El Paso Inc. published this article Sunday (11/25/2012) about tearing down city hall.
A previous post City Hall Relocation pointed out that the city was telling us before the bond issue that the cost of relocating city hall was about $33 million.
At that point the costs that City Council had agreed to were at $37 million without relocation costs or land renovation.
The article yesterday pointed out a problem with emergency communication equipment being in the building. They were interviewing the City Engineer who has evidently stepped out of that job temporarily to become “project engineer for the stadium project” and wrote:
- “The city is modernizing and replacing much of its public safety communication system but the current system atop City Hall will have to continue operating.”
- “The intent is to have it up and running before we tear this building down, which means the current system will still be in the building when we implode it,” he said.
Let’s think about this. They plan to leave the old communication system in the building when they tear it down. Are they going to run the old system up until the moment of the implosion? I doubt it. I wonder what the salvage value of the old system is and why they do not take the issue to the open market. Oh–that would require bidding–something that the City has a lot of trouble with.
City Council has already agreed to obtain the new system for a mere 20 million dollars. They have also agreed to buy a new 6.9 million dollar phone system.
Let’s do the arithmetic:
- $11.8 million for 801 Texas Street
- $13.7 million to renovate the Luther building
- $11.5 million for the El Paso Times building and parking lots
- $20 million for the new emergency radio system
- $6.9 million for a new for a new phone system
So now we are at 63.9 million dollars and still have not paid for relocation or land renovation or whatever else comes up. Where did they come up with the 33 million dollar figure?
Are they lying to us or are they incompetent? Either way we need new management.
We deserve better!
Posted by jcurrey 
elpasospeak 