Let them eat cake

August 29, 2013

According to the El Paso Times our former mayor is at it again.

Their article says that our former mayor (the one who just left office) attempted to register with the city as a lobbyist last week.  Him lobbying the city now would be a violation of ordinance number 017112.

The article goes on to point out his hypocrisy.  They wrote that city council passed the ordinance on April 21, 2009 and “Cook was present at that meeting”.   Now “he intends to ask the current council to review the ordinance because he thinks the prohibition violates his First Amendment rights”.

Actually

In my opinion, his complaint has little to do with the First Amendment to our Constitution.  His problem is that he is one of the many elected officials that feel that there are special rules for office holders and other  rules for common citizens.  He has an attitude of entitlement.

Actually, he is right.  There are special rules for office holders.  They are to be held to a higher, more restrictive standard than ordinary citizens.  If they do not like it they should not run for office.

Protector of the law

Our city attorney did something extra.  She saw to it that the law was obeyed.  In Public confession Brutus wrote about how she admitted that city council was violating one it’s own ordinances regularly, even though both as city attorney and as city parliamentarian she attends city council meetings and does not remind council that what they are doing is wrong.

In this case she advised the former mayor not to speak before council.  He would be violating a law.

How noble of her.  I guess we should be grateful Scrivener does not do all of her work.

Defend me

I can’t help but wonder if the next development in this farce will be that the former mayor will ask the citizens to pay his legal bills to fight city council for trampling on his rights with an ordinance the he signed.

Eternal vigilance is the cost of liberty

Cato

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1 + 1 = 2.25

August 29, 2013

I’ve been trying to figure out some things about the bonds for the baseball stadium.

City council has to approve many of the actions but the real show is at the Downtown Development Corporation (DDC) (council in sheep’s clothing).

The DDC had meetings on January 8, May 28, June 18, and August 1 of 2013.  Minutes are available for the January and May meetings.  Those minutes are not searchable like the ones for city council meetings.  That makes learning what is going on much more difficult.

The June and August minutes are not available on the city web site.  As a point of comparison, the minutes for the city council meeting of August 13 are available and are searchable.

Convenient

It seems that making things inconvenient for the public turns out to be convenient for the cabal.

I have been able to see that in the May meeting the bond underwriters were to be Morgan Stanley and Citigroup.  According to El Paso Inc. the bond underwriter that acctually issued the bonds was Goldman Sachs.

I wonder who broke off the relationship with Morgan Stanley and why.

Growing interest

The August agenda of the DDC contemplates issuing the bonds at rates not to exceed 6.25% for the non-taxable bonds and 7.0% for the taxable bonds.  The interest rates were referred to as “true interest rates”.

The El Paso Inc. article indicated that the tax-exempt bonds were sold at 6.5%.  The taxable bonds were not successfully sold to the public (no one wanted them) but were sold to Goldman Sachs for 7.25%.

Either the interest rates were raised in the August meeting (the minutes would show this) or the term “true interest rates” means something like “let us give you a number, but the real number is something else”.

We deserve better

Brutus

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Jail for the birds

August 28, 2013

Now the county has begun discussions about building a new jail facility to replace the one downtown.

According to newspaper reports the downtown jail costs about 26 dollars a day more to run per bed than the jail annex in far east El Paso.

Cost estimates for a new jail are not available yet.  Hopefully no one will ask the city chief financial officer.

If a new jail is built, what will happen to the old one?

Will they downsize it and open a few floors for other purposes?  There might be some advantages to creating cells for our local officials who end up getting sentenced to jail.  Maybe we could house them in the vacated sections so that they can serve their time while still holding office hours.

My guess is that the old jail will have to be torn down — after all it cannot possibly be made usable as anything other than a jail, we will be told.

Remember that after the public calms down about the ballpark and the wasteful move of city hall we will have to face the fact that city officials have told us that their plan is to move city functions to temporary facilities while plans are drawn up for a new municipal complex closer to the “government corridor”.

Yes, the plan is to tear down the old city hall first.  We all know that they have done that already.  Then they will refurbish a few old buildings downtown as temporary quarters for city functions.  They are doing that now.

After the dust has settled they plan to try to build yet another city hall closer to the county and feral  buildings downtown.  After all it is more efficient to have everyone in the same building.

What about the buildings that we are remodeling?  Those will be sold to developers who will then profit from our remodeling.  I wonder who in town has the money to buy those buildings?

Where oh where?

Don’t be surprised to find that the land under the current county jail turns out to be the site they propose for the new city complex.

We deserve better

Brutus

2 Comments | Ball park, City government, County Government, Federal Government, State Government | Permalink
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Wishful thinking

August 27, 2013

The city manager’s budget introduction includes a 4.38% increase in sales tax revenue for the city next year.

Growth slow down

According to our local Federal Reserve Bank El Paso’s growth last year was 2.1%.

Also according to our local Federal Reserve Bank “Economic activity in the El Paso metropolitan area has slowed in recent months.”  “So far this year the El Paso index has averaged 0.9 percent annualized growth”.

 Who to believe

Given a choice between the city’s number and the Fed. I would listen to the Fed.  The numbers coming out of city hall recently have been notoriously wrong.

If the city is wrong then we should see lower than predicted Hotel Occupancy Tax collections (raising our cost to finance the ballpark) as well as sales tax revenue shortfalls.  That will probably lead to a double whammy and operating budget cuts during the year.

Last year the city had to institute spending restrictions mid-year because city staff planned to get 3 million dollars in extra property tax revenue from the refinery.

This is such a shame when prudent management could avoid the shortfall by reducing spending.

We deserve better

Brutus

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

Coincidence?

August 26, 2013

City staff is going to ask city council for permission to issue 65 million dollars worth of certificates of obligation at the August 27, 2013 city council meeting.

It appears that the purpose is to pay for the projects that the prior council authorized last year.

A little over 1.1 million dollars of the money is for the “Bataan Railway Reconstruction Project”.

Is this a ballpark cost?  Not according to the city.  The railway just happens to be physically adjacent to the new ballpark.  In fact from what I can see much of the seating on the first base line will be either over the railway or right next to it.

We have to wonder what the effects of noise, vibration, and fumes will be when a train passes during a ball game.  I hope that tickets for those seats cost less.

Remember that in Robbing Peter is robbery I pointed out how certain projects that should be part of the ballpark are being run separately thus keeping the public from knowing the true cost of the ballpark.

When will all of the construction bids be in so that we will know what they are willing to claim the cost is?

We deserve better

Brutus

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