New weekly in town

July 16, 2014

Reality Checker had the same reaction as I did  when he read the Sunday, July 13, 2014 electronic edition of The El Paso Times.

The publication had one political analysis piece about “White House drug policy” (as if a building can formulate a policy), an article about another unfortunate who was run over by a train, two local interest stories (one about a sandwich shop closing, the other about a pastor trying to raise money), and an article that talked about the use of “bato” and “vato” in Spanish.

There were four sports articles on the front page, with an article about the San Diego chicken being the headline article.

El Paso is the 19th largest city in the United States yet our daily newspaper could not find it in itself provide one in-depth news report about El Paso.  They did not even choose to reprint an article about world news from a news wire.

Weakly or weekly

Maybe they could accumulate the occasional reports that they publish for a week at a time and then publish them all in a single edition.  El Paso already has a weekly publication that many of us enjoy reading.  If the Times did some objective investigative reporting and started to proofread what they publish I might subscribe.

We deserve better

Brutus

 

7 Comments | El Paso Inc., El Paso Times | Permalink
Posted by Brutus

Seventh inning stretch

January 29, 2014

I don’t know where to start.

I guess the old seventh inning stretch common in baseball is taking on a new role in our ball park construction.  It seems to me that someone is stretching the truth.

El Paso Inc. published an article Sunday, January 26, 2014 telling us that the city’s project manager for the ball park is taking a new job with the city’s water utility.

What’s wrong here

As of Tuesday the Times is silent about this.  Dead silent.  How did the much smaller weekly scoop our daily newspaper?  Can this lack of coverage be deliberate?

As the article points out, two weeks ago the project manager was happy to be working out in the field again.

The city says that a finance man will postpone his city retirement for 60 days to manage the completion of the project.  One of the problems with this is that the contract the city signed says that the ball park will not be complete until the end of August.  There has been talk of playing games during the season if the city will grant certain occupancy variances temporarily.

Who will our finance man consult with when dealing with the construction people?  What does he know about construction other than where to sign the check?   Who will be watching the chicken coop?

The city manager was quoted as saying the project was in it’s last quartile.  The article says the project is 70% complete.  The last quarter starts at 75%.  Then again accurate numbers have never been a part of this project.

Where is city council on this?  The water utility is a city department.  Why not tell the project manager that his new job will start when he finishes the ball park?  Do they want him to go?

Why?

Why would the project manager leave an important project like this and leave us in the lurch?

Could it be:

The project manager was in the way?  Was he insisting that corners not be cut?  Will this give the ball team owners more control over how the park is built like they have publicly have asked for?

Is the ship sinking?

The project manager wanted to get out from under the “sharp elbows” of the city manager?

The project manager giving too many interviews and the city wanted him to shut up?

What looked to me like a case study in how not to build a project seems now to be getting even worse.

We deserve better

Brutus

1 Comment | Ball park, City government, El Paso Inc., El Paso Times | Permalink
Posted by Brutus

Some Times

December 31, 2013

The Times complained the other day in an editorial about how our local council of judges “unilaterally” (even though it is their job) raised the rate that court appointed attorneys get paid by the county.  The new rate gives the attorneys $90 per hour while they are in court — less than some plumbers and IT firms charge.

I thought I would look into how the Times has been doing at the public trough.

Various laws require the city to publish notices in local newspapers.  The contract currently being used was bid in 2010.  The one previous to that was bid in 2007.

According to the two documents below the Times circulation dropped between 2007 and 2010.

2007newspaper

2010newspaper

The 2007 city council agenda item gave the city staff permission to spend an estimated $100,000 dollars annually with either of two newspapers, the El Paso Times or El Paso, Inc.

Let’s leave it to your imagination to figure out how city staff decided which newspaper to use.

Incredible

The 2010 contract raised the annual amount to $225,000.  That’s a lot more noticing activity.  I wonder why but doubt that the cause was a doubling of material that had to be published.

Could it be that the extra money bought editorial space?

Why was the editorial written?

Was the editorial another effort to pay someone back?

We deserve better

Brutus

3 Comments | City government, El Paso Inc., El Paso Times | Permalink
Posted by Brutus

Honest mistake?

November 23, 2013

If you eliminate the different policy points of view concerning the downtown management district assessment issue, you do come to one failure that should not be repeated.

To be clear, the executive director of the district has publicly taken responsibility for the mistake.

The district improperly reported that a member petition to raise their assessment had been approved by the proper percentage of property owners.

The result was that the amount assessed against the properties was improperly raised.

El Paso Inc. published this article Sunday, November 10, 2013.  The article might help you understand the policy issues.

Taking responsibility

I believe that the executive director should be applauded for taking responsibility for the mistake.  I also believe that she should see to it that this does not happen again.

We deserve better

Brutus

Leave a Comment » | City government, El Paso Inc. | Permalink
Posted by Brutus

Weekly scoops daily newspaper

November 13, 2013

El Paso Inc. published an informative article last week about how the downtown management district (DMD) may have improperly  doubled the assessment on it’s property owners.

I find it remarkable that a feel-good weekly newspaper scooped our local daily newspaper on an article this important.

My view of the Inc. is that they try hard to celebrate what is good about El Paso and attempt to stay out of reporting with negative articles.  I respect them for that.  They have a business model and the integrity to follow it.

The Times also seems to have a business model.  I think that they pander to the cabal that captured our city government a few years ago.  I don’t see how they can continue down their same path for very long.

Brutus pointed out the other day that it seems that city council is gaining control from city staff.  Our new mayor unfortunately voted to raise taxes with an already bloated budget.

I suspect that his problem was that he was too new to city government finances to do as much as he wanted.  We will have to wait until next year to see if he will be able to do more for us.

It will be interesting to see if the Times changes it’s allegiance to its subscribers or if it continues to pander to the ones that think they know better than the voters.

I would be embarrassed if I was running the only daily newspaper in a city the size of El Paso and got scooped by a weekly that goes out of its way to stay neutral.

Muckraker

8 Comments | City government, El Paso Inc., El Paso Times | Permalink
Posted by Muckraker

« Previous Entries
Next Entries »