Foxes in the Henhouse

December 7, 2012

Let me start by saying that I am glad that the Texas Education Agency (TEA) has done something about the El Paso Independent School District Board.

Also let me skip over my feelings that the El Paso Times is right in pointing out that much of what has gone wrong there should have been addressed by the TEA a long time ago.

So now we come down to my concern.  Who did the TEA go to for suggestions about the members of the newly announced board of managers?  Why have they appointed members from other governments?  Why did they not get executives from the business community to serve?  What back room did this happen in?

Have they ever heard of conflict of interest?

Let’s look at who the TEA has put on the new board of managers:

  • The paid TEA designated school district monitor.  She should not be both the district monitor and a member of the board of managers.  Those are two different jobs.  Anyone that has run a decent sized organization can see that this just will not work.  She might be qualified for one position or the other, but not both at the same time.
  • A City of El Paso employee that controls water in the city.  My personal opinion is that he has done a great job managing our water resources.  He is also known in the community as being heavy-handed and one who sees to it that he gets his way regardless of the effect on others.  The fact that he has publicly stated that he saw no problem with a member of his controlling board selling expensive equipment to his government owned utility without a competitive bid shows us how he will be thinking.  Don’t expect openness and transparency from this guy.
  • A politician who just lost his re-election campaign as a state representative.  Rumor has it that he is thinking about running for Mayor of El Paso.  Would this position help him?  I can think of a former state senator who is temperamentally more of a fit here, if we have to have politicians involved.
  • Another City of El Paso employee that is the city’s Chief Financial Officer.  She also is the Chief Administrator for the El Paso County Judge.  Now she will be on the non-elected board of managers of this school district.  Will the City Manager and the County Judge now have a vote at the school district?  How does she vote when an issue  between the school district and the city comes up?  How about between the school district and the county?  Talk about a conflict!  She is in charge of purchasing at the City of El Paso.  That alone should say enough about the quality of her work.  She told us that moving city hall would cost us $33 million dollars.  We are at $63.9 million and climbing.  She apparently does not have time to do her city job right, much less work with the county, and now the school district.
  • There is one last position to fill.  Evidently the TEA is asking another politician, our state senator, for a list of recommendations.  How about someone that has run a large organization?  How about someone that can represent the voters instead of other governments?

The influence of the City of El Paso on this board is troubling on many levels.  Think about it.  I suspect that the El Paso Times  will now have a whole new set of travesties to write about.

A temporary managing board for the school district makes sense to me if the members are qualified and free from conflicts of interest.

I thought our school district is supposed to be INDEPENDENT.

We deserve better!

Our children deserve better!

6 Comments | City government, County Government, El Paso Independent School District, El Paso Times, State Government | Permalink
Posted by jcurrey

Hey, El Paso Times! What’s up?

December 5, 2012

What was that all about?

The headline of Monday’s (December 3, 2012) El Paso Times occupied over 34 square inches of newsprint.  It was a headline, a statement, an explanation, and an oversized picture of someone who was to start his federal criminal trial that day.

The long article ran down the full column of the front page and continued for almost half of another page.

I don’t ever remember seeing the Times give this kind of treatment to a defendant in our local corruption cases on the day of his trial.  My memory may be faulty.

The article said some nice things about him and also brought up some issues that don’t look so good.  I came away from reading it thinking that the article was pretty balanced.

My question is why?  I would think that the court would not want the jurors to be influenced.  Maybe they weren’t.

I question the timing of the article and the emphasis given to it.

Maybe someone will be kind enough to enlighten me.

Leave a Comment » | County Government, El Paso Times, Federal Government | Permalink
Posted by jcurrey

More Of Our Money For Houston

November 30, 2012

Next Tuesday’s City Council agenda has an item to award a 4 million dollar contract for construction work without a real competitive bid.  Read the item here.

I have written about the non-competitive issue before.  You should read Saying It Does Not Make it So.

The company in question put a new roof on city hall last year to the tune of 694 thousand dollars.  Yes, the city hall that they are about to tear down.  Read There They Go Again for the gory details.

Remember that four percent (that is 160,000 dollars) goes to the Harris County Department of Education because the city is buying off of a buy-board!  I would think that we could use the money.

I sense that we may be seeing the old two-step here.  I have no evidence yet, but I suspect that they are up to something more.

Remember that the city has been telling us that it will take about two million dollars to tear down city hall.  That’s the city hall with a new roof, and a new chiller, and a whole bunch of valuable emergency communication equipment that they say will be imploded into the rubble (click here to see $63.9 million and climbing).

Last year the city issued a contract to this same firm for 750,000 dollars.  Why the big jump to four million dollars?

Is it possible that the city will use this new contract to get away with tearing down city hall without a real bid?  There is probably real value in the salvage.   Are they going to claim that they do not have enough time to conduct fair bidding?  How long have then been planning to tear down the building?  Four percent of 2 million dollars is 80,000 dollars.  How much money could we save by conducting  a bid with existing city employees?  How much would it really cost to tear down city hall if we let the market work?  Is there real value in the salvage and are we going to get it or is some contractor going to get it?

So far we have not seen any bidding activity from the city where they are trying to find a contractor to tear it down.  The city says it takes about 60 days to run a Request for Proposals.  Have they decided to use this new contract?  Hide and watch.

