Part of a story

March 28, 2013

There was an interesting comment on refusethejuice.typepad.com the other day.

I reprint it here in it’s entirety:

I was walking past Evan Mohl’s cubicle at the Times and found these notes on the floor:
T Garcia missed 6 of 12 pension meetings.
She left the meetings early 4 other times.
Studer missed 4 meetings and left early 2 times.
Arrieta missed 4 meetings and left early once.
Arrieta and Studer gave the director a SUPERIOR performance rating for his evaluation last March.
At one meeting, Arrieta voted in FAVOR of buying a building because “it was closer to downtown”.

No wonder the 3 amigos are backpedaling so furiously.
Good thing these items didn’t make it into the article.

Posted by: yep..it’s me | March 26, 2013 at 01:41 PM

Ignoring the moral aspects of this person’s snooping the comment raises some questions if it is true.

Is the Times being objective?

Is this a power play between the pension fund members and the city?

Is the Times returning a favor to the city?

Muckraker

2 Comments | City government, El Paso Times | Permalink
Posted by Muckraker

Cut and paste writing

March 27, 2013

I’ve got a money saving idea for the El Paso Times.  Money seems to be short over there.  Maybe this would help.

Instead of wasting the salaries of writers and press operators every single day reprinting the exact same details of stories over and over and over, they could sell one edition on multiple days.

Those of us that have already read an article could ignore the paper on the days where the article is the same.

Then if management cares about reporting instead of writing they could cover the other issues that the citizens of El Paso are coping with.

Or if they don’t like this idea why don’t they stop printing a daily newspaper and just use billboards to publish their articles?  I think that with the new billboard wraps that we now see they could post an article on one billboard, leave it there for a week, and then move the same article to another billboard.  After a few weeks they could bring the article back to the original billboard.

Another approach would be to rename themselves The El Paso Multiple Times.

Muckraker

1 Comment | El Paso Times | Permalink
Posted by Muckraker

One out!

March 23, 2013

According to the El Paso Times a city representative recently questioned the situation at The El Paso Firemen and Policeman’s Pension Fund.

She asked “How do you get $400 million to save your fund and four years later we find ourselves in the same situation?” … “The fund says it’s spending more money than it is taking in.  To me that’s bad management or mismanagement.”

We finally agree on something!

If only the city representative would apply that same standard to what she is doing to us at the city.

The city manager says she doesn’t know.

The Times wrote that the city manager has ordered an audit of the fund.  “They say it’s bad stock markets or poor return on investment that got them here.”  “Quite frankly I’m not so sure.  We need to review everything and find out what the problem is.”

If the fund has money invested in the stock market it would be hard for them not to have benefited from the spectacular gains of the last two years.

Pension board like city council?

One of the pension board members is the city’s chief financial officer.  Shouldn’t that person know what is going on?  Why is the city manager in the dark on this?  How can the city possibly not know what the problem is?  If the chief financial officer is genuinely surprised about the fund director’s sudden resignation should we be comfortable?  Is the pension board like city council in that they just rubber stamp what staff wants?

Do these people know anything about governance?

Well it appears that the Times got the job done for the city.  They helped pressure the fund director to quit.  In What is thy bidding my master? the Times  turned up the heat on the fund director when they  questioned why the fund would want to save money by buying a building instead of renting their office space.  Go figure!  He resignation on Wednesday was because of “unwarranted criticism” according to the board chairman.

We deserve better.

Brutus

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

Stop the presses!

March 22, 2013

Headline article!

Lawyer Attempts To Contact Congressman, Thinks Client Is Being Abused by Government

To think!  Right here in El Paso!  Thinking about asking your representative for help — of all the things!

Where is law enforcement when you need them?

A current county commissioner says he does not recall any contact.

Extra! Extra! Read all about it!

I would rather the Times write about the school district and it’s lawyer without implicating an ex-congressman and a current county commissioner over something that evidently did not happen and even if it did happen would in itself have been appropriate.

We deserve better

Brutus

Leave a Comment » | County Government, El Paso Independent School District, El Paso Times, Federal Government | Permalink
Posted by Brutus

What is thy bidding my master?

March 21, 2013

This issue has a lot of angles to it — it is hard to figure out where to start.

According to The El Paso Times article  the  El Paso Firemen and Policemen’s Pension Fund is considering buying a building.  They currently lease space in a downtown high-rise.  They have seven employees and serve about 3,200 members.  Their current rent is about $85,000 per year.  The new building would cost them somewhere around $600,000.  It would be about 6,800 square feet and have a large parking lot.

The Times says that the purchase “comes  at a strange time” with the pension fund having a shortfall of $270 million.

Ok, let’s start:

  • $85,000 dollars a year for office space and meeting areas for an organization that has seven employees is a lot of money
  • The chief financial officer of the city, who is a member of the pension board, was quoted as saying “It should pay for itself in about seven or eight years…”.
  • Why would the Times think that saving money today and over the long run is a “strange time”?

Then look at the cost of the current space:

  • $85,000 dollars a year for seven employees and the few members that they can serve at a time is a lot of money
  • Private businesses make do with a lot less space and cost per employee
  • If they need to have large meeting facilities they should rent them as they need them, not pay for them every month
  • What kind of board of directors wastes membership money like this?

Is the board considering leasing out part of the new building to some other agency and thus generating money for their members?

The city staff comes across as they normally do:

  • A city council member suggested that the board should have explored other options with the city
  • According to the article the city manager said “said such a deal would have been possible and tried to reach out to the fund.”
  • The board member who is also the chief financial officer of the city endorsed buying the building and was quoted as saying “I think it’s a good deal for the fund based on what was presented to the board…”.
  • Did the city manager reach out to the chief financial officer?  How far would the reach have to be?  These people see each other daily.  Do the city manager and chief financial officer disagree, or is someone not telling the truth?

Why does this organization even exist?

  • Texas has statewide pension organizations for other types of employees.  Teachers, municipal employees, state employees all benefit from having organizations that function statewide.
  • We don’t see a separate pension fund for teachers in El Paso and separate ones for each city in Texas.
  • We do see separate police and/or firefighter pension organizations in several Texas cities.  Why?  Would centralization save administrative costs and thus allow more money to go to the members?  Does our El Paso organization do a better job of investing money than the organizations in other cities?  Why do we have a $270 million shortfall?  Wouldn’t a statewide organization have a better chance of paying for talent to get the best investment results?

Once again, why was the Times concerned about the timing of this deal?  Were they just carrying the water for the city?

We deserve better

Brutus

Leave a Comment » | City government, El Paso Times, State Government | Permalink
Posted by Brutus

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