EPISD bonds–more money goes out of town

September 16, 2016

Get ready for a giant sucking sound as more money leaves El Paso if the EPISD bond issue passes.

According to a Times article the other day “the construction and renovation projects would be completed in a maximum of five years”.

The construction of our county jail annex is months behind.  We are told that the problem is a lack of labor.  That project is a $41 million dollar one.  The Ysleta district will be starting its $450 million bond construction at some point.

The EPISD board wants us to approve $667 million in projects that they tell us they can design and complete within five years.

They probably want us to ignore the fact that ten years after we gave them $200 million for other projects they still have not finished.

Five years is particularly unbelievable when we consider that architects and engineers must do their work.  That work in itself will take years.

If somehow they really plan to build all of this within five years they must be planning to use out of town contractors and designers.

On the other hand, if they find a way to use local contractors there will be little capacity for non school construction.  So much for economic expansion.

We deserve better

Brutus

4 Comments | County Government, El Paso Independent School District | Permalink
Posted by Brutus

Ill spent funds

September 8, 2016

Our county hospital board has let us down again.

According to a recent article in the Times they paid $208,000 to a recruiting firm to perform the search for a new hospital administrator.

Comparing that amount with the $23,000 that the city paid when searching for a city manager or the $30,000 that EPISD paid looking for a superintendent makes the hospital board look like fools.

Even more damning is that the new hospital administrator that the board hired was working right here in El Paso and was the obvious choice.

Our county commissioners need to quit planning how to spend their astronomical pay raises and put some people on the hospital board that will get things under control.

Instead they recently appointed the city’s former chief financial officer to the board.   Remember what she did to us?

We deserve better

Brutus

3 Comments | City government, County Government, El Paso Independent School District, El Paso Times | Permalink
Posted by Brutus

City council continues to avoid citizens

September 2, 2016

Most of our city administrators work a four day week.  City hall is closed on Fridays.

Monday is a holiday.

City council meets on Tuesday at 8 AM.

If you want to talk to a city representative or the mayor about an agenda item you are just out of luck.

The official reason for not working on Fridays was that the city hall building that they destroyed was expensive to run and they could save money by closing on Fridays.

Now city functions are spread among several buildings but they continue to close on Fridays.

We deserve better

Brutus

13 Comments | County Government | Permalink
Posted by Brutus

More hypocrisy from the Times

August 27, 2016

The Times continues to show its hypocrisy through its editorial the other day.

They want us to agree that our elected officials at the county  should be paid much more than they are now.

El Chuqueno did a nice job challenging the Times the other day.

Can we get the Times to divulge the salaries of their reporters?  While we’re at it maybe we could talk them into bringing back to El Paso the jobs that they have exported to other cities.

Then again maybe if they had their editorial content managed somewhere else we would end up with a newspaper that advocated for their readers.

We deserve better

Brutus

8 Comments | County Government, El Paso Times | Permalink
Posted by Brutus

How much can you afford?

August 23, 2016

The Wednesday, August 17, 2016 front page of The El Paso Times was a doozy.

All of the articles were about potential tax increases from local governments.

Our city council wants a 5.29% tax increase.  The mayor vetoed their motion.

Our county hospital wants to raise their tax rate the maximum amount they can without triggering an election that would require approval by the voters.  Even with that increase they are projecting a $19 million deficit.  Keep in mind that this is a situation left to us by our former hospital administrator.  The new guy has only been on the job about a month and is the inheritor of this mess.

The El Paso Independent School District is calling for a $668.7 million bond election because of declining student enrollment.  Elrichiboy pointed out in Count Your Blessings how fortunate we are that enrollment has not reached zero.  If the bond issue passes school taxes will go up 15.25%.  At least we get to vote on this one.

We deserve better

Brutus

3 Comments | City government, County Government, El Paso Independent School District | Permalink
Posted by Brutus

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