elpasospeak

In Shadow government we got an indication that city council was getting ready to put it to us again.  I wrote that the El Paso Times had published an article that mentioned something that city council did.  “After executive session, the council directed the city attorney to draft an ordinance on how the city should handle public information requests”.

What could they be up to?  Well now we know.

Next Tuesday (February 26, 2013) council plans to introduce an ordinance designed to circumvent the State of Texas Public Information Act.  You can read it here.

I plan to write about this single proposed ordinance over the next few days.  It is bad for so many different reasons and on so many different levels that it deserves comprehensive treatment.

In the end however I predict that a combination of Attorney General opinions and probable court action will prevent the harm that the city is up to.

For the time being it is obvious that they want to hide something, at least for a while.  Remember that they are fighting the release of personal e-mails relating to the whole downtown “renaissance” that they have decided that you and I must pay for.

There must be some pretty damning stuff in those e-mails.

I can’t wait to see them.  We will.

Eternal vigilance is the price of liberty.

Cato

You will notice at the top right side of this web page that the city removed the search feature from their web page on January 11, 2013.

They claim that they are “updating” their site and that they will restore the search feature when they have “completely” transferred to the new format.

The search feature made it easier to find past actions.  I suspect that the removal was more about deliberately making it hard to find things than about some technical challenge or difficulty.

Try as they may I doubt that they can make navigating their web site more difficult than finding a city department.  Let’s see — what day is it, what building are they in today, are they open, where do I park?  You get the idea.

We deserve better

Brutus

Great drama!

Last  week’s (Monday, February 11, 2013) city council agenda has item 13A that is a proposed ordinance.  It is the result of a citizen petition that seeks to stop the building of the ball park and the tearing down of city hall unless approved by the voters.  The ordinance would:

• Repeal the provisions that allowed the city manager “to establish construction guidelines to erect a baseball stadium …”
• Forbid the mayor or any other person or entity to prepare for the demolition of city hall
• Only allow the demolition of city hall after an affirmative vote in the May 2013 city election

Don’t hold your breath.  The city has already entered into a $40 million dollar contract to build the new stadium.  It has allocated another $10 million dollars (and contracted for most of it) for engineers, designers, and for other services.

While neither the petition nor the proposed ordinance address the acquisitions of property and the construction services that the city is using to setup new facilities as a replacement for city hall we should be aware that they have already contracted for over $66 million (while they told us it would cost $33 million).

Dissolving these contracts will cost money, regardless of the will of the people.

I predict that we will hear a lot of discussion about how we cannot go back.  “The die is cast” will be the theme.

I believe that the petition was submitted and certified in early September, 2012.  Council took actions to approve the ball park and the tearing down of city hall weeks afterwards.  Council deliberately held off bringing this ordinance forward until they had committed the money.

I don’t know how city council will handle this.  I do anticipate that the ones standing for election might find a way to be absent during the vote so that they can later claim that they were not part of this sham.

If they do manage to pass part of it they will do so already planning to have city hall torn down before the May election, thus subverting the petition.

Once again for the record I favor the idea of the ball park and thank the organizers that bought the team.  Tearing down city hall is another matter.  It has proven to be very expensive.

We deserve better

Brutus

I previously wrote about the preliminary scheduling the city is planning relative to the bonds we just approved.  What committee?  We didn’t promise to listen! focused primarily on the absence of the citizen (until they changed committee eligibility rules after the election) Bond Overview Advisory Committee.

There is a lot more to be upset about.  The document proposes how the city will spend the money in the first (next) three years of administering the funds.

No money will be spent for the new Children’s Museum.  Not a cent toward even planning one!

No money will be spent to replace the Chelsea pool that the city had to close last year.

Maybe the term “Quality of Life” does actually refer to the city staff and not to the public.

What they are spending money on by the bucket full is projects that are to be located downtown (adjunctive to the ball park) and legions of consultants.

We are being told that “shovel ready” projects are being given priority.  For once we are being told the truth.

We all know what they are shoveling.

We deserve better

Brutus