Private club

May 1, 2014

Is our district attorney part of the corruption problem here in El Paso?

If we look at the problems that we have had with our local governments we see that our local district attorney is not involved in the prosecutions.

The word I get is that he will not prosecute another elected official.

I’m trying to find out what has happened with  our west side city representative who back in October was accused of threatening a city employee.  I have been told that the investigation is over and that our district attorney is stalling.

What about the mayor?

According to the Texas Code of Criminal Procedure the mayor of an incorporated city is also a magistrate under the law (title 1, chapter 2, article 2.09 Texas Code of Criminal Procedure).

The code goes on further to specify:

Art. 2.10. DUTY OF MAGISTRATES.  It is the duty of every magistrate to preserve the peace within his jurisdiction by the use of all lawful means;  to issue all process intended to aid in preventing and suppressing crime;  to cause the arrest of offenders by the use of lawful means in order that they may be brought to punishment.

If the police investigation has not been completed at this point we clearly have a problem.  The accusation was made last October.

If the investigation clears the city representative of wrong-doing we have a right to know.

If on the other hand the investigation indicates that a crime has been committed we should move forward to a grand jury.

Our mayor should either let us know that the case is cleared or he should do his duty and bring charges.

We deserve better

Brutus

3 Comments | City government, County Government, State Government | Permalink
Posted by Brutus

Fat chance

April 26, 2014
An astute reader pointed out that Texas house bill 343 will require all of our school board members to disclose their financial statements in January.
Since the El Paso Independent School District has a state appointed board of managers acting with the powers and responsibilities of our elected school board will the members of the board of managers be required to disclose their financial statements also?
It does not take much imagination to think that the members of the board of managers will refuse to disclose their financial statements based upon the fact that they are not members of the school board and that the new law does not specifically include members of a board of managers.
On the other hand the board of managers assumes all of the responsibilities of the school board.  Is reporting your personal financial situation a responsibility?
My prediction is that we will not see the financial statements of the members of the board of managers.  After all, they think that they are special.
We deserve better
Brutus

5 Comments | El Paso Independent School District, State Government | Permalink
Posted by Brutus

Know your place

April 20, 2014

The chief appraiser of our appraisal district had this quote attributed to her in the Times recently:

“We’ve been able to increase (property) values and put more income in your budgets. Remember that it takes people to do that.”

She was speaking to her board of directors.

Wrong

The chief appraiser is wrong.  Texas law requires the appraisal district to set a value on each piece of property.  That value is then used to determine the proportionate share of a particular tax burden that the property will bear.

In other words if a particular property is valued at 200 dollars and the total value of all properties is in a particular taxing district is $1,000 then that property will bear 20% of the tax burden for that district.

The taxing entity then sets their tax rate.  They must first determine how many cents per hundred dollars of the most recent valuations from the appraisal district will be required to come up with the same tax revenue as they came up with last year.

As an example, if our $200 dollar property last year was taxed at five cents per hundred the tax bill for the property would be ten cents.  Once again if the value of all the properties was $1,000 the total tax bill would be fifty cents.

If the next appraisal raised the value of the properties to a total of $2,000 then the tax rate would need to be two and one half cents per hundred, yielding the same fifty cents.

Tax increases

After the appraisal district determines the individual and total valuations of the properties the taxing entities then determine what the new tax rate must be in order to raise the same amount of revenue.

In Texas the taxing entity can change their rate to lower (that seldom happens) or raise their tax revenue.  If the new tax rate results in more than an 8 percent increase in revenue a roll back election is in order for some of our governments.

There are some exceptions to the basic formulas above but it should be clear that the appraisal district does not raise revenue for anyone.  They spend revenue.

Know your place

Our chief appraiser is off the reservation.

Referring to the appraisal district’s legal budget, the Times article provided this quote from her:

“When you chip that down to next to nothing, we’ll have to just roll over and give (property owners) whatever they want because we won’t be able to defend our appraisals and provide the best values to the entities.”

It sounds like she considers the property owners to be her opponents.

Maybe she should apply for the job of city manager.

 

We deserve better

Brutus

3 Comments | City government, County Government, State Government | Permalink
Posted by Brutus

Shameless

April 11, 2014

Not one cent more said the city council.

Unless we can find a way to trick the crazies

Item 8.1 on the April 15, 2014 city council agenda does it to us again.

The city will give the state 5 million dollars to pay for aesthetic improvements at I-10 and highway 54.

The city will also give the state another 5 million dollars for “bridge enhancements” along I-10 from Porfirio Diaz street to Missouri avenue.  The bridge enhancements will be from I-10 to the ball park.

In return

The state will give the city 2.7 million dollars for two pedestrian overpasses over the Bataan Memorial Trainway to the ball park.

The state will also provide $800,000 for downtown pedestrian wayfinding.  Sounds like this is for the ball park too.

Then the state will give the city 6.5 million dollars for landscaping of parkways and street medians somewhere in the city.

Say it ain’t so

This way the city can say they did not spend more money on the ballpark.  They were only helping the state.

The state will then pay for the changes needed for the ball park.

We deserve better

Brutus

6 Comments | Ball park, City government, State Government | Permalink
Posted by Brutus

Water torture

March 12, 2014

The other day city council decided unanimously to not increase the impact fees that the city charges when new buildings are built.

Some members of council expressed their opinion that raising the cost of a piece of land in the city causes people to build outside of the city limits.  We then essentially lose the property tax revenue even as those new county residents come into the city and use our facilities.

I can’t take a side on the issue, I simply don’t know enough about it.

The Times wrote an article about the vote and included a quote from the head of our water utility:

“We are OK with the 12-month delay,” Balliew said.

One of the driving forces behind the proposal to increase impact fees is the need to do a $43 million expansion of the Jonathan Rogers Water Treatment Plant over the next five years. Balliew said the utility will seek state money for the project from various sources including Proposition 6, which was passed by the voters last November and set aside $2 billion of “rainy-day funds” for water and sewer projects around the state.

Another double whammy?

State funds are available yet they wanted to roughly double our current impact fees.

I mentioned the situation to a few citizens and their responses were remarkably quick and similar.  In essence they said “Sure, that way they get an increase in local fees and can get state money to pay for the expansion too.  You don’t think the fee will be reduced once the project is paid for, do you?”

We deserve better

Brutus

3 Comments | City government, El Paso Times, State Government | Permalink
Posted by Brutus

« Previous Entries
Next Entries »