What are the rules here?

December 4, 2013

The Times published this in it’s recent article about our city representative who has announced his candidacy for county judge:

City Attorney Sylvia Borunda Firth said the city could wait until the next uniform election date or follow the recently amended El Paso City Charter. The charter provides that when a special election is required, the city can schedule it for the next uniform election date or the date of the next election that will be conducted by the county elections administrator. That choice is up to the council, Firth said.

Article 11, section 11B of the Texas Constitution has this:

(b) A municipality so providing a term exceeding two (2) years but not exceeding four (4) years for any of its non-civil service officers must elect all of the members of its governing body by majority vote of the qualified voters in such municipality, and any vacancy or vacancies occurring on such governing body shall not be filled by appointment but must be filled by majority vote of the qualified voters at a special election called for such purpose within one hundred and twenty (120) days after such vacancy or vacancies occur.

Further the blog Anson Mills posted this from the state election code:

Section 41.007(d)  “No other election may be held on the date of a primary election.”

I believe that the state constitution trumps the city charter.  If so, the city attorney is wrong.

Is the city attorney telling us that the city is going to fight the state again?

Please set me straight if I have missed something.

We deserve better

Brutus

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

Ignorance of the law

December 1, 2013

I have not been able to find anything in our city charter that addresses how vacancies in city council are to be filled.  It appears that our Texas Constitution says that there must be a special election within 120 days.

Texas local government code does have this provision:

Sec. 26.043. FILLING VACANCY IN ELECTIVE OFFICE IN MUNICIPALITY WITH POPULATION OF 384,000 OR MORE.

 (c) If the municipality holds an election to vote on proposed amendments to its charter, it shall at that time submit a proposed charter amendment to provide a method for filling vacancies in elective offices.

We recently had an election to vote on proposed amendments to our charter.

Then again those state laws are probably only considered to be guidelines by our city staff.

We deserve better

Brutus

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

New Texas

October 23, 2013

Out Texas State Senator wrote a column for the El Paso Times this Sunday.  Taking from the column:

“Looking forward we should strengthen dual-language programs because literacy in multiple languages correlates with increased opportunity.  We should expand early childhood programs and college preparation courses.  As we know, education is the key to the New Texas.”

New Texas?

What is he talking about?  Another state (like New Hampshire)?  A changed state?  I wonder if the rest of Texas  is aware of his plans.

Speaking of plans, what are his plans?  How does he propose to have a “New Texas”?

Much of his guest column spoke of transparency in government.

Spell it out for us Senator, and don’t make us  learn a new language like “political speak” or “double talk”.

Where were you?

The Senator’s column spoke of bribery, mail fraud, and conspiracy in our school districts.  Why is it that he never took action as a prosecutor on these cases when he was our county attorney for 17 years?

The Texas Code of Criminal Procedure defines the duties of county attorneys as:

Art. 2.02. [26] [32] [33] DUTIES OF COUNTY ATTORNEYS. The county attorney shall attend the terms of court in his county below the grade of district court, and shall represent the State in all criminal cases under examination or prosecution in said county; and in the absence of the district attorney he shall represent the State alone and, when requested, shall aid the district attorney in the prosecution of any case in behalf of the State in the district court. He shall represent the State in cases he has prosecuted which are appealed.

Eternal vigilance is the cost of liberty

Cato

11 Comments | County Government, El Paso Independent School District, El Paso Times, State Government | Permalink
Posted by Cato

Keeping up with the Jones

September 30, 2013

The headline article in the Times today talked about the scheduled sentencing of some more people that have been involved in the public corruption cases here in El Paso.

These three individuals pleaded guilty to illegal activity relating to health insurance for local school district and government employees.  Access HealthSource was administering the health coverage.  Bribes were evidently offered to elected officials in return for their votes to give Access contracts.

This story is another one of those that the Times writes often about.  Maybe it is good for circulation.

More of the story

Below is my opinion:

What the Times failed to mention today is that they played a big part in creating the environment that led to the corruption.

For many years Young Insurance had the contracts to administer health insurance for the major school districts and local governments in town.  Steve Young was the head of the firm.  He administered the health insurance programs with fairness, efficiency and honesty.  The employees were happy.  He stepped in frequently to get to the bottom of problems so that employees were taken care of.  Young Insurance regularly saved the employers money and kept their health costs in line.

Enter a former local big shot (who is now in federal prison) who decided he wanted Young’s business.  Allegations were made about the fact that Young Insurance was not in fact an insurance company.  Other allegations were made that Young was secretly taking money from hospitals even though video coverage at the time showed Young explaining his financial dealings with the hospitals in open city council meetings.

The Times saw a scandal.  Scandals are good for circulation.  They published article after article about the situation.  We see the same behavior with the El Paso Independent School District story and the public corruption story today.

Eventually the pressure on Young and his business became too destructive.  He sold his business to the same Access HealthSource, owned primarily by our federal detainee.  Our former county judge who is also now a  federal prisoner and who coincidently has the same last name as the Access owner then helped to lobby for Access.

The result is the scandal that was covered again in the paper again today.

What about Steve Young?  Charges were never filed.  The investigating agencies never made an accusation.  He never got so much as a reprimand.  I think he lost his business thanks in large part to relentless hounding by the Times.

Steve died penniless a few years ago, but not before the Times printed a below the fold front page article that explained he had done nothing wrong.  Steve was grateful for that.

We deserve better

Brutus

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

Lawsuit poll results

September 25, 2013

The results of our first poll are in.

The question was “Should the city drop its participation in the lawsuit against the attorney general?”

The results were:

5 votes NO

42 votes YES

That’s 89%.  It is interesting that several hundred people viewed the page and 47 of you took the time to vote.

I thank those of you who took the time to vote in our poll.

I am thinking that future polls would be in order.  If you have any ideas please feel free to email me at brutusep@yahoo.com.

We deserve better

Brutus

1 Comment | City government, State Government | Permalink
Posted by Brutus

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