Insider’s club

September 5, 2013

We learned last week that our former mayor intended to be a lobbyist for a downtown hotel owner.

The owner is himself a former city representative.  He stepped up and rescued a vacant hotel and ended up with a fine property, a credit to the city and to downtown.

Evidently remodeling the old hotel was not feasible without tax breaks from local government.  Those breaks are worth several million dollars.

This all transpired while our former mayor was either a city representative or mayor.  The property was the subject of multiple actions by both the city council and county commissioners.  Agreements made by the hotel had to be renegotiated because the terms were not favorable enough for the hotel to operate.

Nothing here is necessarily out of the ordinary.  The city and the county give  tax allowances to make it more practical for investors to take on projects.

What is unusual here is that the former mayor and the hotel owner (who is a lawyer) should have known that the mayor could not lobby for the hotel owner.  City ordinance prohibits it.  In fact it is a city ordinance that the former mayor himself signed.   Another blog has written that the former mayor was warned by city staff that his activities would be illegal.  The mayor chose to try to address city council anyway.

What for?

It seems that the hotel owner wants to build another hotel downtown.  I guess he wants more incentives so he  hired a lobbyist, someone who could get things done.

The money is tight but with the help of local government he might be able to build another hotel.

Did I point out that his current hotel is right by the ballpark?  The city’s webcam sits on the hotel and provides images of the ball park as it is being built.

Triple A players make less money than players in the majors, but major league players often play in Triple A games while rehabilitating from injuries.  I doubt that they will stay in a dump.

Could this insider have been part of the ball park cabal?

Just the right place

Word on the street is that the buildings the city is remodeling and moving into are to be temporary.  Some say the city manager wants a “municipal complex”.  There is now talk about tearing down the downtown jail.  Don’t be surprised if the new city hall goes on that site.

How about the hotel?  Where would it go?

Maybe they will tear down our new city hall.  Don’t scoff, they torn down the old one.

We deserve better

Brutus

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

Exceeding the others again

September 4, 2013

El Paso’s county commissioners just added another $10 to the annual cost of registering a vehicle in El Paso county.

Highest again

The fee in 2014 will be $20, the highest in the state.  You can look at this chart to see rates by county in 2013.

FeeChart_1C (2)

We can thank our state senator and our local state representative who serves on the transportation committee for this.  They worked to amend house bill 1198 to add El Paso county to the prior list of Cameron, Hidalgo and Webb counties.  These lucky four counties are the only ones that can charge their citizens the extra $10 under this bill.

Wrong Again

One of the county commissioners claims that this is a benefit to property owners since some people do not pay property tax.  The truth is that if you pay rent your landlord must pay property tax.  That tax is passed on to you as part of your rent payment.

The increase in the fee is a tax increase.  The county pays for transportation projects now.  The over $30 million that the fee increase is expected to raise in the next five years would have otherwise come out of the regular budget.

Not accountable

To make matters even worse, the county intends to turn the money over to the Camino Real Regional Mobility Authority.  Remember that in another power grab there are plans to turn control of our international bridges to this group.

This group is composed of appointed citizens.  They are not accountable to the voters.  Local politicians have found another way to take control of how our money is spent away from the voters and transfer it to a committee that cannot be held accountable by the voters.

According to the city’s web site the duties of the the group are:  “…to directly benefit the State of Texas, The City of El Paso, and the traveling public through the improvement of the state’s transportation systems in and around the City of El Paso”.

That mission statement deserves another post at a later time.

We deserve better

Brutus

1 Comment | City government, County Government, State Government | Permalink
Posted by Brutus

Top of the list

September 3, 2013

If paying high property taxes is your goal, El Paso is the place to be.

Getting Better

In For whom the bill tolls we saw that El Paso was the 6th most expensive city for property taxes on a $150,000 home among the largest 50 cities in the country for the year 2009.

We saw us getting closer to first place with a 2011 rating of 5th place.

These numbers come from the Minnesota Center for Fiscal Excellence.  The issues of state income tax, average home values, and commercial taxation were covered in For whom the bill tolls.

And better

The 2012 numbers are out.  El Paso now ranks as the 4th most expensive city  using that same ranking study.

If our goal is to get to the top of that list we are well on our way.  We’ve steadily gotten higher on the list, going from 6th place to 5th and then to 4th.

More to come

The 2012 numbers are before demolishing city hall, remodeling new buildings for city staff, building the ballpark, building new hospital clinics, and the quality of life bonds we passed last year.

Wait until next year

We are seeing the local governments come forward with public and hidden tax increases.  If the cities above us on the list don’t get to work and raise more taxes it looks like we can get to the number 3 spot for 2013.

This 2011 US News and World Report article puts the 2009 median household income for El Paso as next to last among US metropolitan areas of 500,000 people or more.

We deserve better

Brutus

2 Comments | Ball park, City government, County Government, El Paso Independent School District, State Government | Permalink
Posted by Brutus

Editorial earthquake

September 2, 2013

The El Paso Times editorial of September 1, 2013  “Property tax path not sustainable” is remarkable.

