Too true

February 3, 2014

Brutus wrote about the city manager’s recent speech to a group downtown in City manager speaks of “undue tax burden”.

I followed the link to the El Paso Times article and read that she had said something else disturbing to me:

 “Some times you have people who have really great visions and are really forward thinking and sometimes they are a little ahead of their time and they push the envelop a little to [sic] far and a little too fast. But you have to do that to make change. We did a lot of really great things and I am really proud to be a part of the organization and the community.”

Too far, too fast

I googled “define too” and got this definition: “to a higher degree than is desirable, permissible, or possible; excessively“.

In other words more than they should have.

Try these explanations  and see what you get:

“Officer, I wasn’t speeding too much”.

“I didn’t steal too much”.

“I didn’t mean to hurt you too badly”.

Proud

It seems that her quote may define her administration.  I think she was saying that the end justifies the means.

That is precisely how we get out of control governments.

Eternal vigilance is the price of liberty.

Cato

 

2 Comments | City government, County Government, El Paso Independent School District, El Paso Times, Federal Government, State Government | Permalink
Posted by Cato

Trying to solve the equation

February 1, 2014

I’m confused.

Last week we saw several local school superintendents sign a document asking the state board of education to reinstate algebra II as a high school graduation requirement state-wide.

According to a state official, the local districts have the right to continue to require the course.  Evidently local districts can stipulate more stringent graduation requirements than the state does.

If that is the case, then what’s the problem?  The local districts can simply elect to continue to make the course a graduation requirement.  Reading the Times did not clear up the matter for me.

Is this somehow about money?

We deserve better

Brutus

1 Comment | El Paso Independent School District, El Paso Times, State Government | Permalink
Posted by Brutus

City manager speaks of “undue tax burden”

January 31, 2014

The Times wrote an article about a recent speech the city manager gave.  You can read it here.

She spoke of a “game plan” that is in place.   According to her the voters approved it.  I missed that election.  The Times quoted the city manager as saying:

“So part of it is just figuring out how to execute it, how to executed [sic] it successfully without putting an undue tax burden on the residents and working with the mayor and council on their strategic vision on creating wealth and jobs.”

Undue tax burden

Top of the list is an earlier post that explained that property owners in El Paso had the 4th highest property taxes among the nation’s 50 largest cities in 2012.

At what point would she consider our taxes to be too high?

We deserve better

Brutus

5 Comments | City government, County Government, El Paso Independent School District | Permalink
Posted by Brutus

Lied to again

January 30, 2014

According to this post from KTSM our EPISD board of non-elected managers has decided to play fast with more of our money.

In 2007 the voters in the district approved a bond issue that included almost $49 million for a new high school in the northeast.   As it turns out the district has decided that it will not need the high school for now.

Rather than not spending the money it seems that the board has decided to “reallocate” it to other projects.  Among the projects:

A stadium for Franklin High.  Currently Franklin has to share a stadium with Coronado High.  It seems to be working but some think that it is not fair to deprive Franklin.  I do.  If we have to spend the money why spend it on facilities that are in fact luxuries when the money could be better spent on educating our children?

A stadium for Jefferson High.  Jefferson opened in 1949.  Talk about deprived.

Andress High will get a 1,000 seat theater for $10 million.  The Plaza Theater seats 2,500.

Irvin High will get about $17 million worth of roofs, windows, and heating and cooling.  I guess maintaining systems is now a capital project.

The original bond issue was for $240 million.  The $57.9 million that they have just reallocated is 24% of the original number.

Trust

I did not vote for this and neither did anyone else when they cast their bond issue ballot.

It is however not a new trick.  As I recall the voters approved a new westside high school 30 or 40 years ago.  The school never got built so the district used the money for other things.  Eventually when the new high school was needed a new bond issue was floated and we finally got Franklin High.

What happened to the bond committee?  Are they still active?

How can we trust these people when they ask for money for a set of projects and once they have it use it for other things?

Please explain to me how this board of managers is better than what we had.

We deserve better

Brutus

24 Comments | El Paso Independent School District | Permalink
Posted by Brutus

Timely irony

January 28, 2014

I don’t bring you good news today, in fact to me this is sad.

Brutus let me know that one of our alert readers had spotted the same editorial in two different newspapers.

The El Paso Times published this editorial Sunday January 26, 2014.  I am including the screen shot below just in case the Times somehow has difficulty with the web link sometime in the future:

cheatingeditorial

The Dallas Morning News originally published the editorial three days earlier on January 23, 2014.  I had to break their editorial into the two screen shots below because of their picture:

dallascheating

dallascheating2

The El Paso Times did not attribute the editorial to the Dallas newspaper.  They ran it under their byline “El Paso Times Editorial Board”.

Isn’t that plagiarism?  Aren’t we taught that plagiarism is cheating? Who are they to point their finger about cheating?

To me this is a new low for the Times.

I should have asked Brutus to write about this because we deserve better.

Muckraker

47 Comments | El Paso Independent School District, El Paso Times | Permalink
Posted by Muckraker

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