Power play?

February 27, 2014

There must be more to the story of our county hospital awarding an anesthesia services contract to someone other than the incumbent, our new medical school.

People at Texas Tech are claiming that they will now close the anesthesiology department and will stop providing clinical services through their local clinics.

The hospital board has seven members.  The vote was 5-2 in favor of hiring the New York based firm.  The two votes against the change have significant ties to the local money powers.

More interesting is that chairman and vice-chairman were the two negative votes.  They seem to have lost control of the board.

Is a message being sent by the hospital board to Texas Tech?  There has been talk about a new hospital on the west side that would be affiliated with Texas Tech.  The hospital is building clinics around town that are competitive to Texas Tech’s.

Is this about money, quality of service, or power?

The article in the Times certainly did not tell us.

We deserve better

Brutus

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

Land grab

February 26, 2014

Word has leaked out that the powers that be over at the El Paso Independent School District are working on plans to close Jefferson High School.

They aren’t ready to say that yet.  What they are saying is that it appears that they can save money by combining Jefferson and Bowie.

I just don’t see the Bowie alumni quietly allowing Bowie to merge into Jefferson.  Look for an active program from this group to avoid losing the Bowie name.

Besides, the Jefferson campus is what they are really after.  The combination of our medical school, ever growing county hospital, and the Medical Center of the Americas will probably somehow take possession of the land.

Having the state take over the elected school board and replacing it with a politically appointed board of managers provides the opportunity for Jefferson to get axed without the school board having to face the wrath of the voters.

The board of managers continuing to remain in power is beginning to make sense.  The scandal over student grade levels is over.  The board of managers does not seem to be doing anything constructive.  It looks like they continue to exist so that changes like axing Jefferson and building a new central office can be forced on us by a group that does not have to answer to the voters.

We deserve better

Brutus

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

More taxes

February 20, 2014

It seems that paying taxes to governments does not entitle us to get what we pay for.

The El Paso Times reported that the city of El Paso will pay $1.5 million dollars over 3 years to the feral government.  The money is to be used to pay salaries and overtime so that more agents can staff the ports of entry.

According to the article, the goal is to reduce waiting times on the bridges to “15 minutes and no more that 30 minutes”.  I have difficulty believing what the Times publishes especially when in the same article they wrote “City officials said last year that 2.6 vehicles crossed El Paso bridges.”

Not the point

The Times’ sloppy publishing is not my point.  Rather, why do we have to pay extra here?

Trashy

Similarly, why do downtown property owners have to pay the Downtown Management District to handle “sanitation and security” when the city is supposed to do that for them?  Recently the district has been involved in a controversy over a process that would allow them to double the taxes on members over a period of years.

Lucky us

The Texas legislature does not seem to want to pay to fund new roads in El Paso that some think are necessary.  Our city council formed the Camino Real Regional Mobility Authority whose purpose essentially is to raise money to fund transportation projects.  Our money.

Coming soon?

Might we see Neighborhood Investment Tax Watching Interior Transportation (NITWIT) zones soon?  These zones could impose an extra tax on individual neighborhoods to fund fixing our local streets.

We deserve better

Brutus

1 Comment | City government, County Government, El Paso Independent School District, Federal Government, State Government | Permalink
Posted by Brutus

Too true

February 3, 2014

Brutus wrote about the city manager’s recent speech to a group downtown in City manager speaks of “undue tax burden”.

I followed the link to the El Paso Times article and read that she had said something else disturbing to me:

 “Some times you have people who have really great visions and are really forward thinking and sometimes they are a little ahead of their time and they push the envelop a little to [sic] far and a little too fast. But you have to do that to make change. We did a lot of really great things and I am really proud to be a part of the organization and the community.”

Too far, too fast

I googled “define too” and got this definition: “to a higher degree than is desirable, permissible, or possible; excessively“.

In other words more than they should have.

Try these explanations  and see what you get:

“Officer, I wasn’t speeding too much”.

“I didn’t steal too much”.

“I didn’t mean to hurt you too badly”.

Proud

It seems that her quote may define her administration.  I think she was saying that the end justifies the means.

That is precisely how we get out of control governments.

Eternal vigilance is the price of liberty.

Cato

 

2 Comments | City government, County Government, El Paso Independent School District, El Paso Times, Federal Government, State Government | Permalink
Posted by Cato

City manager speaks of “undue tax burden”

January 31, 2014

The Times wrote an article about a recent speech the city manager gave.  You can read it here.

She spoke of a “game plan” that is in place.   According to her the voters approved it.  I missed that election.  The Times quoted the city manager as saying:

“So part of it is just figuring out how to execute it, how to executed [sic] it successfully without putting an undue tax burden on the residents and working with the mayor and council on their strategic vision on creating wealth and jobs.”

Undue tax burden

Top of the list is an earlier post that explained that property owners in El Paso had the 4th highest property taxes among the nation’s 50 largest cities in 2012.

At what point would she consider our taxes to be too high?

We deserve better

Brutus

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

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