Congestion Mitigation

February 18, 2014

Not being an engineer, to me congestion mitigation is the same as coughing.

I guess they want us to cough up more money.

Item 3.4 on the February 10, 2014 city council agenda increases the cost of the ball park.

The September 25, 2013 El Paso Times editorial had this statement in it:

“Mayor Oscar Leeser made it clear the city will not add another cent to the now-$64 million project. He and City Council deserve credit for being firm on that.”

Crossings

The agenda item considers the construction of two pedestrian crossings over the depressed train way into the new ball park.  The project amount is set at $2,875,410.

This money clearly is part of the ball park cost and adds almost $3 million to the total.

Under “AMOUNT AND SOURCE OF FUNDING:”  our city engineer entered “NONE”.

Not so

The project requires an agreement between the city and the state titled “LOCAL TRANSPORTATION PROJECT ADVANCE FUNDING AGREEMENT For A Congestion Mitigation & Air Quality Improvement (2014 CMAQ STP-Flex) Off-System Project”.

The second page of the backup material is a proposed resolution that states “for a total project amount of $2,857,410 with a local contribution by the City of $239,976”.

That works out to 23,997,600 more cents when the mayor and council evidently said not a cent more.

And climbing

One document says no local money will be spent.  One page later a document says that $239,976 will be spent.  Then attachment C of the same document says that the “Local Participation” will be $545,400.

You can read the whole mess here.

Not one cent more

The vast majority of the project will be paid for with state and federal funds.

It seems obvious that someone was not telling the mayor and council the truth when they said no more money would be needed.  Otherwise I doubt that they would have said “not one cent more”.

Will council ever hold anyone accountable?

We deserve better

Brutus

4 Comments | Ball park, City government, El Paso Times, Federal Government, State Government | Permalink
Posted by Brutus

The revised truth

February 11, 2014

The city’s chief financial officer (some say chief fibbing officer) is scheduled to make a presentation at the February 11, 2014 city council meeting.

The topic?  “1st Quarter Budget Report”.

Not good news

According to her presentation that was posted with the agenda, sales taxes for the year will fall short of budget by 3.39%.  Fines collected will fall short by 5.38%.  Property taxes look as though they will come in almost one-half percent above budget.

Residential building permits look as though they will fall short of budget by 14.95%.

Property taxes are a reflection of what has already been built and taxed.  Building permits and sales taxes indicate current economic activity and they show that our local economy is not doing well when compared to what they budgeted.

Limited

She does indicate “Projections based on limited information”.

Limited particularly in truth.  Her presentation does not say anything about the shortfall in hotel occupancy taxes.  See More shortfalls for that dose of bad news.

The presentation indicates “Based on limited information, revenues will under perform by $3,635,006“.

Information may be limited but the six dollars is intended to convey accuracy I guess.

What to do

They plan to cut expenses.  Actually they will do that right after adding one million dollars to the city attorney’s budget.  Evidently suing the Texas attorney general and whoever else they don’t like is getting more expensive.

Fire and police will take the biggest hits at about half a million dollars each.

No growth

Her report tells us that total employment in our area was 300,176 in 2012 and is down to 296,226 in 2013.  We evidently sold 466 new homes in 2012 and 386 in 2013.

Trust me

I suppose her presentation might end with “Trust me–this time I know what I am talking about”.

You can see the whole report here.

We deserve better

Brutus

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

More shortfalls

February 9, 2014

KFOX TV ran this segment about local hotel occupancy the other day.

“I can tell you that hotel revenue in this city is down 3.1 percent from last year,” said Rick LaFleur, president of the El Paso Hotel Motel Association.

The city budgeted a 3% increase for this year.  That comes to a 6.1% shortfall.

Ball park funding

The hotel occupancy tax has been designated as the primary funding source for our new ball park.

The segment showed our city manager deliver this line:  “”All of our revenues are meeting our projections so I don’t know what they’re talking about”.  As though we should believe any financial numbers coming out of her office.

Not to worry

The city manager explained “Well, we have multiple sources of revenue that are going to pay for it. So it’s rent, it’s parking revenues, it’s sales tax”.

If they take money from sales tax revenues (which are not meeting the city’s budget either) then you can expect a property tax increase again next year.

We deserve better

Brutus

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

Too true

February 3, 2014

Brutus wrote about the city manager’s recent speech to a group downtown in City manager speaks of “undue tax burden”.

I followed the link to the El Paso Times article and read that she had said something else disturbing to me:

 “Some times you have people who have really great visions and are really forward thinking and sometimes they are a little ahead of their time and they push the envelop a little to [sic] far and a little too fast. But you have to do that to make change. We did a lot of really great things and I am really proud to be a part of the organization and the community.”

Too far, too fast

I googled “define too” and got this definition: “to a higher degree than is desirable, permissible, or possible; excessively“.

In other words more than they should have.

Try these explanations  and see what you get:

“Officer, I wasn’t speeding too much”.

“I didn’t steal too much”.

“I didn’t mean to hurt you too badly”.

Proud

It seems that her quote may define her administration.  I think she was saying that the end justifies the means.

That is precisely how we get out of control governments.

Eternal vigilance is the price of liberty.

Cato

 

2 Comments | City government, County Government, El Paso Independent School District, El Paso Times, Federal Government, State Government | Permalink
Posted by Cato

Trying to solve the equation

February 1, 2014

I’m confused.

Last week we saw several local school superintendents sign a document asking the state board of education to reinstate algebra II as a high school graduation requirement state-wide.

According to a state official, the local districts have the right to continue to require the course.  Evidently local districts can stipulate more stringent graduation requirements than the state does.

If that is the case, then what’s the problem?  The local districts can simply elect to continue to make the course a graduation requirement.  Reading the Times did not clear up the matter for me.

Is this somehow about money?

We deserve better

Brutus

1 Comment | El Paso Independent School District, El Paso Times, State Government | Permalink
Posted by Brutus

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