The bond oversight committee in their November 7, 2013 saw these two slides:
Another plan abandoned.
We deserve better
Brutus
City does not give up
August 25, 2017Today’s question is “why did the city choose to take the performing arts center lawsuit to Austin instead of fighting the issue here in an El Paso court”?
Could it be that they wanted to avoid local public input by using our money to move the issue out of town and thus keeping locals who could not afford to travel to Austin from showing up to testify?
Or could it be that the city thought they would get a more enlightened judge in Austin–one who believed that governments can do whatever they want regardless of what the citizens ask for?
Or might it be that they wanted a judge that was ignorant of the actual facts surrounding the bond election. Quite simply the issue was placed on the ballot as a “performing arts facility”, not a sports arena.
Either way, the judge saw through the baloney that the city was serving up.
The judge was quite clear in her ruling and in fact blocked what might have been one of the city’s strategies. In addition to ruling that the city cannot build a facility that is suitable for a sports arena, she ordered that the city cannot use funds from sources other than the bond issue to modify or enhance the facility to make it suitable as a sports arena in the future.
Our new mayor was quoted in a Times article the other day as saying “The wording in her judgment is awfully ambiguous–it’s gray; it’s unclear”.
It seemed pretty clear to us but then again we did not completely lose the case like the city did.
Using our money to fight us
News reports have told us that the city has already spent over $800,000 fighting us.
The city says that their next action will be to appeal the judges ruling.
Presumably the appeal will be in Austin.
Hopefully common sense will continue to prevail.
We deserve better
Brutus
11 Comments | 
City government | 
Permalink
Posted by Brutus
Oversight but not by the citizens
August 22, 2017If you go to the city’s website you will see that they have posted agendas for somewhere around 48 separate meetings of the bond oversight advisory committee.
They have only posted minutes for these eleven meetings:
We deserve better
Brutus
Leave a Comment » | City government | Permalink
Posted by Brutus
Sun Metro could improve their numbers
August 20, 2017At the Tuesday, July 11, 2017 meeting of the Mass Transit Board (city council) the director of Sun Metro gave a presentation relating to their 3rd quarter fixed route performance. We wrote about the report in Sun Metro continues to sink.
When discussing the issue of decreasing ridership he spoke of lower gasoline prices, the peso devaluation, low interest car loans and disruptions caused by street car rail construction. He also pointed out that he believed that bus ridership was down across the country.
Unfortunately we did not hear the director speak about taking any affirmative steps to improve either the ridership numbers or the system’s high operating cost per passenger.
Isn’t it time to rethink our strategy instead of spending more and more money on a service that fewer and fewer people want? Isn’t there a way to provide this service to people who need or want it in such a manner that we spend less money, as ridership falls, instead of more?
We deserve better
Brutus
4 Comments | City government | Permalink
Posted by Brutus
Power to the people
August 18, 2017There are two bills being considered in our Texas legislature that would limit property tax increases that cities and counties can hit us with.
Currently a city or county can increase their property tax rate by 8% a year. Anything over that subjects them to a roll back election. The process is a difficult one for the citizens and is almost never successful.
One of the bills would limit the increase to 6%, the other to 4%. Both would also automatically trigger a roll back election. That would give the voters a chance to approve or disapprove.
Elected officials from across the state are actively trying to kill the bills. Their position is essentially that they need the money for things that we must have.
Why not let the voters decide?
The answer is simple.
We deserve better
Brutus
4 Comments | City government, County Government, State Government | Permalink
Posted by Brutus
elpasospeak 
You must be logged in to post a comment.