Ascarate follies

December 16, 2014

The issue of the water pumps at Ascarate lake tells us a lot about our county government.

The Times reported back in June that one of the pumps had “depleted” the lake.  Actually evaporation depleted the lake, a pump did not drain it.  The pump was not working at all.

County commissioners spent $20,000 dollars for a new pump.

Back in the news

Last week we heard about pumps again.  We learned:

We have a broken pump

It was installed in 2011 on land that the county does not own

The county has no right to enter the land or to pump water from it

They might have to follow state and local regulations in installing and operating the pump if they ever get permission to use the land and the water.  This evidently rankles our county officials–they are with the government after all.

The people responsible for this mess are no longer with the county

There’s the lie

Our county judge was with us in 2011.

We deserve better

Brutus

8 Comments | County Government, State Government | Permalink
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This may take two steps

December 11, 2014

The county tells us that their selection process designed to pick the new county administrator has narrowed the field down to four people, all from out of town.

Most of the departments at the county are run by elected officials.  Hired administrators don’t get to tell elected officials what to do in their own departments.

We have the city manager form of government over at the city.  Our city charter gives the city manager operational control of all city departments with the exception of the city attorney.

The elected officials at the county are prohibited from delegating the authority to run their own departments, so the future county administrator could at most be assigned responsibility for the departments that the county operates that are not required by our state constitution.

If you subscribe to the belief that our county should only provide the services that are required by the state then you won’t see much use for a county administrator.

We also should consider the fact that most of us will expect the county administrator to be non political.  Ask our hospital administrator how it feels to be swimming in a pool filled with politicians.  Whether he deserves it or not he is certainly in troubled water.

Somehow I doubt that any of the four announced finalists will get hired.  If I am wrong, watch for the dust-up that will probably occur, a dust-up that will “require” the new administrator to leave.  That way the politicians can have one of their own in the job.

We deserve better

Brutus

1 Comment | City government, County Government, State Government | Permalink
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Brio madness getting worse

November 28, 2014

Following up on the unfortunate waste that is Brio I got to thinking about the construction costs.

According to their web site the Brio system for Mesa street cost $27.1 million.

They bought 10 buses for $790,000 each giving us a total of 7.9 million dollars for the buses.  That leaves 19.2 million dollars to build the bus stops.

Once again according to their web site there are 11 areas where the buses stop with each area having two stops, one on the north bound side and the other on the south bound side of Mesa.  That gives us 22 stops.  Actually they have yet to build the permanent one on the north bound side of Monticello and they only had to build the south bound one at the Glory Road transfer station.

I’m going to leave the number of new stops at 22 for purposes of this post.

Taking the 19.2 million dollars and dividing it by 22 stops gives us a cost of $872,727 per stop.  According to our local tax and spend authorities the average house in El Paso is valued at $124 thousand on the tax rolls.  That puts the cost of each of the stops at about the equivalent of seven homes.

We could have added regular buses without the special stops if we wanted to have more frequent service.

It gets worse

Of the $27.1 million the Mesa corridor cost, $19.6 came from feral and state funds, leaving us with a $7.5 million bill.

Sun Metro plans to build the Alameda corridor next.  The Alameda corridor is projected to cost $35.5 million.  Who will pay that bill?  The answer is local taxpayers.  Our city council voted to pay for the project with local funds to show El Paso’s commitment to mass transit.

Can this be stopped?

We deserve better

Brutus

 

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

Thanks

November 27, 2014

On this Thanksgiving day I would like to express my appreciation for the regular readers and commenters on our blog.

With people who care enough to stay informed and active in local situations we have a chance of making our local conditions better.

It takes commitment and time to stay informed and active and I appreciate those of you who do.

Have a safe and enjoyable Thanksgiving.

Brutus

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

Abdicating power?

November 10, 2014

The federal influence is evidently infecting Texas.

Our state’s secretary of state offers a web listing of “Election Night Returns” with a button for a “Statewide Race Summary”.

You can see it here.

The listing provided starts with the contest for United States senator.  Personally I think that the state offices are more important to us but at least the senatorial race was actually one that included the whole state.

The site then goes on to list the races for United States representative, all 35 of them.  By definition they are not statewide races but evidently someone at the secretary of state’s office thinks that these federal district elections are more important than our state races.

The state races are listed last.

By the way, if my counting is right Texas will be sending six democrats to Washington next year.  None of the six winners had a republican opponent.

It seems that some of our state officials consider the federal government to be more important than our state government.

We deserve better

Brutus

2 Comments | Federal Government, State Government | Permalink
Posted by Brutus

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