Hiding in plain sight

April 6, 2013

I had written this before Train wreck and now publish it as background information.

In Catch me if you can I wrote that city council was up to something that did not look good.

An agenda item had no backup material attached to it but the agenda item indicated that the city was going to introduce an ordinance that would allow the city to “convey” two acres of land to the railroad.

I reviewed the video of the city council meeting to see what they were doing.  It was item 4A on the regular agenda and was listed right after the consent agenda.  The item was brought up, no discussion or explanation was given, the vote was taken, and the item passed unanimously.

Here they introduced an ordinance and had absolutely no discussion about it whatsoever.  They did not even read it out loud.

No one from the public spoke or asked questions.  That is probably because they moved the city council meeting from the old city hall to the main library and most of us did not know where the meeting was.

You can see the video here (at about 54 minutes in).  Select the April 2, 2013 city council meeting.

The are up to something and they want to keep it quiet.

We deserve better

Brutus

4 Comments | City government, Open Government | Permalink
Posted by Brutus

Scheming Institutionalized

April 2, 2013

It now seems that more than one school district in the area was involved in manipulating student grade levels to avoid state and federal sanctions.  Other local districts are conducting investigations to see if they too were involved.

At the high school level the technique seems to have been to reduce the number of children from the 10th grade whose English language skills were deemed to have been substandard.  Evidently some students were placed in the 9th grade for a while and then promoted to the 11th grade.  According to news reports some were sent away (taken out of school).

It appears that the testing occurred in the 10th grade.  I guess that we don’t have enough money to check to see that all of our grade levels are performing to standard.

Without for a minute trying to defend the people who manipulated the system, some questions come to mind:

How should a school be evaluated when a foreign language student enrolls in the school without having attended the first through the 9th grades in the school district?  Has the student had time to learn English?

Are there special tests for students arriving from foreign countries?

Should grade level placement of the student be decided by the administrators based upon the individual student’s capabilities?

At what point does self preservation (keeping your job by doing what your boss asks you to do even when you disagree) kick in?

On the other hand, the situation shows us how government employees (not just educators) get together to learn strategies from each other that help to subvert the intent of the rules.  The El Paso Independent School District not releasing the draft report of the cheating audit was probably the result of an administrator or lawyer learning from some other agency how to avoid releasing the document by calling it a “draft”.

I have to wonder how many other schools around the country have been involved in similar efforts to “bend the rules”.

Too often I get the feeling that it is government employees versus the “crazies”.

Eternal vigilance is the cost of liberty.

Cato

1 Comment | City government, County Government, El Paso Independent School District, Federal Government, Open Government, State Government | Permalink
Posted by Cato

Catch me if you can

March 30, 2013

No big deal

Be aware that city council meetings are now being held in the main library auditorium at 501 North Oregon on the first floor.  They still will start at 8:30 in the morning.

The city evidently does not feel the need to have one of their many press conferences or ask for media coverage.  You might attend if y0u knew where the meeting is.

Big deal

Here it comes.  Item 4A on the April 2, 2013 city council agenda  introduces an ordinance “authorizing the City Manager to sign a Memorandum of Agreement and any other necessary documents between the City of El Paso and Union Pacific Railroad Company which will allow the City to convey approximately 2 acres of land … “.

Land for the railroad.  The backup material that is normally posted with items like this is not available.

What are they doing?  Why are they doing it in secret?

This cannot be good.

We deserve better

Brutus

1 Comment | City government, Open Government | Permalink
Posted by Brutus

We do unto others

March 18, 2013

Don’t do unto us!

At last week’s (March 12, 2013) city council meeting the TxDOT district engineer gave a presentation about TxDOT’s plans for far east Montana street.

They plan to widen the street from four lanes to six starting about 1/2 mile east of Yarbrough all the way out to Loop 375.  The south side will have bicycle lanes, sidewalks and landscaping.  The north side (think airport) will be where the majority of the new lanes come from and will not have these features.

The engineer explained that about 50,000 cars use the area each day now and that they expect that number to rise to about 200,000 a day within 5 years.  Now is the time to widen the road.

Two city representatives immediately objected.  It seems that TxDOT has not kept council informed and that building a highway is not appropriate in a “highly residential area”.  The El Paso Times attributed this quote to one of the representatives:  “I think the problem is we’re getting a lot of these plans piecemeal from TxDOT instead of seeing the whole picture.  …  It can be frustrating”.

No kidding!  That is what council and city staff have been doing to the voters on this entire city hall, ballpark issue.  We still don’t know the scope of what they are doing to us.

In this case though, TxDOT is going to pay for the improvements.  This is money that we are getting back from the state, not new money that we must pay through our city taxes.

Residential?

Not hardly.  The north (airport) side of Montana in that area is essentially desolate.  There are a few government buildings on that side, with relatively few private establishments.  I know of no housing there.  The south side is largely vacant.  What has been built is primarily retail and light industrial with a sprinkling of junk yards.  There are a few apartments and condominiums on the south side, but housing development has not really occurred there.  This is not a “highly residential area”.

Beyond that, TxDOT has promised to build a sound wall if the majority of the residents want one.

Why are the city representatives in an uproar?  We certainly need to have roads that can handle additional capacity.  Montana is not a residential street.  It is a main thoroughfare in that part of town.  Can it be that our two city representatives don’t want someone springing a plan on them without their input?

Maybe now they may have a bit of understanding about how we feel.

Then again maybe they think that as city representatives they should be treated with more deference than us “crazies”.

Or maybe money is involved.

We deserve better

Brutus

Leave a Comment » | Ball park, City government, Open Government, State Government | Permalink
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Something special

March 17, 2013

Something is going on that I have not figured out.

I hope that you can help.

The March 19, 2013 city council agenda shows items 5B, 5C, 5D, 5E, 5F, and 5G.  They  all propose changes to existing ordinances as they apply to special events.

  • 5B would waive certain fees
  • 5C would exempt certain vendors from license requirements
  • 5D would exempt special events from noise ordinances
  • 5E would exempt special events from parking meter fees
  • 5F deals with sound amplification
  • 5G would “eliminate certain costs and fees”

The backup material does not provide a clue why all these changes are desirable.

Does this have something to do with the ball park?

Or is the Mayor planning to play his guitar in front of thousands of fans to raise money for his legal defense?

Does city council plan to bring back public executions of the “crazies”?

Something is wrong and they want to fix it behind our backs.

We deserve better

Brutus

3 Comments | City government, Open Government | Permalink
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