Downtown chalk the block

October 30, 2016

From Helen Marshall:
I have reflected all week about last week’s giant fiesta, Chalk the Block, which took over most of downtown last Friday, Saturday and Sunday. We foolishly tried to go downtown on Saturday, allowing double the normal time to get there and park to have our anniversary dinner at Anson’s. Ha! The traffic on Mesa was packed as we crossed I-10 and then we hit the intersection of Mesa and Franklin, blocked by drivers going west. There was no sign of traffic control. When we eventually reached Main we saw that it was blocked to the west, so no way to get to the parking garage (which may have been full anyway). We turned east and hit more roadwork. After several more failed efforts to find parking we escaped north and had dinner somewhere else!

Later I read in the Times that this festival has a claimed $1 million impact on the downtown. Not sure how anyone measures this. Let’s see now – 4 hours on Friday and Sunday, and 12 hours on Saturday, a total of 20 hours. Festival goers were spending nearly $50,000 per hour downtown? Where??? Buying what??? The food trucks were not “downtown businesses.” In any case, the event caused a downtown restaurant to lose our business…

Maybe future Chalks will be held in the Arena – although given the stated intent to provide no parking for the Arena, downtown is likely to be a mess when there is an event there, especially if there is a baseball game, and perhaps a show at the Plaza. Or do they intend to coordinate to insure that there is never more than one event on the same night?

Meantime, the impetus to go downtown is fading and even the end of the Trolley work might not revive it.

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Posted by Brutus

Early voting October 24, 2016

October 24, 2016

Early voting starts today, October 24, 2016.

Please take a few moments to vote today.  Then hound your friends and associates to do the same.

We deserve better

Brutus

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Note from a reader

September 4, 2016

This came in from a loyal reader:

Why do I care?
I want my grandchildren to grow up in a free AMERICA able to be American and able to be free to believe as they like.
I want them to be able to think for themselves.
They need an education where they can learn and support themselves.
Not an education where they are sub citizens because they cannot function in this country.
God Bless America.

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Posted by Brutus

NMSU tuition

July 2, 2016

New Mexico State University has changed their tuition policy to give a significant discount to Mexican nationals.

If you are a citizen of most states your tuition for one semester will be $10,617.  If you are from Mexico your tuition will be $4,691.  Those people eligible for in-state tuition (El Pasoans included) pay $3,364.50 per semester.

I don’t understand.

We deserve better

Brutus

 

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The law of the land, unless it does not work for the prosecutors

July 1, 2016

The vise tightened for the six former EPISD employees that were indicted earlier this year.

The judge in the case ruled that it is “complex” and that our speedy trial provisions do not apply.

The prosecution claims that the laws are complex and that they need time to prepare for trial.

The sixth amendment to our constitution states:  “In all criminal prosecutions, the accused shall enjoy the right to a speedy and public trial…”.  It does not finish with “unless some judge thinks that he is more important than this amendment”.

No legislature and certainly no judge has the right to nullify the word “all”.

Unfair indictment

Getting indicted is devastating.  Those people can lose their jobs, incur immense legal bills, suffer shame at the hands of fellow citizens that think that if the government indicts you then you must be guilty, and a host of other debilitating problems.

A fair person would think that they cannot indict you unless they are ready to prove their case, ready to go to trial.

Instead the game being played is designed to drain the indictees and force them into pleading guilty before trial begins.

According to the Times article none of the defense lawyers objected to the government’s request that the case be classified as complex.

Shame on them.  They want the delay too.

Why?

Going to trial takes work.  All to often we see attorneys in these cases represent their clients in such a manner that they know the client will run out of money and be forced to plead guilty.  “Bleed them and plead them” is an unfortunate term that is often used.

If their client pleads guilty before trial the attorney gains both the benefit of fees and is relieved of the work necessary to bring a case to trial.

Every one of these indictees should file motions to separate themselves from the other five and thus have a separate trial.  That would make the case less “complex”.  Of course the motions will be denied, but they should be filed anyway.

According to the Times, the government wrote “The requirements vary from state to state as NCLB [no child left behind] allows each state’s education agency to determine how measures for at-risk students will be addressed.  Texas has its own peculiar way of determining AYP [average yearly progress] which is extremely complex in an of itself”.

For crying out loud

Peculiar?  Extremely complex?  The rules are so cloudy that a team of lawyers needs time after bringing an indictment to see how and if the rules were violated?

How on earth could six educators untrained in the law know what was and was not allowable?

The end game

The move to override a constitutional right for the convenience of unprepared government lawyers is really designed to defeat the defendants individually and put them into a position where they have to testify against their fellow indictees in order to receive lighter punishment.

Stand back and watch them fall.

We should not have to fear our government.

We deserve better

Brutus

9 Comments | El Paso Independent School District, El Paso Times, Federal Government, Uncategorized | Permalink
Posted by Brutus

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