Stop the presses!

March 22, 2013

Headline article!

Lawyer Attempts To Contact Congressman, Thinks Client Is Being Abused by Government

To think!  Right here in El Paso!  Thinking about asking your representative for help — of all the things!

Where is law enforcement when you need them?

A current county commissioner says he does not recall any contact.

Extra! Extra! Read all about it!

I would rather the Times write about the school district and it’s lawyer without implicating an ex-congressman and a current county commissioner over something that evidently did not happen and even if it did happen would in itself have been appropriate.

We deserve better

Brutus

Leave a Comment » | County Government, El Paso Independent School District, El Paso Times, Federal Government | Permalink
Posted by Brutus

Reporting and preaching should not go together

March 17, 2013

The following is my opinion:

The El Paso Times published a front-page article today (March 17, 2013) about the first person convicted in one of the public corruption scandals that the Times has chosen to cover.

The guy pleaded guilty to doing some rotten things.  It appears that he did not go to prison.  It looks like he became a stool-pigeon and the general government may have let him off the hook.

I am glad the Times chose to cover the issue.  The article was informative.  It was news.  It was also pious, judgmental, and condescending.

The article was biased throughout.

As an example, they wrote “His surroundings demonstrated that he’d come down in the world since he’d left El Paso.  His office is in a small, humble building next to a vacant grain elevator and across from the Bexar County Detention Center.  The area is dotted with bail-bonds businesses, taco stands, TV and refrigerator-repair shops and “No Trespassing” signs — not exactly the milieu of a big-city power broker.

I guess businesses might be ok but the Times thinks bail bondsmen are pretty low.

I guess restaurants are ok but taco stands are pretty low.

I guess some repair shops are ok but TV and refrigerator ones are pretty low.

I guess the Times thinks that anyone who has a job working for the government is pretty important.  That might explain some obvious things that they are overlooking.

I would appreciate it if the Times would stick to the facts and let the readers draw their own conclusions.

The Times has an editorial page for this kind of commentary.

Eternal vigilance is the price of liberty.

Cato

3 Comments | County Government, El Paso Times, Federal Government | Permalink
Posted by Cato

Shoes dropping

March 7, 2013

The March 5, 2013 city council meeting had an update from the project engineer for the El Paso ball park.

Let me list a few of the items that caught my attention (in the order they were presented):

  • They have already picked the concession firm — out of town company of course — locals need not apply
  • The roof will be shiny copper — they should ask the nuns over at Loretto what happened when they built a chapel that was shiny copper
  • El Paso Electric will have to move their 69,000 volt power lines to run on massive steel poles above Missouri Street — hopefully attractive power poles
  • El Paso Water Utilities will handle the work and pay to redo the water and sewer lines in the area — thankfully that does not add to the cost of the ball park — it simply adds to the cost of our utility bills
  • We need to buy airspace over the railway for people to walk into the ball park
  • It turns out that we do not own all of the city hall site — the Union Pacific railroad owns part of the land and we kind of need to get the deed
  • We evidently were clairvoyant last fall and paid the railroad to conduct various studies (vibration, noise, etc.) that will be needed — once again not part of the project cost, but part of our tax bill
  • We are trying to buy the parking lot that we just leased from the railroad
  • The railroad wants to buy or trade some city land to move the tracks near the Union Station so that the trains can run through town at 40 miles per hour
  • The project manager hopes to have agreements with the railroad ready for city council some time in April. With the scheduled implosion date for city hall in early April it looks like the city is telling the railroad to charge whatever they want since we will be desperate for their cooperation. It would not look good if we could not get the ball park built after tearing down city hall just because we don’t have enoughk land to build the park.
  • The railroad wants to close 10 rail crossings through town. Staff has not been specific about which ones. I doubt that citizen input will have much to do with this since the city desperately needs railroad help to build the ball park
  • One half of Durango street will be closed
  • Santa Fe street will be made smaller
  • Missouri street will have to be changed to one-way going west
  • Total crowd capacity will be near 10,000 counting the multiple types of seating
  • The project manager is confident that traffic will not be a problem. One of the city representatives pointed out that an event he attended at the Plaza Theater with about 2,000 other people turned into a traffic “nightmare”. The city representative cautioned that simultaneous events at the Plaza Theater, the Civic Center, and the ball park would multiply the problems.
  • We are not to worry because the city paid for a traffic study last year in preparation for this project — once again the taxpayers paid for the study, not the hotel occupancy tax that we were told would pay for the project

