Nada In The Times

August 26, 2014

It doesn’t take long to realize that the local blogs are the only place to find out what’s happening in our local government. Several blogs do a good job with some first rate investigative reporting which explains to the “crazies” not only what is going on in El Paso but why.

 

A brief summary of the articles of the blogs will be provided followed by a clickable link for your convenience.

On 8/25/14. Max Powers takes on the Convention Center Hotel situation and discusses options. While on 8/21/2014 he he discusses the N.E. Water-park and the Hawaii Falls proposal along with problems encountered in Dallas with their park.

David K on 8/26/2014 suggests the city is proposing to hire a lobbyist to make up the Budget deficit with Washington money. He looks at the firm and its clients and our position with the firm. Nice twist.

Martin Paredes on 8/26/2014 discusses the D.I.M.S.(D.A. Information Management System). which will come up again today at City Council. This is an old issue that is operative and if you don’t remember, Martin will give you the take on what it is and where it could go wrong. Interesting read.

We deserve good Government.  Knowledge is the Vehicle

 

M. T.  Cicero

1 Comment | City government, County Government, El Paso Times | Permalink
Posted by M.T. Cicero

Voodoo economics?

August 12, 2014

The retired newspaper employee that seems to enjoy reminding us that we were called “crazies” by our former city manager wrote another opinion piece for the Times the other day.

I wonder if he is being paid for his work.  Might it be that he was moved from full time to part time?

This week’s piece addressed the street car system that we are going to get.  His premise was that the real purpose of the system is economic development–it will move tax burden from residents to commercial property owners.

The way I read his article he called us stupid as well as crazy.

I suppose every economic theory can be argued and I am not arguing against the trolley system here.  I think that we would be better served with a different route layout, but I have no illusion that it will operate profitably.

83% discount showed us that Sun Metro loses money every time a passenger boards one of our buses.  Having more passengers might help us but in this case we are adding more capacity before we have the passengers.

Then when we factor in the new rapid transit system (BRIO) that will run up and down Mesa we will have even more vehicles that need to be filled.

The street cars will cost us money to operate.  That money will have to come from taxes.

We deserve better

Brutus

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

No news is not good news

July 20, 2014

The headline article in the Times the other day tells us a lot about their sad state.  Harvey Girls historical group explores El Paso Union Depot told us about a local group that works to preserve the history of some waitresses.

The Harvey Girls were an interesting part of our history.  I am glad to see someone working to preserve their history.  Evidently none of them are alive today so what we had was an article about a history club.

Extra!  Extra! Read all about it!

But the headline article?  Certainly I enjoyed reading it.  However I would have expected to see it in one of the local sections.

Evidently the Times is so hard up for reporting that articles about a chicken from San Diego and a history club have to be promoted to the front page in order to fill the page.

Over the years we have seen the size of the newspaper sheets shrink.  We now see advertising occupying a significant portion of the front page.

What we do not see is much reporting.  Neither do we see articles from the news wires that might tell us about international, national, or state news.  I guess that using articles from those sources would cost money.

On the local scene we have many issues that we might like to learn more about.  That would require the Times reporters doing research instead of printing press releases for our local institutions.

We deserve better

Brutus

3 Comments | El Paso Times | Permalink
Posted by Brutus

Secret deals

July 17, 2014

We learned from El Paso, Inc. the other day that our city’s chief financial officer has been in masquerade since September of 2012.

Evidently our former city manager promoted the chief financial officer to the position of deputy city manager back then.

She chose to keep her lesser title.

Why?

Her behavior on this issue is inconsistent with her past penchant for publicity.  The Times has written several highly favorable articles about her star rising.  We frequently see her smiling face in a photograph while wearing the same basically black color scheme.  Hiding her candle under a bushel is not one of her attributes.

Then why have both she and the city kept her promotion secret?  Could it be that back in September of 2012 us “crazies” were reeling from the staggeringly wrong estimates that she gave us on the ball park, the city hall move, and revenue projections?  Could it be that we would have objected if we had known?

Was this part of a payoff to get her to continue to publish misleading financial projections?

Deceitful

Don’t we have the right to know the true position and rank of our public officials?  What does this say about our former city manager and her?  What other deals have been made that are being kept secret?

Can we believe anything that they have said?

We deserve better

Brutus

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

New weekly in town

July 16, 2014

Reality Checker had the same reaction as I did  when he read the Sunday, July 13, 2014 electronic edition of The El Paso Times.

The publication had one political analysis piece about “White House drug policy” (as if a building can formulate a policy), an article about another unfortunate who was run over by a train, two local interest stories (one about a sandwich shop closing, the other about a pastor trying to raise money), and an article that talked about the use of “bato” and “vato” in Spanish.

There were four sports articles on the front page, with an article about the San Diego chicken being the headline article.

El Paso is the 19th largest city in the United States yet our daily newspaper could not find it in itself provide one in-depth news report about El Paso.  They did not even choose to reprint an article about world news from a news wire.

Weakly or weekly

Maybe they could accumulate the occasional reports that they publish for a week at a time and then publish them all in a single edition.  El Paso already has a weekly publication that many of us enjoy reading.  If the Times did some objective investigative reporting and started to proofread what they publish I might subscribe.

We deserve better

Brutus

 

7 Comments | El Paso Inc., El Paso Times | Permalink
Posted by Brutus

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