Open records

January 11, 2015

Some feel that Texas offers its citizens the best access to public records of any state  through it’s “Public Information Act”.  The Attorney General of Texas publishes a handbook about the Act that you can download here.  There is a lot to read.

Basically most records that a government entity keeps can be accessed by the public.  There are exceptions like medical records, retirement records, certain investigative reports, bidding information before a bid is awarded,  and information that would violate a person’s right to common law privacy.  That makes sense to me.

In practice however many agencies (including several in El Paso) consider you to be an enemy if you make a request. There are provisions in the Act that allow an agency to request an exception from the Attorney General of Texas.   In practice this delays their disclosure of the documents you want about 60 days.  You should familiarize yourself with the handbook if you make a request and the agency starts to give you guff.  There are rules that must be followed by both sides.

If you are on to something and want to make a request these tips can help you get results quicker:

  • Be specific, do not ask for the world.  Specify individual records that you would like to see or have a copy of.  They are allowed to charge you based upon the amount of work they have to do or the volume that they must produce (10 cents a page and $15 per hour).  You can always ask for more later.
  • If you are doing business with the agency you might want to have someone else make the request.  That way they may not learn that you are looking into something and might not put you on their enemies list.
  • Do not ask for something that does not exist.  Generally they do not have to create anything because of your request, so do not ask for a report or analysis that does not exist.  Tell them that you only want access to existing documents.
  • Tell them to redact information which they take exception (under the Act) to disclosing
  • Tell them that if they take exception to your request that you would like them to contact you before the Attorney General.  You might be able to narrow your request without sacrificing the information that you want and avoid their delaying tactic.
  • If you suspect that they will stall by asking for an exception, make two or three separate narrower  requests with the hope that one or two of them will not be challenged.
  • Understand that if you are delving into something that they want to hide they will often go to the Attorney General knowing that they will ultimately have to disclose the information but also knowing that they can buy time and that you might lose interest or maybe they will be able to complete whatever mischief they are up to.  You might best make a simple request that will help you confirm what you are thinking first.  Then you might make a second request that asks for more details.
  • You have the right to review the records in person.  Copies do not have to be made.

They have ten business days to respond to you either way.  Note that the City of El Paso is not open on Fridays so that gives them even more calendar time.

It is a shame that some of the people who work in our local governments consider these requests to be an invasion of their privacy.  Understand that they may try to defeat your request.  They make take it to the Attorney General.  I believe they lose more often than they win.  They may send you the wrong information or documents (a simple mistake after all).  They may outmaneuver you by understanding the Act better than you do.

We deserve better

Brutus

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

Disconnected board

January 8, 2015

The board of managers of our county hospital completed their evaluation of the hospital administrator’s performance for fiscal year 2014 (Gregorian calendar).

In case the administrator reads this post he should be aware that it would be 5,775 in the Hebrew calendar, 2,558 in the Buddhist calendar, and 2,964 in the Berber calendar.  I don’t know if they use fiscal years.

The evaluation addressed 1) board relations, 2) leadership and managerial qualities, 3) planning, 4) stewardship (financial/operations), 5) quality of care & services, 6) medical staff, and 7) community, organization, and government relations.

Stewardship weighed as 35% of the total while quality of care & services counted as 10%.  That pretty much tells us what the board considers to be important.

Various aspects of the administrator’s performance were rated on a scale of 1 to 5 with one being bad and 5 being great.  Overall he received a 4.42 rating.  This was before his recent troubles.

Wait, there’s more

Board members were also asked to offer written comments.  Some of the more interesting ones were:

“…my consistent experience of Mr. Valenti has been that he actively seeks community buy-in.  He takes care of this personally and is willing to deal with negative reactions.”

“The situation with EPCH has created havoc for the UMC budget but Mr. Valenti and his team have made the tough calls and garnered the support of the County Commissioners Court as well as the public.”

“Mr. Valenti is the face of UMC and consistently conveys a passion for our mission to the community.  I believe that the citizens trust him.  He knows how to effectively maneuver through government labyrinths to the advantage of UMC and its patients.”

“UMC and El Paso is truly blessed to have this gifted and generous hospital leader who had [sic] led the associates through great and positive changes.”

“I have always found Mr. Valenti to be forthcoming and open to hearing criticism”.

“Strong leadership starts with a humble demeanor, this is JV.”

There must be a way to explain this.  Is it:

Academy award level acting?

Chemicals in the kool-aid?

Cluelessness?

Secret alternate reality technology being deployed in the board room?

We deserve better

Brutus

 

3 Comments | County Government | Permalink
Posted by Brutus

Of the people, in private of course

January 6, 2015

One of our readers pointed out the other day that our county judge took the oath of office for her second term in a private club the other day.   The club is on the top floor of one of the downtown buildings that houses some of the more influential movers and shakers in local politics.

According to the Times she was surrounded by “friends and supporters”.  Most of us weren’t invited.

Since most of us missed it we print here the oath that she should have taken:

IN THE NAME AND BY THE AUTHORITY OF THE STATE OF TEXAS,
I, , do solemnly swear (or affirm), that I will faithfully execute the duties of the office of  [title] of
the State of Texas, and will to the best of my ability preserve, protect, and defend the Constitution and laws of the United States and of this State, so help me God.

That would be nice.

We deserve better

Brutus

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

No cures today

January 2, 2015

The Times finally got around to writing a piece about our county hospital and the failing grade that the folks at Medicare gave them.