Call your city representatives!  Be careful not to tell them what to do.  Incredible as it sounds that appears to be illegal.  Read Cone of Silence by clicking this link.

I wish that we could get the El Paso Times cover these stories.  I know that they have to fight cost issues, but it seems to me that they could bring real value to this situation.

We deserve better.  Maybe we will get it in the next election.

2 Comments | City government, El Paso Times, Purchasing, State Government | Permalink
Posted by jcurrey

Cone of Silence

November 29, 2012

As unbelievable as this sounds, it appears to be  against the law for you to talk to your city representative about a proposed purchase or project until the item is placed on the agenda or during a public meeting.

The city ordinance is number 16300, you can read it here.  It was later amended (but not the part I am addressing).

Let’s say the city publishes a Request for Proposals (RFP) to buy a new chimney sweeper for our local smokestack.

You think that is an unwise use of our money.  Do not contact anyone at the city and tell them what you think–it looks like it is against the law.

Section 2.94.090 D reads:

  • “During the period of solicitation for requests for proposal (RFP), qualifications (RFQ), highest qualified bid (best value), source selection, or the giving of a notice of a proposed project, which shall begin on the day that it is advertised and end on the date that the notice of the award has been sent to the City Clerk for placement on the agenda, no person or registrant shall engage in any lobbying activities with city officials and employees.” (emphasis added)

Section 2.94.020 G defines lobbying as follows:

  • “”Lobby” or “lobbying” means the solicitation of a City official, by private interview, postal or telephonic communications, or any other means other than public expression at a meeting of City officials open to the public under Chapter 551 (Open Meetings Act) of the Texas Government Code, directly or indirectly by person in an effort to influence or persuade the City official to favor or oppose, recommend or not recommend, vote for or against, or take action or refrain from taking action on a municipal question” (emphasis added).

Section 2.94.020 J defines a municipal question:

  • “”Municipal question” means a public policy issue of a discretionary nature pending or impending before the city council, a legislative review commitee of the council, or any board, commission or committee set forth in Section 2.94.030 of this code, including but not limited to a proposed or proposal for an ordinance, resolution, motion, recommendation, report, regulation, policy appointment, sanction, bid, a request for proposal ...” (emphasis added)

Section 2.94.120 defines the penalty:

  • “A person who knowingly or intentionally lobbies in violation of a provision of this chapter … shall be guilty of a misdemeanor.” (emphasis added)

The City Charter defines the penalty in Section 1.08.o10:

  • “Whenever in this code or in any ordinance of the city an act is prohibited or is made or declared to be unlawful or an offense or a misdemeanor, or whenever in such code or ordinance the doing of any act is commanded or the failure to do any act is made or declared to be unlawful or an offense or a misdemeanor, the violation of any such provision shall be deemed a misdemeanor and shall be punished by a fine not exceeding five hundred dollars.”

What is with these people?  Since the agenda is published late Thursday afternoon and the City is closed on Friday, that only leaves you Monday to speak your piece before the City Council meeting.  Try getting a meeting with them on Monday without prior notice.

The people down at city hall call this “The Cone of Silence”.  Reminds me of the idiocy of Maxwell Smart and his special room that you can read about here if you are too young to remember.

You think that they would not use this to their advantage?  Think again.

This is the kind of thing that I wish the El Paso Times would look into.

So if you have something to say wait for the City Council meeting.  All I can offer you is “good luck”.  Watch any City Council meeting and see how they disregard the public.  Heck, they even disregard each other.

Unconstitutional! you say.  It takes a judge to make a ruling.  In the mean time:

We deserve better.

2 Comments | City government, El Paso Times, Open Government | Permalink
Posted by jcurrey

Another shameful way to allow favoritism

November 26, 2012

Just when I think I have figured out the extent that our local administrators will go to to circumvent fairness and the law, their wicked (look it up, it means evil or morally wrong) minds come up with another travesty.

The El Paso Independent School District issued a Competitive Sealed Proposal (CSP) #13-106 for iPads, Computer, Telephone and AV (audio visual) parts.  Note the word competitive.   On the face of it I don’t know of too many vendors that sell products  in all of those areas, but maybe the results of the CSP could prove differently.

Twelve vendors responded. That is pretty good until you realize that most of them responded only to a portion of the bid.

What did EPISD do? They awarded the bid to all twelve, even after they found some bidders to be less desirable because of past performance. Preposterous! The stated justification was “to allow the campuses and departments the flexibility to compare and purchase products from several approved vendors based not only on price but availability and lead time” You can see that on the EPISD document here.  The explanation is at the bottom of the last page.

This is not competitive bidding, it is a sham. It allows the administrators to buy from their favorites among the twelve with impunity. By definition it is not competitive. It is however devious.  By awarding the bid to all twelve proposers, no proposer has anything to complain about. Now staff has a blank check to buy from any of the twelve.  Staff is free to pick who they like and eliminate anyone else.

Why does the school board allow this?

The El Paso Times uses a lot of ink writing about the board.  They need to look at the managers and staff in our local governments.

Our children deserve better.

Leave a Comment » | City government, County Government, El Paso Independent School District, El Paso Times, Purchasing | Permalink
Posted by jcurrey

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