Closed government

January 11, 2013

One of the tools that the city has provided on its web site is the ability to search.

Well, it seems that searching may have made it too easy to figure out what is going on.

They have removed it from the website.

Look here if you find this difficult to believe.

Of all the low down, mean spirited tricks …

They could have and should have left the old search feature up while they are working on the new one.

We deserve better

Leave a Comment » | City government, Open Government | Permalink
Posted by Brutus

Council Deceit

December 15, 2012

I try to keep each article focused on a single issue.

Next weeks council agenda won’t let me do that.  There are too many things that they are planning to do to us.

Here is a list of the items that caught my eye on my first reading of the agenda:

  • Item 19 on the regular agenda allows the city to sign a lease for antenna space on top of the Wells Fargo building for the public safety radio system.  Those antennae used to be on top of city hall.  Turns out that city hall was a ten story building and the multiple new buildings they want to move into are not tall enough for the antennae.  Cost? $40,800 a year (to start) for ten years.  That’s another $408,000 that I will add to the running total of the cost of tearing down city hall.
  • Item 18 on the regular agenda asks for permission to change the Bond Overview Advisory Committee (BOAC) resolution. Council created the BOAC so that we citizens would feel that we might get someone honest to watch how the bond money was spent — trust us, we will have civilian oversight.  The resolution stated “No member of the BOAC shall hold any other public office of honor, trust or profit in the government of the city, county or state during his or her term of office”.  That meant no elected officials or government staff.  The agenda item includes “The City Council will consider deleting this provision in order to allow more individuals to apply and be considered for appointment to the 2012 BOAC.”  In other words we want to stack the board with our insiders so that we can spend the money without citizen interference.
  • Item 17A on the regular agenda asks for permission for to have “City Development Department staff draft an ordinance implementing urban design standards/criteria for public assembly use buildings to include all City of El Paso civic buildings and schools.  Furthermore, that staff develop a process by which civic buildings and schools are vetted through an Architectural Design Review Committee to ensure compliance with urban design standards.”  In other words they want control over the design and construction of all of our local schools.
  • Item 10A on the regular agenda contemplates the establishment of the “Baseball Stadium Venue Project Fund”.  Maybe that makes sense.  What does not make sense is that it allows the city to use money in the fund to “pay the principal of, interest on, and other costs relating to bonds or other obligations issued by the City or to refund bonds, notes, or other obligations; …”   In other words they can steal money from the fund to pay for other things not related to the ballpark.  Is this an accidental phrasing?  Do they mean they only want the fund to pay for the ballpark?  Regardless of their intentions, the language is clear — they want to be able to pay for anything.

I will stop now to let you think about these things:

  • $408,000 being spent because the antennae on top of city hall need to be put somewhere else
  • Change the bond oversight committee to allow politicians and government insiders to control what is happening
  • Let us decide how schools will be built and what it will cost to build them
  • Let us spend the Hotel Occupancy Tax on whatever we want to spend it on.

We deserve better

Leave a Comment » | Ball park, City government, El Paso Independent School District, Open Government | Permalink
Posted by Cato

Maybe “The Truth Will Not Set You Free”

December 14, 2012

The City of El Paso  is now suing the Texas Attorney General to try to avoid turning over emails and other documents that were requested for a citizen back in September.

According to the El Paso Times the city claims that “the personal emails, letters, memos and other documents of the mayor and City Council members should not be subject to public information searches even if they regard city business”.   Also requested were copies of communications between city officials and business people linked to the Triple-A baseball team.  According to the Times the city issued a statement saying “Those documents do not meet the statutory definition of public information”.

The Attorney General has ruled to the contrary and has told the city to turn over the documents.  The basic path that the Attorney General applies to the Public Information Act request in cases like this is:

  • Does the city have the information (and it is not a violation of a person’s right to privacy)?  If so,  turn it over.
  • Does the city pay for or control the email account being used?  If so, turn it over.
  • If the email account is paid for privately, does the email discuss city business?  If so, turn it over.

Another case like this has already gone to court and the judge ordered the information to be turned over.  The case is now on appeal.

It looks like the city will lose this court case.  So why are they challenging the Attorney General, especially if nothing is wrong?

Could it be the principal of the thing?  Preposterous!  The law is clear, the case law is clear, and I have not seen much evidence that the people running the city can even spell principal, much less have one.

