Help support other governments during the holiday season

December 26, 2013

The December 16, 2013 Times editorial urged the approval of a transportation plan.  Again the Times advocates higher local taxes instead of more effective representation at the state and feral levels.

El Pasoans are being taxed to pay for facilities that should be paid for by the state and the Times recognizes the situation.  From the Times editorial:

No one likes to pay additional taxes or fees. And in this case, it can be justifiably argued that El Paso County vehicle owners are getting stuck with a tab that should be picked up by other governments.

But El Paso has serious traffic congestion issues that are getting worse by the day. That leaves local leadership with two choices — complaining about the failure of others, or taking control of our own destiny.

Whining is not much of a strategy. The results of the bold but controversial choice made by Commissioners Court will become evident today, as the 16 mobility projects are outlined at the Commissioners Court meeting.

Border administration

This year El Paso’s city council voted to create a fund with our local money to pay overtime for U. S. government employees in an effort to improve bridge crossing times.  Many parts of our country suffer from river flooding and hurricanes regularly and get extraordinary assistance from the feds,  yet somehow immigration has become a feral issue but needs to be paid for by local citizens.

Even university systems

The separately funded Texas Tech system leased our train station for  one dollar a year from the benevolent citizens of El Paso.  That was in addition to the Albert Fall mansion that we rebuilt with city funds and then gave to the university for another dollar a year.

Go local

If we have to raise taxes, can’t we at least spend the money on something that we are clearly responsible for — like local roads?

We deserve better

Brutus

8 Comments | City government, County Government, El Paso Times, Federal Government, State Government | Permalink
Posted by Brutus

Balk!

December 10, 2013

According to this article in the El Paso Times,  this Wednesday the city is going to release a traffic study relating to our new ball park.

Wrong answer?

Brutus wrote Planned failure, a post about a ball park traffic study that the city commissioned and then published in December of 2012.

Are we going to see a new study?  If not, why does the article tell us that the city is going to release the study this Wednesday?

Could it be that the first study was unflattering?  Read it for yourself here.  Personally I think that waiting 875 seconds at one intersection while leaving a game is pretty bad.

Say it ain’t so, Joe

Maybe this is a new study.  Maybe it will predict different outcomes.

Maybe the city did not commission the study to try to get a better answer.

Maybe the Times will start researching subjects before just printing whatever the city tells them to.

Muckraker

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

Pay as they go

December 6, 2013

This El Paso Times article told us that the Times is going to charge for electronic access to their publication.

After reading 25 articles a month from the desktop web site (99 from the mobile facility) we will evidently have to pay to read more.

Breaking news and the home page as well as some other content will not count.  The article goes on to indicate that this strategy can help increase the amount that newsprint subscribers pay and that they might be able to keep up to 85% of the existing readers.

Self absorbed

I have a hard time remembering when I found 99 articles (other than breaking news) that I wanted to read in the Times.  Many days a large portion of the leading articles in the Times have to do with sports.  I guess that they still have sportswriters in their budget.

Privacy

There are a lot of good things to be said about the new electronic methods of accessing information.  Privacy is not one of them.  I do not want the Times or anyone else being able to keep track of which articles I click on.

I would pay

If the Times did a better job of editing those few articles that they do publish in newsprint I would be willing to pay.  It would be nice to be able to believe that the articles were factual or at least accurate.

I’m not talking about their political position.  Please don’t try to dignify it by calling it an editorial position.  They certainly have the right to pick their political positions and to tell us what they are.

Biased reporting is another matter and the subscribers have the right to vote with their pocketbooks.

Muckraker

6 Comments | El Paso Times | Permalink
Posted by Muckraker

What are the rules here?

December 4, 2013

The Times published this in it’s recent article about our city representative who has announced his candidacy for county judge:

City Attorney Sylvia Borunda Firth said the city could wait until the next uniform election date or follow the recently amended El Paso City Charter. The charter provides that when a special election is required, the city can schedule it for the next uniform election date or the date of the next election that will be conducted by the county elections administrator. That choice is up to the council, Firth said.

Article 11, section 11B of the Texas Constitution has this:

(b) A municipality so providing a term exceeding two (2) years but not exceeding four (4) years for any of its non-civil service officers must elect all of the members of its governing body by majority vote of the qualified voters in such municipality, and any vacancy or vacancies occurring on such governing body shall not be filled by appointment but must be filled by majority vote of the qualified voters at a special election called for such purpose within one hundred and twenty (120) days after such vacancy or vacancies occur.

Further the blog Anson Mills posted this from the state election code:

Section 41.007(d)  “No other election may be held on the date of a primary election.”

I believe that the state constitution trumps the city charter.  If so, the city attorney is wrong.

Is the city attorney telling us that the city is going to fight the state again?

Please set me straight if I have missed something.

We deserve better

Brutus

1 Comment | City government, El Paso Times, State Government | Permalink
Posted by Brutus

Balancing act?

November 27, 2013

The El Paso Times published an article recently about one of our city representatives and the possibility that he might run for county judge.

Quoting from the article:

“He is known for a strong anti-tax stand and often voting against city projects that he feels are too expensive. Holguin often argues that city government should focus on the basics such as streets and parks.”

“Holguin was one of the critics of the way the previous City Council went about demolishing the old City Hall to build a new Triple A-baseball stadium in Downtown El Paso.”

I don’t know if the Times wrote that as criticism or as praise.  Perhaps they were trying to be neutral.

Either way it was refreshing to read something like that in the Times.

You can read the whole article here.

Muckraker

1 Comment | Ball park, City government, County Government, El Paso Times | Permalink
Posted by Muckraker

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