Many of these points deserve separate articles. I think I will wait for the facts to surface on various ones before I visit them again.

Please vote in May.

We deserve better

Brutus

2 Comments | County Government | Permalink
Posted by Brutus

No community input needed

February 22, 2013

Quality of life

In El Paso the citizens are evidently not smart enough to decide what they need.  That is done for us by city staff and city council.

Here is a refreshing example of what other communities do.  This community sends out 10,000 surveys each year (out of a population of about 680,000 voters).  They ask how satisfied the respondent is with:

  • Economic Opportunities
  • Education System
  • Transportation System
  • Local Government Utilities
  • Presence of Local Government in Our Lives
  • Environmental and Natural Resources
  • Government Services
  • Growth Management
  • Racial, Religious and Ethnic Tolerance
  • Security
  • Healthcare
  • Non-government Social Services
  • Entertainment
  • Neighborhood and Family Support
  • Public Parks and Recreation
  • Affordable Housing
  • Historic Preservation
  • The Arts

It’s called a report card.  The local governments use it to focus on what they should be doing to help improve the community.  We don’t need this in El Paso.  The cabal running the city knows what to do for their own enjoyment.

Actually the city did do some of this when promoting the bond issues.  Their idea was to convince us that they wanted our input.  What they got was a survey box that was stuffed by one or more people and/or organizations.  At some point the city knew the results were rigged.  El Paso Inc. reported the story here.  Did city staff know that over 500 of the responses were in the handwriting of one or two individuals?  How could they not know?  They went ahead and used the rigged results to show us what the “people wanted”.

Then we have the Bond Oversight Advisory Committee that the city created to give us the illusion that we would have a say in the administration of the bond funds.

We deserve better

Brutus

Leave a Comment » | City government, County Government, El Paso Inc., El Paso Independent School District | Permalink
Posted by Brutus

Helping the team

February 7, 2013

In an article Saturday (February 2, 2013) the El Paso Times wrote “A Socorro City Council member was secretly recorded offering Licon Dairy a $40,000 advertising campaign in exchange for its support of the city’s controversial annexation plan that includes part of San Elizario.”  You can read the article here.

In Texas either party to a telephone conversation can record it without notifying the other party.  I doubt the council member recorded it.  That only leaves the dairy guy unless the call was recorded illegally.  That leads me to conclude that it was in effect a setup.  The dairy guy probably led the council member on in order to get the recording and to use it to fight the annexation plan..

The Times makes no mention of any law being broken.  Nothing is said about any law enforcement agency getting involved.  Why would the Times take the bait and write about the recording, thus helping one side and hurting the other?

Is it possible that the real issue here is that the City of Socorro is trying to annex some land that the cabal that is controlling things downtown  doesn’t want them to have?

I’m confused.  How should I categorize the $9.4 million that the City of El Paso paid the owners of the Times recently?  The city got a building and two parking lots for the money.  Did the city get anything else?  How long does a subscription to the “I won’t criticize your government” service cost?  Does the subscription include the Times carrying your water for some period of time?

The Times published a front page article about something that I would rather not have had happen.  So far no one has said the conversation was illegal.

I have high hopes for the Times as an institution that helps us to improve our governments.  I quote Julianne Schultz:  “The assertion by journalists and editors of independence from proprietors and sources is essential if authority for the Fourth Estate is to remain relevant …”.

What about all of the stuff that is happening to us over at the city?  Why won’t the Times write about that?

We deserve better

Brutus

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

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