Rubbing shoulders

March 25, 2013

Thinking about going to see city hall?

Why?

Most citizen contact with city officials will be in buildings other than city hall.

  • Police and fire have long been in buildings other than city hall even though they are the largest part of our budget and thus bear closer scrutiny
  • The parks and recreation department has recently displaced citizens in a recreation center
  • Permits and licensing are not to be had at city hall
  • Food handlers need to go to a different building
  • Museums, cultural affairs and pension issues are going to be handled somewhere else

With the exception of the mayor and city representatives most of the functions at the new city hall are internal in nature.  Departments will include:

  • Internal audit
  • Employee wellness center
  • Human resources
  • Purchasing
  • Financial services
  • City attorneys
  • Municipal clerk

The new city council chambers that they have not told us about will be in the new city hall.  We will have to wait to find out how much they are spending for it, but I feel certain it will be expensive.

So if you think you might bump into an elected official while you are doing your business with the city, think again.

It looks like they have deliberately banished you to the hinterlands so that they do not have to brush shoulders with the unwashed masses.

I’ll bet they even have a private entrance to council chambers.

We deserve better

Brutus

3 Comments | City government, Personal Experiences With Government | Permalink
Posted by Brutus

You can’t touch me

March 24, 2013

Term limits, or limiting the number of terms that an elected official can serve in an office, is a subject that many feel strongly about.

While I have heard good arguments on both sides of the issue, today I want to share some thoughts about what term limits have done to our local city council.

City representatives used to stand for election every two years.  Some people thought that those terms were too short — representatives had to spend time and money getting elected too often.

Now they are elected for four years and cannot serve more than ten  (one could be elected to fill the last two years of a vacant slot, then get elected two more times).

Does this make them more vulnerable to powerful outside influences?  Do they feel the need to build some long-lasting  monument to their public service?

Some will argue that even serving their first four years without having to face the public is too long.   Recently it has been the second four year term that has emboldened some of our representatives.

Most of the recent activism from council has come from representatives who cannot run again.  They don’t need to listen to the voters any more in order to be re-elected.  They cannot be re-elected.  In their last term they seem to invoke their self-professed moral responsibility to do what is right, not what the voters want.

Cicero likes to kid Brutus about how he allegedly imposed term limits on Julius Caesar after he declared himself  “emperor for life”.  Thankfully that does not happen much anymore.

I do think that if we had shorter terms (as we used to) and allowed the representatives the hope of keeping their quality of life positions during good behavior that we would have a more responsible city council.

In the mean time we have the mess we have.

Eternal vigilance is the price of liberty.

Cato

3 Comments | City government | Permalink
Posted by Cato

One out!

March 23, 2013

According to the El Paso Times a city representative recently questioned the situation at The El Paso Firemen and Policeman’s Pension Fund.

She asked “How do you get $400 million to save your fund and four years later we find ourselves in the same situation?” … “The fund says it’s spending more money than it is taking in.  To me that’s bad management or mismanagement.”

We finally agree on something!

If only the city representative would apply that same standard to what she is doing to us at the city.

The city manager says she doesn’t know.

The Times wrote that the city manager has ordered an audit of the fund.  “They say it’s bad stock markets or poor return on investment that got them here.”  “Quite frankly I’m not so sure.  We need to review everything and find out what the problem is.”

If the fund has money invested in the stock market it would be hard for them not to have benefited from the spectacular gains of the last two years.

Pension board like city council?

One of the pension board members is the city’s chief financial officer.  Shouldn’t that person know what is going on?  Why is the city manager in the dark on this?  How can the city possibly not know what the problem is?  If the chief financial officer is genuinely surprised about the fund director’s sudden resignation should we be comfortable?  Is the pension board like city council in that they just rubber stamp what staff wants?

Do these people know anything about governance?

Well it appears that the Times got the job done for the city.  They helped pressure the fund director to quit.  In What is thy bidding my master? the Times  turned up the heat on the fund director when they  questioned why the fund would want to save money by buying a building instead of renting their office space.  Go figure!  He resignation on Wednesday was because of “unwarranted criticism” according to the board chairman.

We deserve better.

Brutus

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

What is thy bidding my master?

