Proposed charter amendments

April 4, 2013

I can see from the articles that Brutus is working on that he intends to publish at least one article on each of the proposed charter amendments that we will have a chance to vote on in May.

One of the many problems with the proposed amendments is that some of them appear to violate both the Texas constitution and state law.

Our constitution

Article 11, section 5 of the Texas constitution reads:

The adoption or amendment of charters is subject to such limitations as may be prescribed by the Legislature, and no charter or any ordinance passed under said charter shall contain any provision inconsistent with the Constitution of the State, or of the general laws enacted by the Legislature of this State.

For the staff over at the city let me explain that no amendment is valid if it violates either the state constitution or a state law.

State law

Title 2, Subtitle A, Chapter 9, Section 9.004 (d) of the Local Government Code (that’s a law for the folks over at the city) says:

An amendment may not contain more than one subject.

Of course the ballot language approved by city council violates this law many times.

In the city’s own words

Using the explanations found on the city’s web site we see:

Proposition One

  • Move the City general elections from May in odd numbered years to November in even numbered years (beginning in 2018)
  • Amend the candidate petition to conform to State law – the greater of 25 qualified voters or .5% of the total vote
  • Special elections to be held on next uniform election date or next election conducted County Elections Administrator
  • Increase council districts to 10 when population reaches 1 million

My count is that the proposed amendment covers four subjects.

Proposition Two

  • Allow for the cancelation [sic] of up to seven regular City Council meetings per year but not more than two in a row
  • City Attorney appointed by entire City Council solely on the basis of legal experience and qualifications
  • Appointments to the City’s boards and commissions by entire City Council
  • Allow ordinances and the City Code be made available by any contemporary means such as the internet
  • Allow the Council to authorize leases of public property and temporary uses of streets and rights- of-way by resolution in lieu of ordinance
  • Clarify the Mayor is allowed to make appointments to boards and commissions

I count six here.

Proposition Four

  • Increase annual salary of the District Representatives to the H.U.D. median income for a family of 4 for El Paso County (beginning in 2015)
  • Increase annual salary of the Mayor to 150% of the amount of District Representatives (beginning in 2015)
  • Clarify the prohibition against Mayor and Council holding another public office or public employment and conforms with State law (not more prohibitive)

The mayor’s salary and the council member’s salaries are separate subjects to me.

OK, you get the idea.  Some of the other propositions have the same problem.  I have no doubt that the city staff will argue that the ballot wording only asks one question for each proposition.  Actually proposition one does not ask a question, Brutus explained that in Strike two.  The city will have to argue that “Shall we change the law to allow the use of currently illegal drugs, outlaw automobiles, discontinue public schools, and give all state employees a pay raise” is only a single question.  We know better and so do they.

The legislature

The legislature wants us to be able to vote on issues separately.  For example you may agree that city elections should be moved to November, but not agree that we should have 10 city representatives.  We are supposed to be able to vote on these issues separately.

This could cause a real mess in the courts if someone decides to challenge an amendment that passes.

As an aside, I note that the city believes that the amendments will pass.  Their web page says “CITY CHARTER to be amended”.  Maybe they plan to ignore our votes as they have in the past and just order that the charter be amended.

Brutus looks like he is going to do a pretty good job addressing each proposition.

Please study them and then vote in May.

Eternal vigilance is the price of liberty

Cato

8 Comments | City government, State Government | Permalink
Posted by Cato

Cheater

April 3, 2013

I ran across this letter on the internet.

In it the mayor appoints the city’s chief financial officer as the “citizen appointee” to the El Paso Fire and Police Pension Fund board.

What caught my attention is that the mayor evidently has a statutory responsibility to appoint a “citizen” to the board.

I have not read whatever law or ordinance requires the mayor to appoint a “citizen” here.  In all probability it contemplates a person from the community with no ties to the fire or police departments or to the city.  Otherwise why use the term “citizen”?  Every city employee is a citizen of somewhere.

Citizen?

The appointee is the chief financial officer of the city!  She also has served as the chief administrator of the El Paso county government.  The Texas Education Agency has appointed her to the oversight board that might end up controlling the El Paso Independent School District.

Her idea of conflict of interest and mine seem to be worlds apart.

She is a citizen in the sense that she is an inhabitant of a city.

She is not a citizen in the sense that must be meant here — not tied to the government or the employees.

Cheating

The mayor clearly chose to use lack of specific language to appoint someone whose vote can be controlled by the city.  He may not have violated a law, but he certainly cheated it’s intent in my opinion.

