elpasospeak

Many of us say that this election cycle has been about city management, not the city manager.

Incredibly the city manager has taken action that may make the runoff elections about her too.  This article in the El Paso Times explains a lot.  She is requesting a 5% pay raise above what she currently gets paid, which is about $239,000 according to the article.

This puts the city councilman who is in the runoff for mayor in a strange position.  If he endorses the raise he risks angering the 78% of the voters who did not vote for him in the first election.  If he declines then he is biting the hand that feeds him.  What will he do?  We might not find out until after the runoff.  He should be asked.

The timing of this request is remarkable.  “I want to be in good standing at the time the new Mayor and council take office in late June” was the quote attributed to her by the Times.   One might think that the current city council should evaluate her past performance since the new elected officials will know less about her performance.  Then again you might think that the current city council should leave it up to the soon to be elected one since it will be their job to manage her.

To me the self-centered, selfish nature of this request and its timing are unfortunate.

I would hope that city council would consider her request seriously.  I offer some points that they might want to consider also:

Her request for a 5% raise would give her much more than council gave city employees last year.  My recollection is that some city police officers did get a raise last year, but it was around 1.8%.

We have found no evidence that she has called any citizens “crazies” recently.  Then again many e-mails are tied up in an expensive lawsuit against the attorney general of Texas that the city is paying for with our money.

While redevelopment is important to her, the plan to spend the bond money that she recently had presented to council does not provide anything for a new children’s museum or to replace the vital Chelsea swimming pool anytime in the next three years.  You can read more about these issues in Shovel ready.

Her plan to relocate city departments since city hall was going to be torn down displaced citizens from a popular recreation center with city administrators.  So much for quality of life talked about this shameful act.

City purchasing uses buy-boards to avoid competitive bidding.  One particular board that the city has spent millions of dollars through requires that 4% of the money spent be given to Houston school districts, not ours.  See More of Our Money for Houston.

Her $33 million plan to move city hall is now well over $70 million.  $63.9 million and climbing is the last detailed accounting.  We will have to wait for projects to be completed before we will know the total  We were either lied to or management is incompetent.

Since a small piece of land that the ball park will sit on was owned by the railroad the city had to bend over backwards.  Fireworks talked about how the city agreed to close many railroad crossings through town without consulting with the public or other government agencies.  The resulting inconvenience will be massive.

In her haste to build new city facilities much money was wasted.  The saga continues showed us how the city manager forgot her place and how her new office was to be larger than the mayor’s.  More money was wasted when newly remodeled space that was never occupied had to be torn down so that larger offices could be built for the mayor.

Now the city wants to kick the ground lease paying El Paso Independent School District central office off airport land with a resultant cost to the taxpayers of about $40 million while the city gives an out of town university virtually free use of other buildings.  See Plane wrong.

This list could go on much longer.  You get the idea.

Some will say that many of the items above are the result of city council actions.  That is true.  What also is true is that the city manager gets her way with city council and that she is behind what happened in most of the list.

Please do not post a comment about how I hate the city manager.  I do not.  Council has failed in their responsibility to manage her.  The city manager has stepped over the line and actively creates policy when it is her job to implement what council decides.

Eternal vigilance is the price of liberty.

Cato