Some of you might not have emerged from the fog caused by the new year  celebrations so let us help translate the article.

You should be able to see what is coming when you read the sub-title of the article:

“UMC officials say penalty may reflect challenge of treating the unisured and very ill”– In other words UMC is different than other hospitals.  Our patients are sick, they are dirty, they are poor.

Then the damage control continues:

“University Medical Center officials, who were notified last week about the penalty related to “hospital-acquired conditions,” on Monday confirmed that the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) reduction will amount to 1 percent of the hospital’s total Medicare payment for fiscal year 2014-2015, which began Oct. 1.”–  We didn’t know about this when we gave out those bonuses earlier this year although the report is for problems that occurred last year.

“We may appeal the penalty once we complete the review,” said Javier Gonzalez, UMC’s director of quality management. “This is a new program, and this has never happened before.”– This isn’t fair, we didn’t know that we were supposed to make patients well, not make them sicker.

“UMC officials said they believe the penalty may reflect the kind of patients that the teaching hospital is likely to treat.”– Only really horrible people go to teaching hospitals.

“They’re so sick when they come to us that they require prolonged hospitalizations, which studies have shown can lead to hospital-acquired infections or conditions (HAC’s),” Garcia said. “Our trauma patients arrive with deep wounds, multiple fractures, and they might develop blood clots and require multiple surgeries.”– We don’t know what to do.  How did the other thousands of hospitals in the study avoid these problems?  Bellevue in New York received a passing grade.

“UMC officials said the Medicare penalty involved potentially 18 out of 33,598 patients between January 2012 and December 2013 that reportedly developed serious complications.”– We didn’t hurt that many people.

“Garcia said that UMC will review the concerns that federal regulators identified to determine if there are any root causes that the hospital needs to address, such as staff training to include nurses and doctors.”– We might not change anything, this will probably blow over.  Besides we can always make up for the revenue loss by raising taxes.

“Gonzalez said, “We will continue to deliver unparalleled care and remarkable patient outcomes.””– Please don’t continue.  Unparalleled?  Remarkable?  Being one of only a dozen or so hospitals out of thousands to receive the worst possible score is certainly unparalleled and remarkable.

“Lorena Navedo, UMC executive chief of staff, said the American Hospital Association and Dr. Ashish Jha, an expert at the Harvard School of Public Health, assert that teaching hospitals and others hospitals that treat the sickest patients were disproportionately hit with Medicare penalties for HAC’s.”– Our doctors are just trainees, you are the one that decided to use amateurs.

“The American Hospital Association said the HAC Reduction Program is “a poorly designed policy that unfairly penalizes hospitals that care for the sickest patients,” and urged the CMS to consider changes in its scoring methods.”– There are over 1,000 teaching hospitals in the United States.  Only a dozen or so hospitals scored as badly as our hospital, and not all of the dozen are teaching hospitals.

Our public relations person at the county hospital recently left.  Could the Times reporter be auditioning for the job?

We deserve better

Brutus

 

1 Comment | County Government, El Paso Times, Federal Government | Permalink
Posted by Brutus

Nor any drop to drink

January 1, 2015

We start off the new year with a post from a new (to us) author Helen Marshall but not until we take the opportunity to wish you a healthy and prosperous new year and to thank all of you for your involvement.

 

What, us worry?

The Times has recently printed a series of articles that described various aspects of the drought facing the region and questions of how to continue supplying adequate water to the city. El Paso Water Utilities has also embarked on a campaign to convince us that, while water supply is not a simple matter any longer, “purified water” – i.e., recycled sewage – along with water piped from Hudspeth County, will ensure “Water Forever” as the EPWU slogan has it.

UTEP Economics professor Tom Fullerton ran a three-pronged offense over the weekend of December 27-18, to reassure everyone that “EPWU has met the challenge of providing quality water services in El Paso’s desert environment while operating efficient, reliable facilities that keep pace with the city’s growth. . [P]rudent management, continued planning, and innovative technologies will yield long-term solutions that benefit the local economy, environment, and quality of life.”

All three local papers printed his column, a first as far as this writer knows. Readers presumably are reassured that El Paso can continue growing, and water will be provided (at a reasonable price, yet!).

While the EPWU has indeed led the way on conservation in Texas and the region, we have yet to hear how much growth we can continue to shove into the Paso del Norte (where the neighboring city uses the same aquifer), regardless of the projected continuing drought. (Fullerton does not address the river that is missing for much of the year as its waters largely disappear into the pecan farms and cotton fields.) How much water is being removed from the aquifers and not returned now? How much worse will this be when we are drinking our “recycled water” rather than using it for recharge? As we carpet the desert with impermeable parking lots and structures, how much worse does the flooding problem become? Perhaps we must just learn to live next to the Big Ditch and not worry about that part of our quality of life. And the good news is that there will be an ever-larger supply of attendees for the Ballpark!

If we buy this story, do we deserve better?

http://www.elpasotimes.com/water

http://www.elpasoinc.com/news/local_news/article_a436c3ca-8f76-11e4-aa76-c3ace90cf2e0.html

http://www.elpasotimes.com/opinion/ci_27217287/el-paso-water-utilities-is-planning-leader

http://diario.mx/Opinion_El_Paso/2014-12-27_521b96a7/epwu-la-eficiencia-en-el-desierto/

 

12 Comments | Ball park, City government, County Government, El Paso Inc., El Paso Times | Permalink
Posted by Brutus

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