Harsh?

October 22, 2014

A  22 year old man was convicted a few weeks ago of setting a fire in the Coronado Tower building.  He was sentenced to five years in a federal prison followed by three years of supervised release.

He evidently confessed so  he is now guilty and should be punished.

What caught my eye first is that he was prosecuted in the federal system instead of ours here in Texas.

Why?

Interstate commerce

The fed’s position was that the Coronado Tower is involved in interstate or international commerce.  By that rationale almost every building in El Paso would qualify.

Why did the feds prosecute the crime instead of the state?  Could it be that they are interested in keeping their volume up to justify their size?  Is Texas incapable of administering justice in a toilet paper fire case?  Don’t the feds have enough to do without handling cases that can be handled by the state?

Five years

Another thing that caught my attention is the severity of the punishment.  I can’t help but wonder what kind of a citizen he will be at 27 years old having spent five years in prison.

Have we lost our bearings here?

We deserve better

Brutus

6 Comments | Federal Government, State Government | Permalink
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No demand so add capacity

October 11, 2014

The city is required to have independent auditors examine the report that Sun Metro sends to the feral government to make certain that it is accurate.

The auditor’s August 13, 2014 report evaluates Sun Metro’s 2013 submission.  It contains the following surprise:

Motor bus passenger miles traveled were 84,062,995 in 2012 and 62,584,492 in 2013, a decrease of 25.55%.

Because of the large decrease, the auditors were required to interview Sun Metro management to seek explanation.  According to the report the difference “is primarily related to the following factor:  Operating days decreased in FY 2013 to 208 from 252 in FY 2012”.

Huh?  They evidently can’t keep the equipment they have busy now.  Their solution?  They are adding a new rapid transit system along Mesa and are going to spend $97 million on a trolley system covering part of the same area.

The bus service actually travels on Oregon street (parallel to and beside Mesa) rather than interfere with traffic on Mesa from UTEP to downtown.

With the existing bus service, the new rapid transit system, the Camino Real Regional Mobility Authority (CRRMA) bike share program, and the trolley system all serving the same area they should be able to flood the area with obstructions to automobile and emergency service vehicle traffic.

Just for the record, I am not against bicycles, walking, street cars, buses, or rapid transit systems.  Having all of them serving the same area when our bus service does not see the need to operate every day as it is now just does not make sense to me.  Maybe someone will enlighten us.

We deserve better

Brutus

9 Comments | City government, Federal Government, State Government | Permalink
Posted by Brutus

Digging a hole

September 18, 2014

I find irony in the fact that the city is trying to restrict access to payday lenders while the county has become a payday borrower.

The people in charge of our county hospital have let it  get into such bad shape that they need to borrow money now against next year’s property tax income.

According to the Times, things have gotten so bad over at the hospital that the hospital needs to borrow $20 million from next year’s $69 million in property  tax income.  That’s 30 percent of their paycheck.  Try that yourself.

According to hospital management if they are not allowed to borrow the $20 million they will lose out on $45 million from the feral government.  Evidently even the feds have financial standards — ones that we will not meet unless we take the payday loan.

Management wants to borrow the money now and pay it back February 28, 2015.  The cost will be $75,000, two thirds of it will be interest and one third loan origination costs.

Any one of us that told our bank that we need to borrow 1/3 of our salary for five months in order to make ends meet would be told no.  Not only no but let’s call your current loans since you are obviously in deep trouble and we might not get any of our money back.

It looks like our county hospital does not have to operate with a balanced budget.  Evidently they are allowed to borrow money against next year’s tax income.  What will happen if the city starts to use this technique?  Is this a new way to mortgage our futures?

We deserve better

Brutus

 

 

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

Constitution Day 2014

September 17, 2014

Today is Wednesday, September 17, 2014, Constitution Day — the anniversary of the signing of the Constitution of the United States of America.

Some in our country feel that it needs to be a living document.  I certainly agree to the extent that “living” means relevant, in control.

In order for it to have life we must respect it, not ignore it.

Who would not agree that a document more than 230 years old that enumerates specific provisions cannot have contemplated our situation today?