The editorial points out “That increasing tax burden on homeowners is simply not sustainable.  That $600 increase over the past decade was money that homeowners couldn’t spend on major purchases or for their children’s education.  The tax increases have increased hardships on tens of thousands of families.”

Has something changed?

Does the Times suddenly really care about education?

I’m trying to figure out what the Times’ position is.  They  have supported the public spending spree we are witnessing, yet now they are saying that we cannot afford it.  These explanations come to mind:

  • They think that we need to stop the capital spending for a while.  After all we have already bailed them out of the building they could not afford as part of the city hall destruction, ball park construction, temporary city facilities binge that has cost us well over 120 million dollars so far.  Yes we tore down our children’s science museum and have no plans on the drawing board to replace it in the next three years, but all in all it is time to curtail the spending.
  • Somehow they did not know that the public works spending would increase taxes.  The editors recently learned that in order for governments to spend money they must collect taxes and fees.  Now they have learned and realize that their rent is going to increase.
  • They have decided to take their own advice.  They wrote “First, the public should not stand for grandstanding on tax and spending issues…If an elected official is going to oppose tax increases, he or she also must identify specific spending reductions.  El Paso cannot afford politicians who pander to various constituencies by supporting spending increases on the one hand while opposing taxes on the other.”  The same goes for newspapers.
  • September 1 in the newspaper world is like April 1 for the rest of us.

The editorial goes on to advise “Additionally, the governments should join together for taxpayer town halls, where the community can help identify spending priorities — and identify areas where local governments might cut back.”

Town halls?

Really?  In a community where city council denied the citizens the right to have an election that they called for by petition?  In a community where both city council and the El Paso Independent School District board of managers rearranged their agendas to make it more difficult for members of the public to be heard?  In a community where city council has been spending tax payer money to deny public information requests that the attorney general of Texas wrote must be released?  When we have a city manager who praises a city representative for being thoughtful and deliberate even though she considers her constituents?

Crazy ideas

In the spirit of the Times’ suggestion let me offer just a few ideas  that the average “crazy” in town might offer:

  • Don’t finish the Luther building.  The city IT department is located somewhere else and we have not heard that it is not capable of functioning.  There is already talk of building a new “municipal complex” in the next few years, thus wasting the money we are spending moving into temporary quarters.
  • Build one new health clinic.  The CEO of our county hospital told us that we would save 17 million dollars each year in emergency room costs if we built 150 million dollars worth of clinics.  Why not build one clinic, see if the apportionate savings materialize and then use the savings to build the next clinic?
  • Don’t let the city make the school district move their administration building, thus costing us at least 40 million dollars.
  • Stop supporting athletics programs at the community college
  • Stop the financing.  Start using the savings from one project to fund the next one.
  • Stop transferring the administration of public spending to non-elected groups like the Camino Real Regional Mobility Authority.
  • Get administrators in our local governments that care about the taxpayers.

Feel free to contribute your ideas through the comments mechanism of this blog.  We may not be a town hall but at least your ideas will be shared with the public.

I read the post that Brutus will publish tomorrow.  Don’t miss it.  Our situation is not improving.

Eternal vigilance is the cost of liberty.

Cato

1 Comment | City government, County Government, El Paso Independent School District, El Paso Times, Uncategorized | Permalink
Posted by Cato

Jail for the birds

August 28, 2013

Now the county has begun discussions about building a new jail facility to replace the one downtown.

According to newspaper reports the downtown jail costs about 26 dollars a day more to run per bed than the jail annex in far east El Paso.

Cost estimates for a new jail are not available yet.  Hopefully no one will ask the city chief financial officer.

If a new jail is built, what will happen to the old one?

Will they downsize it and open a few floors for other purposes?  There might be some advantages to creating cells for our local officials who end up getting sentenced to jail.  Maybe we could house them in the vacated sections so that they can serve their time while still holding office hours.

My guess is that the old jail will have to be torn down — after all it cannot possibly be made usable as anything other than a jail, we will be told.

Remember that after the public calms down about the ballpark and the wasteful move of city hall we will have to face the fact that city officials have told us that their plan is to move city functions to temporary facilities while plans are drawn up for a new municipal complex closer to the “government corridor”.

Yes, the plan is to tear down the old city hall first.  We all know that they have done that already.  Then they will refurbish a few old buildings downtown as temporary quarters for city functions.  They are doing that now.

After the dust has settled they plan to try to build yet another city hall closer to the county and feral  buildings downtown.  After all it is more efficient to have everyone in the same building.

What about the buildings that we are remodeling?  Those will be sold to developers who will then profit from our remodeling.  I wonder who in town has the money to buy those buildings?

Where oh where?

Don’t be surprised to find that the land under the current county jail turns out to be the site they propose for the new city complex.

We deserve better

Brutus

2 Comments | Ball park, City government, County Government, Federal Government, State Government | Permalink
Posted by Brutus

« Previous Entries
Next Entries »