March 21, 2013

This issue has a lot of angles to it — it is hard to figure out where to start.

According to The El Paso Times article  the  El Paso Firemen and Policemen’s Pension Fund is considering buying a building.  They currently lease space in a downtown high-rise.  They have seven employees and serve about 3,200 members.  Their current rent is about $85,000 per year.  The new building would cost them somewhere around $600,000.  It would be about 6,800 square feet and have a large parking lot.

The Times says that the purchase “comes  at a strange time” with the pension fund having a shortfall of $270 million.

Ok, let’s start:

  • $85,000 dollars a year for office space and meeting areas for an organization that has seven employees is a lot of money
  • The chief financial officer of the city, who is a member of the pension board, was quoted as saying “It should pay for itself in about seven or eight years…”.
  • Why would the Times think that saving money today and over the long run is a “strange time”?

Then look at the cost of the current space:

  • $85,000 dollars a year for seven employees and the few members that they can serve at a time is a lot of money
  • Private businesses make do with a lot less space and cost per employee
  • If they need to have large meeting facilities they should rent them as they need them, not pay for them every month
  • What kind of board of directors wastes membership money like this?

Is the board considering leasing out part of the new building to some other agency and thus generating money for their members?

The city staff comes across as they normally do:

  • A city council member suggested that the board should have explored other options with the city
  • According to the article the city manager said “said such a deal would have been possible and tried to reach out to the fund.”
  • The board member who is also the chief financial officer of the city endorsed buying the building and was quoted as saying “I think it’s a good deal for the fund based on what was presented to the board…”.
  • Did the city manager reach out to the chief financial officer?  How far would the reach have to be?  These people see each other daily.  Do the city manager and chief financial officer disagree, or is someone not telling the truth?

Why does this organization even exist?

  • Texas has statewide pension organizations for other types of employees.  Teachers, municipal employees, state employees all benefit from having organizations that function statewide.
  • We don’t see a separate pension fund for teachers in El Paso and separate ones for each city in Texas.
  • We do see separate police and/or firefighter pension organizations in several Texas cities.  Why?  Would centralization save administrative costs and thus allow more money to go to the members?  Does our El Paso organization do a better job of investing money than the organizations in other cities?  Why do we have a $270 million shortfall?  Wouldn’t a statewide organization have a better chance of paying for talent to get the best investment results?

Once again, why was the Times concerned about the timing of this deal?  Were they just carrying the water for the city?

We deserve better

Brutus

Leave a Comment » | City government, El Paso Times, State Government | Permalink
Posted by Brutus

Don’t blame me I just voted for it

March 19, 2013

It appears that no one at the city is reading the stuff that city council approves.

On February 26, 2013 city council approved ordinance 017961 that called for an election in El Paso.  That’s pretty important stuff.  The ordinance specified items to be placed on the ballot.  The items included possible changes to the city charter as well as the schedule of election of some city representatives in 2015 if a proposed change in election timing is approved by the voters.

The council saw the item twice, first on February 19, 2013 and then again on February 26, 2013.  Council  approved the item unanimously on the first reading.  On February 26 all of council voted for the item except the representative from district 4.

Now they tell us that someone made a mistake.  They listed districts 1, 4,  5, and 8.  They meant 1, 5, 6, and 8.  The list should not have included 4 and should have included 6.

Item 5A on the March 19, 2013 says that they need to vote again because of a “scrivener’s error”.

Scrivener?

Scrivener?  I like the wiki definition “It is a phrase which can also be used as an excuse to deflect blame away from specific individuals, such as high powered executives, and instead redirect it to the more anonymous clerical staff.”

High powered?  Well none of council read what they voted on.  The city attorney and her legion did not catch it.  The city manager said nothing about it.  Yet what they passed was a mistake.  A pretty big mistake.  Do they read anything that they pass?  If they don’t even read about things that apply to their own jobs do you think that they read anything that has to do with us “crazies”?

This just shows us again that these people think they can do anything they want.  Those pesky laws and legal documents don’t apply to our city people.

Remember this in May when we have the opportunity to vote.

We deserve better

Brutus

Leave a Comment » | City government | Permalink
Posted by Brutus

« Previous Entries
Next Entries »