bidder with the lowest complete bid filed a protest.  The item was pulled from the city council agenda.

Do over

Now it seems that the city is going to start over and rebid the project.  Of course the new bids will be made after looking to see what everyone bid before.

This is unfair.  I know many El Paso businesses that do not even bother to bid for city business because of things like this.

Where we part

The post went on to say:

None of this crap was going on with construction bids until Mayor Leeser took office.

I cannot agree.  This kind of thing has been going on for a long time.

I don’t know whether the Mayor got involved with this bid or not.

I do know that the purchasing function at the city often is unfair.

We deserve better

Brutus

14 Comments | City government, Purchasing | Permalink
Posted by Brutus

Too true

February 3, 2014

Brutus wrote about the city manager’s recent speech to a group downtown in City manager speaks of “undue tax burden”.

I followed the link to the El Paso Times article and read that she had said something else disturbing to me:

 “Some times you have people who have really great visions and are really forward thinking and sometimes they are a little ahead of their time and they push the envelop a little to [sic] far and a little too fast. But you have to do that to make change. We did a lot of really great things and I am really proud to be a part of the organization and the community.”

Too far, too fast

I googled “define too” and got this definition: “to a higher degree than is desirable, permissible, or possible; excessively“.

In other words more than they should have.

Try these explanations  and see what you get:

“Officer, I wasn’t speeding too much”.

“I didn’t steal too much”.

“I didn’t mean to hurt you too badly”.

Proud

It seems that her quote may define her administration.  I think she was saying that the end justifies the means.

That is precisely how we get out of control governments.

Eternal vigilance is the price of liberty.

Cato

 

2 Comments | City government, County Government, El Paso Independent School District, El Paso Times, Federal Government, State Government | Permalink
Posted by Cato

Short changed

February 2, 2014

Item 3.3 on the January 28, 2014 city council consent agenda is unusual in that it requests permission to use a company to perform a service for three months.  The item would give city staff the ability to extend the period to nine months.

Why such a short contract?

Reading the backup material for the agenda item it appears that El Paso Electric used to maintain and operate the street lights in El Paso and then bill the city for their services.

Evidently the deal was changed effective January 1, 2014 and now the electric company only bills the city for the energy provided to the street lights.  The city has to maintain the equipment.

Is the short duration of the contract because the city wants to solicit bids for the service?  Maybe the city wants to have the work done by city employees.  The backup material does not tell us.

What is evident is that for the new company to gear up to provide the new service will cost money.  If they only provide the service for 90 days that should make the short term price more expensive than if the city had taken care of this matter properly before January 1.

Did this problem sneak up on the city?  I doubt it.

We deserve better

Brutus

2 Comments | City government | Permalink
Posted by Brutus

City manager speaks of “undue tax burden”

January 31, 2014

The Times wrote an article about a recent speech the city manager gave.  You can read it here.

She spoke of a “game plan” that is in place.   According to her the voters approved it.  I missed that election.  The Times quoted the city manager as saying:

“So part of it is just figuring out how to execute it, how to executed [sic] it successfully without putting an undue tax burden on the residents and working with the mayor and council on their strategic vision on creating wealth and jobs.”

Undue tax burden

Top of the list is an earlier post that explained that property owners in El Paso had the 4th highest property taxes among the nation’s 50 largest cities in 2012.

At what point would she consider our taxes to be too high?

We deserve better

Brutus

5 Comments | City government, County Government, El Paso Independent School District | Permalink
Posted by Brutus

Seventh inning stretch

January 29, 2014

I don’t know where to start.

I guess the old seventh inning stretch common in baseball is taking on a new role in our ball park construction.  It seems to me that someone is stretching the truth.

El Paso Inc. published an article Sunday, January 26, 2014 telling us that the city’s project manager for the ball park is taking a new job with the city’s water utility.

What’s wrong here

As of Tuesday the Times is silent about this.  Dead silent.  How did the much smaller weekly scoop our daily newspaper?  Can this lack of coverage be deliberate?

As the article points out, two weeks ago the project manager was happy to be working out in the field again.

The city says that a finance man will postpone his city retirement for 60 days to manage the completion of the project.  One of the problems with this is that the contract the city signed says that the ball park will not be complete until the end of August.  There has been talk of playing games during the season if the city will grant certain occupancy variances temporarily.

Who will our finance man consult with when dealing with the construction people?  What does he know about construction other than where to sign the check?   Who will be watching the chicken coop?

The city manager was quoted as saying the project was in it’s last quartile.  The article says the project is 70% complete.  The last quarter starts at 75%.  Then again accurate numbers have never been a part of this project.

Where is city council on this?  The water utility is a city department.  Why not tell the project manager that his new job will start when he finishes the ball park?  Do they want him to go?

Why?

Why would the project manager leave an important project like this and leave us in the lurch?

Could it be:

The project manager was in the way?  Was he insisting that corners not be cut?  Will this give the ball team owners more control over how the park is built like they have publicly have asked for?

Is the ship sinking?

The project manager wanted to get out from under the “sharp elbows” of the city manager?

The project manager giving too many interviews and the city wanted him to shut up?

What looked to me like a case study in how not to build a project seems now to be getting even worse.

We deserve better

Brutus

1 Comment | Ball park, City government, El Paso Inc., El Paso Times | Permalink
Posted by Brutus

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