This kind of rule bending is typical of what is wrong with our local governments.  Our paid officials should be the guardians of both the letter and the spirit of the rules.

We deserve better

Brutus

Leave a Comment » | City government, County Government, El Paso Independent School District, State Government | Permalink
Posted by Brutus

Scheming Institutionalized

April 2, 2013

It now seems that more than one school district in the area was involved in manipulating student grade levels to avoid state and federal sanctions.  Other local districts are conducting investigations to see if they too were involved.

At the high school level the technique seems to have been to reduce the number of children from the 10th grade whose English language skills were deemed to have been substandard.  Evidently some students were placed in the 9th grade for a while and then promoted to the 11th grade.  According to news reports some were sent away (taken out of school).

It appears that the testing occurred in the 10th grade.  I guess that we don’t have enough money to check to see that all of our grade levels are performing to standard.

Without for a minute trying to defend the people who manipulated the system, some questions come to mind:

How should a school be evaluated when a foreign language student enrolls in the school without having attended the first through the 9th grades in the school district?  Has the student had time to learn English?

Are there special tests for students arriving from foreign countries?

Should grade level placement of the student be decided by the administrators based upon the individual student’s capabilities?

At what point does self preservation (keeping your job by doing what your boss asks you to do even when you disagree) kick in?

On the other hand, the situation shows us how government employees (not just educators) get together to learn strategies from each other that help to subvert the intent of the rules.  The El Paso Independent School District not releasing the draft report of the cheating audit was probably the result of an administrator or lawyer learning from some other agency how to avoid releasing the document by calling it a “draft”.

I have to wonder how many other schools around the country have been involved in similar efforts to “bend the rules”.

Too often I get the feeling that it is government employees versus the “crazies”.

Eternal vigilance is the cost of liberty.

Cato

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

The week of March 31, 2013

April 1, 2013

I got some feedback from some of you that it is hard to read this blog every day and as a result some of you miss some articles.

They are shown with the most recent post at the top and the ones immediately prior to it listed below it.

Here is a list of the posts from last week:

Brutus started the week this Monday with Rubbing shoulders.  He pointed out that the city has seen to it that the departments at our new expensive city hall are mostly internal ones.  The public has been relegated to multiple buildings spread across town.

Tuesday saw Brutus writing about the city hiding debt so that they do not have to publicly raise the tax rate based on expenditures in Rushing into debt.

Cut and paste writing took the Times to task for reprinting the same things over and over and over.  Strike two focused on the serious flaw in the ballot language for Proposition One.  These were published Wednesday.

Thursday saw Part of a story from me.  This blog got an interesting tip about the Times.  Brutus took the state senate to task in Goose or gander?

I published Slight of hand? this Friday.  It looks like the city is creating a diversion.  Why?  Brutus posted In the land of the blind man the oye-eyed jack is king.  The board of our county hospital seems to be doing the same thing that many of our other managing boards are doing — following instead of leading their executive and insulating themselves from the public.

Saturday saw Catch me if you can from Brutus.  He senses a secret deal with the railroad.

On Sunday Cato posted Release the audit.  The El Paso Independent School District is hiding the $800,000 audit from us while at the same time it is firing officials that have significant public support.

Leave a Comment » | City government, County Government, El Paso Independent School District, El Paso Times, State Government | Permalink
Posted by Muckraker

Release the audit

March 31, 2013

The El Paso Independent School District is in the process of either firing or not renewing the contracts for several employees.  Careers are at stake.

While the district is being quiet about the who’s and why’s, we are being led to believe that these personnel actions are related to the district accountability scandal.

The district paid $800,000 dollars for an external audit of the issue.  The report is categorized by the board as a “draft”.  The open records rules in Texas allow governments to avoid releasing “drafts” of documents.

Is the information in the audit accurate?  Are the findings going to change?  Should the board take action based on a preliminary report?

My suspicion is that the report is only a “draft” as a matter of convenience to the district.  To me this is the same kind of “bending of the rules” that the employees are accused of.

The public and the people involved deserve to know what is in the report.  Citizens are upset about what some are calling a “witch hunt”, yet they do not know what has been found.

Can we get down to the facts on this issue?

It is nice to be able to agree with the Times on this subject.  Read their editorial here.

Eternal vigilance is the price of liberty.

Cato

Leave a Comment » | El Paso Independent School District, Federal Government, State Government | Permalink
Posted by Cato

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