Insider?

March 22, 2016

Over the last week, Max Powers discussed El Paso Times coverage of Marissa Marquez’ lobbying gig, while the paper has neglected to report on other elected officials, who also may have conflicts between their elected position and their private gigs.

I’ll add one more case to the discussion, although it doesn’t involve an elected official – Bryan Crowe. Crowe serves as the the City of El Paso’s Managing Director for the Quality of Life departments and a member of the City Manager’s Executive Leadership Team. Yet, formally, he is employed by SMG – a firm based in suburban Philadelphia, contracted to manage El Paso’s convention center.

The potential conflict – SMG is likely to apply to manage the city’s soon to be built “Multipurpose cultural and performing arts center” (re: the arena). The city currently has an open RFP for these services. One would presume that the Managing Director for the Quality of Life departments would be involved in the selection process.

I wonder why the El Paso Times spent such print space questioning Marquez, but has not discussed the potential SMG/Crowe conflict of interest. … Or, the other potential conflicts discussed by Mr. Powers.

Not sure what we deserve.

Caligula’s Nephew

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

Paper or electronic?

March 19, 2016

The Times has been very good in their recent efforts to inform us of their new non-privacy policy, invasive as it is.  From their notice:

2. We may use and share information that you provide, or that we collect and store, including emails and other personal information.

  • Use: We may email or mail you communications, including promotional messages, using the contact information we collect while you are using the Services.
  • Sharing: We may share information we collect and store while you are using the Services or other sites with affiliates, service providers, and third party advertising service providers for their own use, including advertising and sending promotional messages.

3. In connection with ad serving and ad targeting on our Services, we notify you that in some cases, device identifying information could be used to identify you personally. 

Personally

Evidently the simple act of reading a portion of the Times via some electronic device will now allow them to provide our personal identification to others.

We deserve better

Brutus

2 Comments | El Paso Times | Permalink
Posted by Brutus

Daily reminder

March 17, 2016

It is hard to ignore the fact that to this day the El Paso Times and the City of El Paso share a building.

The part of the building that used to be the administrative offices of the Times was sold by the newspaper to the city.  Some of us think that the price the city paid was significantly higher than would have been paid in an arm’s length transaction.

The Times wanted to get out of their building so they  sold part of it to the city.  Moving the production facilities was evidently deemed to be too expensive.

So now we have a situation where city executives work with Times personnel in the same building on a daily basis.

If the opprobrium of the many current  city scandals ever goes away we will still have to see our city government and what should be an independent newspaper residing in the same building sharing common financial goals.

We deserve better

Brutus

 

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

The Times is at it again.

March 15, 2016

The Max Powers post the other day about how the Times reported the results of their recent investigation compared to how KVIA reported the results was very telling.

You can read his post here.

We deserve better

Brutus

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

Quit stalling

March 2, 2016

Just when it looks like the local politicos have run out of fingers to point we learn that our former city manager’s attorney is in a dust up with the investigator that the city hired.

The investigator evidently wrote “Ms. Wilson’s legal counsel indicated that she was advising Ms. Wilson not to cooperate with this investigation any further” in his report to the city.

Now according to the Times the former city manager’s attorney has written “I am demanding that you immediately correct your false and malicious statement regarding Ms. Wilson’s position” in a letter to the investigator.

In Pitiful we saw that on November 15, 2015 Ms. Wilson said that she did not purposely delay the sale of the ball park bonds until after the city election.

KVIA exposed her on November 23, 2015 by showing an August 26, 2013 email from her to our city attorney where she outlined the process that led her to delay the sale.

It is hard to believe anything that she says at this point.  The news reports indicate that she says she is not refusing to cooperate with the investigation.  Instead she needs more time.

I don’t know how much time it will take for her to come up with the names of the people who were involved with the delay of the sale of the bonds.  Her August 26, 2013 email already has shown that the former mayor and mayor-pro-tempore “concurred” with the delay.

It seems that she should be able to tell us soon, real soon.

“After that I expect the city to move on”, Wilson said according to the Times article.

Many of us might have said “After that I hope that the city will move on” but in her case she seems to think that she can tell us what to do.

We deserve better

Brutus

 

10 Comments | Ball park, City government, El Paso Times | Permalink
Posted by Brutus

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