Reporting and preaching should not go together

March 17, 2013

The following is my opinion:

The El Paso Times published a front-page article today (March 17, 2013) about the first person convicted in one of the public corruption scandals that the Times has chosen to cover.

The guy pleaded guilty to doing some rotten things.  It appears that he did not go to prison.  It looks like he became a stool-pigeon and the general government may have let him off the hook.

I am glad the Times chose to cover the issue.  The article was informative.  It was news.  It was also pious, judgmental, and condescending.

The article was biased throughout.

As an example, they wrote “His surroundings demonstrated that he’d come down in the world since he’d left El Paso.  His office is in a small, humble building next to a vacant grain elevator and across from the Bexar County Detention Center.  The area is dotted with bail-bonds businesses, taco stands, TV and refrigerator-repair shops and “No Trespassing” signs — not exactly the milieu of a big-city power broker.

I guess businesses might be ok but the Times thinks bail bondsmen are pretty low.

I guess restaurants are ok but taco stands are pretty low.

I guess some repair shops are ok but TV and refrigerator ones are pretty low.

I guess the Times thinks that anyone who has a job working for the government is pretty important.  That might explain some obvious things that they are overlooking.

I would appreciate it if the Times would stick to the facts and let the readers draw their own conclusions.

The Times has an editorial page for this kind of commentary.

Eternal vigilance is the price of liberty.

Cato

3 Comments | County Government, El Paso Times, Federal Government | Permalink
Posted by Cato

Sold Out

March 14, 2013

Many El Pasoans were secretly sold out by city council when they approved the new ball park.

Tearing down Insights and city hall, buying buildings, and remodeling them have ended up costing us a lot more than the $33 million that council told us it would take.  The number keeps growing but is now over $70 million.  $63.9 million and climbing was the last article where the numbers were detailed.  Since then we have seen other costs.  We will have to wait to figure out the total.  Council and city staff are burying the projects and we will not know about some of them until the paperwork is done.

More recently we learned in Shoes dropping that when we went to the polls and approved the funding for the new ball park we were not told that we did not own all of the city hall site.  Imagine — tear down two modern buildings, spend more than $70 million dollars to move, contract to build a ball park for $50 million plus whatever other money they can hide from us — on land that we do not even own yet!

The El Paso Times gave us a peak at what is coming in their rather understated article on March 13, 2013.  It seems that securing the land for the new ball park made spending $5 million to rebuild the Carolina bridge and create quite zones “necessary for the city”.

Oh, and by the way, the city will need to agree to close several railway crossings as part of the land deal.  Those of you that travel through the crossings today have been sold out by city staff and city council.  Public input evidently is not necessary — we know that they consider us to be “crazies” and enemies of progress.

The crossings at Cedar, Birch, Maple, Elm, Estrella, Cebada, Boone, and Cadwallader are evidently eight of the ten crossings they want to close.  If this causes you inconvenience, I suggest that you think of the great public utility we will all gain from the ball park.

Carolina bridge will be closed “for some period of time”, but you ought to be able to find an alternate route.  Grant Street, Rio Grande Avenue and Arizona Avenue will need to be converted to two-way streets “to ease traffic congestion and railroad crossings”.

“This is just fantastic” one city representative said.

Remember to vote in May.

We deserve better

Brutus

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

Oink!

March 12, 2013

Item 12B on the March 12, 2013 city council agenda proposes to authorize another $2 million for the remodeling of our new city hall.

We will add this to the running total.

As usual the city wants to do this without bidding. They plan to use another job order contract.

You can use the search feature on this page to look for other articles about this. A new slant to an old “profession” gave us details about this particular contract.

Recent activity shows the city awarding $4 million dollars to this firm last November. Another $3 million was awarded to two other firms in January. Now they want another $2 million.

That is $9 million since November that could have been competitively bid to local contractors but instead will go to city favorites.

At this rate of spending the relocation project is spending almost as much money on construction as it is on building demolition. Build, tear down. Build, tear down. Or is it tear down, build? Either way it is a waste of our money.

We deserve better

Brutus

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

Selective reporting

March 6, 2013

A recent El Paso Times article talks about an area school district conducting a recent audit.  The audit evidently claims that the district broke state law when it overspent it’s budget.  The Times wrote:

“Tornillo administrators say that the additional $200,000 related to the buyout package were incurred from legal fees related to Vranish’s contract, the audit states.”

Legal fees of $200,000 to buyout a superintendent’s contract?  For what?

The Times article missed the opportunity to expose this issue.

Why is it that the Times reports events about the El Paso Independent School District and the local corruption cases with regularity and boring repetition but does not look beneath the surface on other issues?

We deserve better

Brutus

2 Comments | El Paso Independent School District, El Paso Times | Permalink
Posted by Brutus

Now that you’re watching

March 5, 2013

According to an El Paso Times article city council may be having second thoughts about their proposal to cripple the Texas Public Information Act.

Council voted unanimously to approve the ordinance on its first reading last week.  They are scheduled to consider it again today (Tuesday March 5, 2013).

The Times points out that a “barrage of criticism” might cause council to reconsider and “go back to the drawing board” with the ordinance.

Reconsidering is a good idea.  The legal mess that this ordinance would cause would cost us a lot of money.  Texas has a good law — it appears that the rest of the state can live with it.  Some members of our council want the right to conduct public business without the public having the right to see what they are up to.  Going back to the drawing board is a bad idea.  It would be another waste of our time and money.

The Times article suggests that some council members believe that the proposed ordinance is not well written.  It would appear that some of them have finally gotten around to reading it.

That brings up the point of this post.  According to an El Paso Inc. article this weekend the proposed ordinance was drawn up by the law firm that is representing the city against the Attorney General of Texas who had previously ruled that the city must turn over documents that were requested through the Public Information Act.  City council does not want to release the documents.

  • Why are we wasting our taxpayer money and time in a mean-spirited fight to deny the public access to its’ documents?
  • If certain city council members object to disclosure why don’t they fund the lawsuit themselves?  The Attorney General is on the side of the citizens.  Council is opposing us and is using our money to do it.
  • The outside law firm did a poor job drafting the ordinance.  Are they competent?  How much are they getting paid to sue Texas and try to keep us in the dark?  How much are they getting paid to write the proposed ordinance that has now been so thoroughly criticized?
  • Should they be fired?

Where was the City Attorney on this?  How did this even get on an agenda?  Was this reviewed?  Was council advised that the proposed ordinance is “a can of worms” to use the Mayor’s words?  Is council now pretending that this was not what they intended?

It is good that the Times has started to pay attention to what is going on at city hall.  If they want fresh front page articles to replace their constant reiteration of problems over at the El Paso Independent School District, all they have to do is read city council agendas and start thinking.  They won’t even have to make up problems.

We deserve better

Brutus

1 Comment | City government, El Paso Inc., El Paso Independent School District, El Paso Times, Open Government, State Government | Permalink
Posted by Brutus

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