The waiting is over

February 24, 2013

In Shadow government we got an indication that city council was getting ready to put it to us again.  I wrote that the El Paso Times had published an article that mentioned something that city council did.  “After executive session, the council directed the city attorney to draft an ordinance on how the city should handle public information requests”.

What could they be up to?  Well now we know.

Next Tuesday (February 26, 2013) council plans to introduce an ordinance designed to circumvent the State of Texas Public Information Act.  You can read it here.

I plan to write about this single proposed ordinance over the next few days.  It is bad for so many different reasons and on so many different levels that it deserves comprehensive treatment.

In the end however I predict that a combination of Attorney General opinions and probable court action will prevent the harm that the city is up to.

For the time being it is obvious that they want to hide something, at least for a while.  Remember that they are fighting the release of personal e-mails relating to the whole downtown “renaissance” that they have decided that you and I must pay for.

There must be some pretty damning stuff in those e-mails.

I can’t wait to see them.  We will.

Eternal vigilance is the price of liberty.

Cato

Leave a Comment » | City government, Open Government | Permalink
Posted by Cato

City to contractor: Let me tell you how much money you can make

February 23, 2013

City council will be considering an item next Tuesday that shows how wrong-headed city staff can be.

It seems that the parents of a blogger (refusethejuice.typepad.com) own a construction firm that submitted a bid for a city construction project.  They submitted the low bid.

Someone thinks that they should be disqualified because one of their line items came in above an amount specifically allowed by the bid request.  The have been deemed non-responsive “for failure to comply with the requirement of Base Bid IV that the mobilization costs not exceed 5%”.

Huh?  A bid should ask you for your price, not tell you how much you can charge.  Their bid came in with the low price.  The fact that one line item came in at 5.05% of the total when the specifications said it could only come in at 5% does not change the fact that when you add up all of the items in the bid, they were low.

Where do these guys come up with requirements like these?

Could it be that the blogger is frequently critical of the people over at the city?  Or is it that by their wrong-headed rules they must disqualify the bid but want to reward the blogger’s recent support of city hall activities?

The blogger and his family are not the important issue here.

Trying to control how the free market bids is the issue.

We deserve better

Brutus

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

No community input needed

February 22, 2013

Quality of life

In El Paso the citizens are evidently not smart enough to decide what they need.  That is done for us by city staff and city council.

Here is a refreshing example of what other communities do.  This community sends out 10,000 surveys each year (out of a population of about 680,000 voters).  They ask how satisfied the respondent is with:

  • Economic Opportunities
  • Education System
  • Transportation System
  • Local Government Utilities
  • Presence of Local Government in Our Lives
  • Environmental and Natural Resources
  • Government Services
  • Growth Management
  • Racial, Religious and Ethnic Tolerance
  • Security
  • Healthcare
  • Non-government Social Services
  • Entertainment
  • Neighborhood and Family Support
  • Public Parks and Recreation
  • Affordable Housing
  • Historic Preservation
  • The Arts

It’s called a report card.  The local governments use it to focus on what they should be doing to help improve the community.  We don’t need this in El Paso.  The cabal running the city knows what to do for their own enjoyment.

Actually the city did do some of this when promoting the bond issues.  Their idea was to convince us that they wanted our input.  What they got was a survey box that was stuffed by one or more people and/or organizations.  At some point the city knew the results were rigged.  El Paso Inc. reported the story here.  Did city staff know that over 500 of the responses were in the handwriting of one or two individuals?  How could they not know?  They went ahead and used the rigged results to show us what the “people wanted”.

Then we have the Bond Oversight Advisory Committee that the city created to give us the illusion that we would have a say in the administration of the bond funds.

We deserve better

Brutus

Leave a Comment » | City government, County Government, El Paso Inc., El Paso Independent School District | Permalink
Posted by Brutus

Shell game

February 21, 2013

You will notice at the top right side of this web page that the city removed the search feature from their web page on January 11, 2013.

They claim that they are “updating” their site and that they will restore the search feature when they have “completely” transferred to the new format.

The search feature made it easier to find past actions.  I suspect that the removal was more about deliberately making it hard to find things than about some technical challenge or difficulty.

Try as they may I doubt that they can make navigating their web site more difficult than finding a city department.  Let’s see — what day is it, what building are they in today, are they open, where do I park?  You get the idea.

We deserve better

Brutus

2 Comments | City government, Open Government | Permalink
Posted by Brutus

Bridge for sale

February 20, 2013

Quality of life

A digital wall.

According to El Paso Inc.  we approved $3 million for a 36 foot long, 5 foot high set of 4 plasma TV’s that will go in our history museum.  I read in The El Paso Times that this would be the first one like it in the United States.  One in Copenhagen attracted 400,000 visitors in its first year.  This one would be interactive and would allow you to touch the screen to get information about the history of El Paso.

Let me venture out to predict the future of El Paso:  this thing will be a maintenance nightmare.

Are we absolutely out of our minds?  The first one in the United States?  Why?  Could it be because the seller of this thing could not find another city dumb enough to buy one?

Let’s see.  We should worry about vandalism, screen life, malfunction, replacement/repair cost and the cost of developing new content to name just a few of the issues.  With our current council we need to worry that they will allocate money to paint it.

Maybe I should jump on the bandwagon and buy a taxi cab to transport some of the 400,000 visitors that will fly into our airport just to see a big TV.  On second thought I decline.

It looks like this is going to happen.  I sincerely hope that I am wrong and that it will be a major success.  Children will grow up and tell their grandchildren about the wonderful experience they had back in 2013, the only year that it was operating.

I do know that spending the money on the library or for parks would be a far more certain way of improving the quality of life for our citizens.

We deserve better

Brutus

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

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