elpasospeak

The post from Brutus yesterday (January 31, 2013) got me to thinking about what the situation is over at the El Paso Times.

The same day as his post the Times wrote an editorial that supported the negative tone of the earlier article Brutus wrote about.

An elected city representative was chastised for bringing a proposal out into the open for the public and city council to consider!

An idea that might be good for the public somehow came to him.  He explored it at a preliminary level to see if it might make sense and be possible.  He then brought it to city council for their consideration.

The Times says that was the wrong thing to do.  They wrote “The rub? Noe apparently went off on his own in negotiating a possible deal with a land developer. Some on City Council said Noe went behind their backs.”

I thought that is part of what he is supposed to do.  Consider an idea.  Bring it out into the open and let council consider it.  Tell council it is just an idea — one way of doing something — that he is open to other ideas.

Could the Times be saying that the way things have been happening at city council is the way he should have handled this?

Does that mean he should have:

• Gone serially, one by one to avoid the open meeting laws, to each representative and wired together a deal
• Secretly finalized the details
• Waited until there would be no time to consider other options
• Then sprung the deal so that council would have no choice other than to approve it?

Or does it mean he should have kept his mouth shut and let city staff cut a deal with the cabal and then do exactly the same four things?

That is what has been happening in this city.  The Times has chosen not to expose it.  Now the Times criticizes the open, transparent method that a new city representative attempted.

“I never wonder to see men wicked, but I often wonder to see them not ashamed.”

Eternal vigilance is the price of liberty.

Cato

Today’s (January 21, 2013) El Paso Times has an article “Public input needed for charter changes”.  It addresses some of the issues that the city’s Ad Hoc Charter Advisory Committee is considering.  The plan is to have some public meetings and then take their recommendations to city council.  City council will then decide what to put on the May 2013 ballot for approval or rejection by the voters.  According to the article “council has the final say on what to take to voters”.

Cato wrote about the issue in Charter Changes?

According to the city web site one of the purposes of the committee is “making revisions that (1) are appropriate to the Council-Manager form of government …”.

Huh?  How about “proposing revisions to our form of government”?  Why must they be appropriate to the Council-Manager form of government?  Well, they tried limiting a similar group back in Philadelphia a couple of hundred years ago.  Maybe this new group will try to stretch beyond the limits that our local cabal is trying to impose on them.

Go to a meeting.  Express your thoughts about the mess we have.  This is your chance.

The article even indicates you can contribute by sending an email to citymanager@elpasotexas.gov.

Give me a break!  The city manager?  Is that like asking Caesar if he still wants to be emperor?  My namesake (or tocayo locally) took care of that himself.

Would the city manager not be fair and forward all emails?  It does not make any difference.  The city manager should not be involved in the process.

Why can’t the public send in their thoughts to the committee directly?

We deserve better

Brutus

There was some talk around town this weekend about the Sunday (January 13, 2013) headline article in the El Paso Times.

We have an Ad Hoc Charter Advisory Committee.  It is working on potential modifications to the city charter that could be voted on this May.

The article indicated that we may be asked to move city elections from May to November.  Two  reasons for this are obvious.  

• Firstly, conservative voters tend to vote in all elections, even taking the trouble to vote in a May election when few issues are at stake.  November (national) elections tend to draw more voters, including those that are less conservative.  Conservatives tend to get in the way of the progressive agenda that this city council has.
• Secondly, with more citizens voting in a November election it will be more difficult to obtain the signatures of 5% of the voters in the last general election — thus making petitions for recall or initiative more difficult to certify.

The article also indicated that there may be proposed changes to the percentage of voter signatures needed to validate a petition for recall or initiative.  In El Paso a successful petition to recall an elected official or to propose an initiative require the signatures of 5% of the voters in the last general election.  The article predicted that the number will be raised to 10% in both cases, like “other Texas cities”.

What the article did not mention is that the document that was evidently considered at the January 7, 2013 meeting of the Ad Hoc group entitled “Potential Charter Revisions for the May 2013 Ballot” appears to have been drawn up by a law firm (so much for citizen initiatives, these people are being managed to get desired results).  The document does address the above issues.

What the El Paso Times article did not mention speaks volumes:

• The draft document advises the members that in “other Texas cities” where the percentage required to certify an initiative petition is higher than in El Paso, the issue automatically goes to the voters if city council does not approve of the action proposed in the certified petition.   You will recall that we have recently sent up petitions that city council has either denied or taken no action on.  No such democratic provision appears to be in the document.  Here if a first petition is denied by council a second one must be certified and even then council must vote to place the issue on the ballot.
• The current charter requires city council to pass an ordinance (a formal, multi-step process) to lease a public property or grant a temporary use of a street, alley, public way or public property.  The proposed language would allow council to do this temporarily (the document speaks in terms of years) by simple resolution of council.  In other words at any city council meeting.

The document also shows that the Ad Hoc committee is considering other issues including moving some power from the mayor (who is already holds a weak office) to the council and changing some conflict of interest issues that in my opinion should be changed.

Meetings times of this Ad Hoc group are not well known by the citizens.  You should contact the members of the group if you wish to express your opinion.  The membership list can be seen here.

Remember that as another blow to the democratic process, whatever the group comes up with for our consideration must first be approved by city council before it can be voted on by the citizens.

The price of liberty is eternal vigilance.