Who said what and why doesn’t matter

February 27, 2013

Regardless of which communications you and I might believe should be held private, the council’s proposed new ordinance overlooks a really big issue.

Texas law says that records created or maintained with public money are public property.

“Local government records created or received in the transaction or official business or the creation or maintenance of which were paid for by public funds are declared to be public property …”

Who wrote the e-mails and the capacity they were serving at the time are not important if the e-mails are stored on city property or with city money.  They are public property by state law.  The Public Information Act does consider certain types of communication in e-mails (like account and phone numbers) to be private and thus not subject to disclosure.  People are already protected.

This ordinance is a sham.

Eternal vigilance is the price of liberty.

Cato

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Council smarter than the legislature

February 26, 2013

Where to start?

The premise of city council’s dandy new proposal is contained in one of their “WHERAS’s”.  Put simply, city council thinks that the Texas legislature is a bunch of incompetent boobs.  Council says so when they write:

WHEREAS, the City Council finds that “the transaction of official business” as used in the Texas Public Information Act and the Texas Local Government Records Act is not defined by Texas law; that the term is ambiguous, can cause confusion …”

A quick search on the term “official business” in the data base of Texas statutes finds the term used in laws 33 times.  While these laws are often pretty specific about defining terms, the city may be right in that it is never specifically defined.

Why?  Because even the village idiot knows what it means.  Doing business with a government official that the government official is chartered to perform by law or by the nature of his office is pretty much the definition that a jury of your peers would apply.

The city proposes much the same language in it’s new ordinance.  So what’s going on here?

The ordinance is not about defining “official business”.  The legislature, you and I, and even city council already know what it is.  The ordinance is about trying to make exempt from the law certain types of communication.  That will be covered in another article.

After calling the legislators idiots, they accuse them of causing illegal action.

“…that the term is ambiguous, can cause confusion as to the duties of City Representatives and, alternative definitions may result in the illegal intrusion into individual privacy rights of all city employees …”

Are we lucky or what?  But for the selfless efforts of our benevolent city council and lawyers we would be thrown into a pit of confusion caused by those numbskulls at the legislature.

This is about trying to cover up e-mails relating to the ball park and the downtown moves.  Council hopes to rush an ordinance through  so that when they are forced under existing laws to turn over the documents they will be able to point to their new rules which they will claim supersede the state rules.

“The lady doth protest too much, methinks.”

Eternal vigilance is the price of liberty.

Cato

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True cost of the moves

February 16, 2013

I have written before about getting at the true cost of the moves from the soon to be demolished city hall into the multiple buildings that city council has chosen.

My last number came to $63.9 million.  The city told us it would be $33 million on this page on the city’s web site.

I have been trying to keep that number updated, but it appears that we will not know about major parts of it until they are done.  As Call Me Crazy commented on  More on the roll-out (roll over) plan a city representative was quoted in the Times as saying  “The city has already spent around $300 million publicly funding Downtown revitalization.”  What is that all about?

The deception continues.  The city has been issuing contracts for job order contracts for construction work.  They are using these contracts for work related to the move out of city hall.  Unfortunately state law does not require them to present these projects to city council unless the cost for an individual project exceeds $500,000.

In Minimal due to condition of building we saw that the city has been issuing work orders under the $500,000 threshold for work on these buildings.  Since they do not have to publish the work orders, we will have to wait to get them through what are commonly called open records requests.

The city is under no obligation to produce a document that does not exist.  We must wait to find out the true story.

We will though.

In the mean time I will turn to what the city is not spending money on and how we compare to other cities.

We deserve better

Brutus

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Disenfranchised

February 14, 2013

The Texas Education Agency (TEA) wants to strip the El Paso Independent School District Board of Trustees of  its power.

When the TEA placed the district on probationary status they evidently laid a land mine that allows the commissioner of the TEA to appoint a board to run the district.  However other provisions of the Texas Education Code make the board the ultimate power.

I guess it will be up to the courts to decide who will be in control.

For my part this board should be replaced.  The question is how.

We, the citizens of El Paso, elected this board.  Good or bad they are what we wanted at the time.  Our school district is supposed to be “independent”.  We are  to choose it’s leaders — not some appointed bureaucrat at the TEA.

The TEA should have the right to demand certain types of performance.  They should have the right to sanction  districts that do not perform up to state standards.  They should have the right to remove accreditation from the district.  After all they are the ones that grant it.  Removing accreditation from the district would put the voters into a frenzy.  The voters  would solve the problem themselves.

I would like to see the board resign if somehow it can be reconstituted with new members before the next election.

Certainly we should vote for different people next time.

An unspoken problem is who we can vote for.  Ask virtually any person of integrity and proven skills  (of running a large organization) to stand for election and they will say no — often colorfully.  The grief that they would expose themselves to is overwhelming.

The TEA is trying to install a board of managers to control the district.  The chosen composition of the board is a disgrace.  See Foxes in the Henhouse.  If this must happen, can’t we have better choices?  The commissioner chose poorly when he constituted his group.

What do we do if after the election the commissioner still feels that his board is better than our choice?  He is under no obligation to dissolve his posse.

Eternal vigilance is the price of liberty

Cato

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Give them an inch and they take a yard

February 10, 2013

Next week’s (Tuesday, February 12, 2013) city council agenda has an example of how the city uses multiple sequential actions to trick us.

Item 11 requests permission to award contracts totaling $570,000 for services relating to the new phone system that the system is installing.

The backup material makes the sequence of events clear:

  • October 12, 2010 council approves the purchase of a fancy phone system for the 10th floor of city hall.  The system was not bid.  It was purchased through a state sanctioned bid board. City staff chose their favorite brand.   Citizens spoke against the system as being much more expensive than competitive units.  We were assured that the system was only for the use of the mayor and city council.
  • January 10, 2012 council approves purchase orders for upgrades to the network hardware and software.  These upgrades were necessary for the expansion of the phone system.
  • February 28, 2012 council approves the purchase of more of the same phone system for the police and fire departments
  • October 30, 2012 council buys more of the same phone system for other city departments

This started with city staff picking the system that they wanted.  Competition was not allowed.  As time went by more units were purchased in the name of compatibility with the existing system.

Competitive systems that are as good (if not better) could have been used that would have cost us less than half of what the city is spending.

We deserve better

Brutus

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