What are they trying to hide?  This tactic will allow them to delay, but why?  Have they violated a law?  Are they worried about their images in the next election?

As far as the communications between the city staff and business people, they should be turned over without delay if they were discussing city matters or if city email accounts were used.  The law is clear on this.

A committee in the legislature is even considering changes to the law, in part to make clear that the modern methods of communication (text messaging, emails) are specifically included in the law.  Currently the possession of and content of messages become the basis for declaring them to be public information.

Think about what the city wants to do.  If a government official can conduct government business in secret on his or her own device, what will keep them from doing everything that way?  That would be wrong.

Why are they spending our money on a high profile case with out of town lawyers when the intent of the law is clear and they will ultimately have to turn over the documents?  Why do they want to keep these documents secret as long as they can?  Who are they protecting?

I can only conclude that there is something they do not want us to know.

We will eventually.

We deserve better

1 Comment | City government, El Paso Times, Open Government, State Government | Permalink
Posted by jcurrey

Grading their Agendas

December 6, 2012

To my knowledge the laws controlling government agendas in Texas are pretty specific about when and where they must be published, but do not address much about the content of agendas.  The only local  exception to this that I am aware of is the City of El Paso ordinance number 16806 that is quite specific about the backup material that must be provided when an item is placed on the agenda.

I thought it would be interesting to see how much information our local government agendas give us citizens and to assign a grade to them.

Many of the agendas tell us that there will be discussion and action on various topics but fail to give us any of the backup documents that the voting group gets to see.  Most of the items on agendas are put there by the paid staff.  Generally they want their governing board to approve a recommendation.  That means that back up materials (bid analyses, proposed contracts …) are given to each of the voting members before the discussion.

The public generally does not get to see the backup materials before the vote, even though it should.  If the XYZ school district administrators want their board to approve a policy to paint all second graders green, the item would typically be placed on the agenda as “Consider and take possible action relative to certain students”.  If as a citizen you think that painting all second graders green is not a good idea, you have no way of knowing what they are considering until after they have already done it.  So much for public input.

I did a brief review of some of our local government agendas available on the web to see what I would find.  I only looked at one agenda each, so the one I looked at might be an exception.  Maybe I should consider this grade like a 6 weeks grade, not the final score.

The grades are my opinion:

  • F    Anthony Independent School District.  This agenda is a model for brevity and obscurity.  While they appear to be using the same software that the Canutillo district uses, they do not provide any backup information even though they could.
  • A    Canutillo Independent School District.  The agenda tells us what they will consider and includes a link to an “Agenda Packet” that seems to give us the information that the board is to look at.
  • D    City of El Paso Texas.  Their agenda includes backup information for most items and in all fairness when compared to the other entities in this list it is the best.  The problem is that they are violating a very specific ordinance that requires them to post more information than they are.
  • B-   El Paso County.  It looks as though they have a policy of presenting backup material on the web site, but they appear to be conveniently inconsistent.  A previously postponed mandatory presentation from the CEO of the El Paso County Hospital District (University Medical Center) included backup material that was simply a four point listing  (Strategic Plan, Leadership Development, Operations Improvement, Financial Update) of what was to be presented.  There were no details.
  • D    El Paso County Community College District.  The agenda gives us a pretty complete idea of what action is being considered (including names and dollar amounts) but none of the analysis or competitive data that the staff used to make their recommendation.
  • F    El Paso County Hospital District (aka University Medical Center).  Horrible.  First it is hard to find the agendas.  Once you do find them it appears that they only post agendas for meetings yet to be held.  I could not find past agendas.  There are no backup materials.  The agenda wording is very vague.
  • F    Socorro Independent School District.  The agenda tells us very little.  Among other items they consider awarding competitive contracts without telling us who they suggest should win the award.  How can a competitor tell his side of the story when he does not know what he is up against?
  • D    Ysleta Independent School District.  The agenda gives us a pretty complete idea of what action is being considered (including names and dollar amounts) but none of the analysis or competitive data that the staff used to make their recommendation.

The only web site that I could find that to allows us citizens to do key word searches is the one for the City of El Paso.  They all should.

We should each contact our elected representatives at these organizations and tell them that we want to see everything that they see when considering agenda items except for those things that are properly handled in executive session.

We deserve better.

Leave a Comment » | City government, County Government, El Paso Independent School District, Open Government, 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

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