Vote for change

The issue comes down to how we change it.  Current fashion is to circumvent it whenever what people in power want to do is not authorized by the plain wording of the document.  Thoughts like “since it says that it exists to promote our common welfare we should go ahead and do what I want to do because my plan would be good for a lot of people” put us in jeopardy of letting an oligarchy, a few people in power, rewrite the rules as they see fit.

Others think that our supreme court should decree changes to it when in fact the supreme court exists to interpret it, not modify it.  Interpretation to me does not include deciding what it should say.  The should interpret what it does say.

Our Constitution was agreed to by the people after months of intense discussion and decision making.  Changes to it should be made by the people, not by our government officials.

Article V of the Constitution provides two methods of changing it.  Whenever two-thirds of the members of congress want to propose a change they can.  Alternatively two-thirds of the state legislatures can propose changes.  From there it takes the approval of three-fourths of the state legislatures or three-fourths of specially called state conventions.   How a proposed change is to be ratified (legislature vs. convention) must be specified when the proposal for the change is made.  No amendment has ever been taken to state conventions.

You might think that the process for making changes sets a pretty high bar.  It does.  We don’t want to change our basic rules whenever the wind changes direction.  Time has a way of solving many problems.

Part of the “living document” movement is the feeling that it takes too long to change the Constitution.

Our Constitution has been amended 27 times.  The 26th, changing the voting age to 18 passed in three months.  Eight passed in less than a year.  With the exception of one outlier the two amendments that took the longest to pass were passed in less than four years.  The outlier was our last amendment, the 27th.  The 27th prohibited congress from raising their own pay until after the next election of representatives.  It took 202 years, 7 months, and 12 days.  No need to wonder why.

We could strip our governments of much of their abuse of power if we made them follow the rules, not the rules as they think they should have been worded.  If they don’t like the way things are worded, they should ask to change it.  It doesn’t take long in the scheme of things.

We deserve better

Brutus

7 Comments | Federal Government | Permalink
Posted by Brutus

Fourth time’s the charm

September 9, 2014

The machine just will not stop.

Three or four previous attempts have been made to fund and build a platform over the depressed train way downtown that leads to the new ball park.

In one attempt the former city manager tried to fund it with quality of life bond money.  In another city staff tried to swap money with the state, using state money to build the pedestrian walkway and giving the state an equal amount of money for the state to beautify bridges crossing I-10.  There was also talk of using ball park money to build the walkway.

In the case of the proposed swap of money with the state we saw a deputy city manager tell us that the project was related to the ball park.  The former city manager stepped in and said that was not true.  The deputy city manager was sent home to retire on our nickel.

At the Tuesday, September 2, 2014 city council meeting the project was finally approved.  The Times reported that neither quality of life money nor ball park money is to be used.

Take comfort in the fact that none of the Apollo space program money and none of the national parks money will be used either.

Unfortunately local money will be used.

The presentation by city staff told us that the funding source was agreed upon in the Tuesday, February 11, 2014 city council meeting.

At the February 11 meeting the backup material for the agenda item stated “Costs will be allocated based on 80% Federal funding and 20% Local Government funding until the Federal funding reaches the maximum obligated amount.  The Local Government will then be responsible for 100% of the costs.”  The documentation also told us that the local matching funds could be Transportation Development Credits.

Credits

These credits could have been applied to other street projects.  City council voted to spend our credits on the ball park, not on our local streets.

Why?

The ball park operated with record attendance this season.  No platform was in place, nor was one evidently needed.  Had there been a pedestrian congestion problem rest assured that the city would have temporarily closed part of the adjacent street to vehicle traffic thus creating a giant sidewalk.  Why do we need to build this complicated platform over a depressed train way?

More to come

Curiously the September 2 presentation by city staff asked for approval to spend $2,085,000 from the feral funding.  The slide used to explain the request also showed “TOTAL PROJECT EXPENDITURES NOT TO EXCEED $2,338,745”.

Evidently they are not done with us yet.

We deserve better

Brutus

5 Comments | Ball park, City government, El Paso Times, Federal Government, State Government | Permalink
Posted by Brutus

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