elpasospeak

The city’s proposed budget for next year has a surprise for us relating to the police department.

Last year they budgeted $2,036,645 as revenue from moving violation fines (traffic tickets).

This year they plan to budget $2,817,661 or 38% more.

That’s a bunch.

We deserve better

Brutus

Fitch is a rating agency that attempts to tell bond investors the level of risk that they face when buying bonds.

They issued a report concerning the city’s bond offerings in 2016.

Among their observations:

 Public safety pension contributions fell short of actuarially required contributions by approximately $6 million.

The $6 million dollar shortfall was for the 2015 fiscal year.

In other words the city paid less money into the police, fire, and employee pension funds than they should have.

We will get the bill later.

We deserve better

Brutus

Many of us have been wondering about the cost of the proposed children’s museum

We found this article “10 STEPS TO STARTING A MUSEUM” interesting.

Item 5 on the list says this:

Do the numbers.  Starting a museum is very expensive, as a rule of thumb, the exhibition space is half of the overall space, a 4500 exhibition space becomes a 9000 square ft building at $200 per square foot of new construction is $1.8 million dollars, plus approximately, $150 to fit out the gallery spaces, $675,000, total $2,475,000 in start up costs plus operating costs.

The article tells us to plan for costs of $200 per square foot to build the building and another $150 per square foot for the exhibits.

According to a recent article in El Paso Times the current plan is to build an 80,000 square foot facility.

80,000 times $350 per square feet comes to $28 million dollars.

Approaching the numbers from a different direction, if they actually build the museum for the current budget amount of $60 million, the cost per foot will be $750 per square foot.

The article goes on to suggest that operating costs will be about $40 per square foot per year.  That would mean a $3.2 million budget will be needed.  The Times article told us that the anticipated budget will be $2.5 million per year.

Hmmmm

We deserve better

Brutus

This came in from a loyal reader (we edited it to take some names out):

I have a bit of info for you that may be of interest.  I was recently at a client’s office  last week talking with the lady that is in charge of permits  from the city.  She told me as of this year the inspectors NO longer have ladders with them to do the inspections and will call and say “we are here you have 10 min to bring a ladder” or they charge them for another inspection. (around $500).

This is with commercial projects so she was not sure about the residential however they ALL had ladders up till now.. seems a bit of a hidden tax or just a gotcha for more money.

This came in from Max Grossman:

Dear Friends,

We have come a long way since the City attempted to demolish Duranguito without complying with the Texas Antiquities Code. Now the City has changed its tune and is telling the media and the THC that they have always intended to comply with the law. Only minutes ago in Amarillo, the Antiquities Advisory Board of the Texas Historical Commission told the City of El Paso to expect the archaeological survey to be a “long and drawn out process.” Moreover, they told them that there is a 99.9% probability of finding significant remains below ground. Even the firm the City hired to carry out the survey stated that there are likely both “historic and prehistoric” strata beneath the neighborhood.

It is true that the Board ruled that the 12 State Antiquities Landmark applications we filed, though “excellently prepared,” are currently “incomplete” because no excavation has yet been carried out within the confines of the project footprint; but once we have in hand the archaeological data, we will not only resubmit the 12 applications, but we will also submit applications for the properties that the City acquired during the last several months, covering every publicly owned parcel within the “Arena Master Planning Area.” The final outcome will be the same.

Our team in Amarillo is comprised of Frank Ainsa, JP Bryan and archaeologist Dr. David Carmichael, and they are there to support the ongoing SAL nomination process and to make certain that the City complies fully with the Texas Antiquities Code. We are very encouraged by the statements of the Board members this morning and feel confident that the City will be compelled to conduct an extremely rigoroussurvey under THC guidelines.

I have to say, it was quite a spectacle watching City Architect Laura Foster and City Engineer Sam Rodriguez stand up in front of the Board and argue against us. It is just plain embarrassing how they represent our City to the Texas Historical Commission. The suspension of our SAL applications, however, will be of little consequence to them compared to our litigation in three different courts of law and we look forward to a series of legal decisions in the coming weeks and months.

Kudos to KVIA for live streaming the event. Their first report is here, although their use of the word “rejection” is inaccurate, since that would imply that the nomination process has been terminated. Rather, the Board ruled that the applications are “incomplete” and it is giving us the opportunity to resubmit them pending the archaeological survey by Moore. They were very clear about that.

Tutto bene!

*********************************************

What will the city do next?