Missed opportunity

March 10, 2014

Evidently the Freedom of Information Foundation of Texas hosted a seminar in El Paso the other day at the El Paso Independent School District central office.

They presented information about the Public Information Act and the Texas Open Meetings Act.

Unfortunately few of us knew about the event and so did not attend.

What would it have taken for EPISD to have notified the newspapers, television, and radio stations so that more of us would have known about the seminar?  Maybe they did.

Unfortunately many local government employees consider anyone who makes a request under the Public Information Act to be the enemy.

We deserve better

Brutus

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

Bipartisanship

March 8, 2014

This made its way to me through a friend:

M. Stanton Evans, Texas author, educator, and journalist observed that in America there are only two parties, 

“One is the evil party, and the other is the stupid party…Occasionally the two parties get together to do something that’s both evil and stupid.   That’s called bipartisanship.”

We deserve better

Brutus

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

Land grab

February 26, 2014

Word has leaked out that the powers that be over at the El Paso Independent School District are working on plans to close Jefferson High School.

They aren’t ready to say that yet.  What they are saying is that it appears that they can save money by combining Jefferson and Bowie.

I just don’t see the Bowie alumni quietly allowing Bowie to merge into Jefferson.  Look for an active program from this group to avoid losing the Bowie name.

Besides, the Jefferson campus is what they are really after.  The combination of our medical school, ever growing county hospital, and the Medical Center of the Americas will probably somehow take possession of the land.

Having the state take over the elected school board and replacing it with a politically appointed board of managers provides the opportunity for Jefferson to get axed without the school board having to face the wrath of the voters.

The board of managers continuing to remain in power is beginning to make sense.  The scandal over student grade levels is over.  The board of managers does not seem to be doing anything constructive.  It looks like they continue to exist so that changes like axing Jefferson and building a new central office can be forced on us by a group that does not have to answer to the voters.

We deserve better

Brutus

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

Astute comment

February 21, 2014

Reality Checker wrote a comment the other day that no one else commented on.  The original post was about how the city appears to be using almost $3 million from Texas state funding sources to build two pedestrian crossings for our new ball park.

The comment deserves to be promoted to a post so that more readers see it.  It is reprinted below:

You just opened Pandora’s box. I believe the pedestrian crossing was included in the original ballpark budget, which makes the city council’s actions of greater concern.

Here’s what the El Paso Times’ Cindy Ramirez wrote in a Q&A on July 15, 2012:

“A preliminary study by Turner Construction shows design and construction costs of about $39 million; $2 million for a pedestrian crossing; and $2 million to demolish the City Hall and Insights buildings. The $50 million allows some wiggle room in construction, though any surplus would be deposited into the debt service fund to help pay off the construction, used to provide additional parking or deposited into a capital repairs reserve fund for future maintenance.”

They are now using state taxpayer funds which were not originally intended to be a source of funds for this project. This is really pretty simple: the ballpark is more over budget than we even know and that city management, council, and the car salesman are once again engaged in a manipulative shell game to obscure the truth. They are also once again robbing Peter to pay Paul Foster.

The only “wiggle room” in this situation is the wiggle room that is allowing city management, city council, the mayor and the Mountainstar principals to continue to do these things without any personal consequences.

Ms. Ramirez stated on July 15, 2012, that the answers in her Q&A were provided by city officials and the Mountainstar principals. If she were not so busy these days serving as the de facto public relations person for downtown redevelopment, perhaps she could have done some reporting on the disconnect between the July 2012 statement and the actions taken in the February 10 council meeting. Then again, maybe she and the Times chose to ignore the discrepancy and deception.

We deserve better

Brutus

Reply

1 Comment | Ball park, City government, El Paso Times, State Government | Permalink
Posted by Brutus

More taxes

February 20, 2014

It seems that paying taxes to governments does not entitle us to get what we pay for.

The El Paso Times reported that the city of El Paso will pay $1.5 million dollars over 3 years to the feral government.  The money is to be used to pay salaries and overtime so that more agents can staff the ports of entry.

According to the article, the goal is to reduce waiting times on the bridges to “15 minutes and no more that 30 minutes”.  I have difficulty believing what the Times publishes especially when in the same article they wrote “City officials said last year that 2.6 vehicles crossed El Paso bridges.”

Not the point

The Times’ sloppy publishing is not my point.  Rather, why do we have to pay extra here?

Trashy

Similarly, why do downtown property owners have to pay the Downtown Management District to handle “sanitation and security” when the city is supposed to do that for them?  Recently the district has been involved in a controversy over a process that would allow them to double the taxes on members over a period of years.

Lucky us

The Texas legislature does not seem to want to pay to fund new roads in El Paso that some think are necessary.  Our city council formed the Camino Real Regional Mobility Authority whose purpose essentially is to raise money to fund transportation projects.  Our money.

Coming soon?

Might we see Neighborhood Investment Tax Watching Interior Transportation (NITWIT) zones soon?  These zones could impose an extra tax on individual neighborhoods to fund fixing our local streets.

We deserve better

Brutus

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

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