What’s good for the goose

February 28, 2014

This El Paso Times editorial talked about the recent revelation that the El Paso Independent School District is considering closing some schools.

The Times pointed out that while the EPISD student population is approximately the same as it was 25 years ago, the district has added 3.7 million square feet of buildings in that period of time.

The district tells us that changing population concentrations have been the cause of the building spree.  That is partially true.

The Times insists that the public must be involved in the planned changes.  They wrote “The discussion must start now and must be frank and transparent”.

Frankly

Most of us probably agree with the Times on this.  Frankly we would have liked for the issue of tearing down city hall to have had public involvement and been frank and transparent.

The Times did not call for that.  We know why.

We deserve better

Brutus

8 Comments | City government, El Paso Independent School District, 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

Trying to shift the blame

February 25, 2014

The commotion over the mistakenly sent email that disclosed that EPISD is considering closing some schools is telling us a lot about our new superintendent of schools.

Alex Hinojosa wrote  in an El Paso Times article:

When the email was mistakenly sent to the news media, district officials asked news outlets to not move forward with the story, with the promise that Cabrera [the superintendent]  would speak with them.

Cabrera said he changed his mind about meeting with news outlets Wednesday. Instead, the district sent out a news release Thursday explaining that the details of the email were part of brainstorming sessions to explore cost-saving options.

“I changed my mind because as I thought about it more and more, I thought it wasn’t fair to print a story that was a brainstorming session,” Cabrera said. “I thought it was unprofessional to do a story based on brainstorming notes.”

Unprofessional

KFOX received the mistakenly sent email.  The district asked KFOX to sit on it until the superintendent spoke with them.  KFOX complied with the request to hold off.  The superintendent renigged.  Then the district tried to make KFOX look like the bad guys.

It is our superintendent that has been unprofessional here.  This adds to the stories I am hearing that he does not return phone calls and cancels in person meetings while the parties are sitting in his waiting room.

Speaking of professionalism, personally I’d like to see him wearing a coat and tie when he is conducting our school district business.

Public information officer

As for the district public information officer who accidentally sent the email, there are some mistakes that you just should not make.  This is one of them.

We deserve better

Brutus

6 Comments | El Paso Independent School District, El Paso Times | 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

Overstepping his authority

February 14, 2014

The chairman of the El Paso Independent School District 2007 Bond Accountability Advisory Committee recently wrote a guest column for the El Paso Times.  You can read it here.

The chairman tried to explain why his committee recommended taking $57 million that was allocated to a new high school in the northeast and spending it on other things.

The district’s voters approved a $230 million dollar program that was to fund specific projects.  This is the district’s list of those projects.

The chairman evidently feels that the voters gave the district $230 million to spend as they please.  We did not.  We gave the district permission to spend the money on specific projects.

As an example, if the proposed project list had included $100 million to build a private country club for the school board the bond issue probably would not have passed.

Forgetting his place

The bond committee has a charter.  This is part of the charter:

The Committee is also charged with oversight of the 2007 Bond budget in order to assure that bond proceeds are expended in a manner consistent with the budget.

The charter does not say that they are charged with oversight of the bond budget as amended by the school board with whatever changes they decide that they want.

Violated

Many of us voters were made more comfortable with the bond issue since a committee of taxpayers would see to it that the school district spent the money they way it was sold to us.

Now it turns out that the oversight committee has as little respect for the voters as the politicians do.

How can we trust the bond process?

We deserve better

Brutus

1 Comment | El Paso Independent School District | Permalink
Posted by Brutus

« Previous Entries
Next Entries »