Unbelievable

May 20, 2016

EPISD just lost some votes for their upcoming $400 million bond election.

The former chief financial officer of the City of El Paso has just joined EPISD as deputy superintendent of finance and operations.

Our new deputy superintendent was intricately involved in providing the financial analyses for the ball park and the demolition and moving of city hall.  The projects have been completed and her numbers were grossly wrong.

Now EPISD has put her in a position to mishandle bond funds if the district can convince the voters to approve them.

There is also an ethics problem here in my opinion.  She was on the state-appointed board of managers of the district up until May of last year.  Now she is becoming an employee.  Did she make decisions while on the board that facilitated her hiring?  I don’t know but many people have different standards than her and believe that she should avoid even the appearance of impropriety.

From the Texas Education Code:

Sec. A11.063.AA  ELIGIBILITY FOR EMPLOYMENT. A trustee of an independent school district may not accept employment with that school district until the first anniversary of the date the trustee ’s membership on the board ends.

The state-appointed board of managers stepped down May 18, 2015.  She started at the district May 18, 2016 according to the Times.  Couldn’t she have waited one more day?

This does not bode well for the bond project.

We deserve better

Brutus

17 Comments | Ball park, City government, El Paso Independent School District, El Paso Times | Permalink
Posted by Brutus

Awkward Times

May 11, 2016

Our congratulations to Jim Tolbert, the newly elected city representative.

The Times again showed how their views differ from those of the public.

Landslide

In a race with 8 candidates Mr. Tolbert took 59 percent of the votes.

The candidate that the Times endorsed received 15 percent.

Relevance

Some are asking if the Times is relevant in our community.  They seem to be–the voters look at who the Times endorses and go the other way.

The Times, I ween, is on the wrong side of many issues.

We deserve better

Brutus

 

6 Comments | City government, El Paso Times | Permalink
Posted by Brutus

$10 million that the city says they don’t need

May 10, 2016

When we voted it was called a “Heritage Cultural Center” then it was the “Hispanic Cultural Center” and now it is the “Mexican American Cultural Center”.

We wrote about much of the confusion in Bait and switch, incompetence, or fraud?

What is not confusing however are the financial shenanigans related to the center.

We voted to spend $5.7 million as part of the sometime in the future quality of life bonds.  A group got together and decided that more money is needed.

Last week the city announced that they would allocate another $10 million to the project (relax, that is less than twice what we were told it would cost).

The Times recently wrote that our city manager said “No city services will be affected”.

Baloney!

We evidently have so much mismanaged debt that city staff can find $10 million for a project just by refinancing debt.  The Times article did not tell us whether the refinancing is going to save money because of lower interest rates or because of extended payment terms.

The simple fact is that the $10 million could be used for many other things.  We could pay down debt.  We could pave a few roads.  We could … (reader suggestions are welcome).

We deserve better

Brutus

8 Comments | County Government, El Paso Times | Permalink
Posted by Brutus

Privacy of what we read

May 4, 2016

For the record after many calls, attempted calls, and web sessions the Times is finally delivering a print copy to me.

I notice that the content on the electronic site is sometimes different from the print version.

Some of our readers will probably tell me that I am out of date for saying that I don’t like the idea of the Times selling information about what I read from the electronic version when I have paid for the content.

Contrary to what the so-called Patriot Act allows I don’t believe that any government has the right to know what I have been reading.

We deserve better

Brutus

1 Comment | El Paso Times, Federal Government | Permalink
Posted by Brutus

Emphasis added

May 1, 2016

Would someone please consider donating some black ink to the Times?

They must be short after running two black front pages last week.

I guess that was their idea of coverage.

We deserve better

Brutus

Leave a Comment » | El Paso Times | Permalink
Posted by Brutus

« Previous Entries
Next Entries »