elpasospeak

We are now well into 3 months of the “new” City Council and Mayor. All we get, week after week are delays in the release of the Emails and Rep correspondence the rightly belongs to us and by law should have been released months…. years ago. The City attorney whose salary we pay comes up with new harebrained Ideas to delay their release in the meantime, the outside counsel she hired is charging up by the minute to delay the material that should be released by law and belongs to us. Am I getting this right?

Are she and the council hiding something? They play around with the tellin us that they want to clarify the law with ordinances without penalties….on and on. Give me a break.

If only we had a real newspaper. Where is the Buffalo News? The only place you can get information about their shenanigans is the blogs, this and the ones listed above (more blogs). Not only do they give citizens information but they  publish the critiques and and discuss sources. Please take a look and learn.  Find out what’s going on (in the city)

Stop the foolishness and release the material. If there is nothing to hide, let’s see it. After which they can play there little game of creating an ordinance with no teeth which in truth cannot be more exclusive than Texas State law. With the way they are fighting the “foia”, they may have to hire their own attorneys.

We need a real newspaper!

Mock El Paso Times put me on to this story from KTSM.

The news anchor tells us that some of the people that submitted potential names for our new baseball team are getting calls from telemarketers.  The reason for the calls is to sell season tickets.

He then tells us ” Still no word yet on exactly how much those tickets will cost.”

The story just does not make sense.  How can they be trying to sell season tickets without telling us how much they will cost?

Then again

Thinking about this again,  that is exactly what has happened with the construction of the arena.  City staff told city council (and thus us) that the stadium would cost $50 million.  We are now north of $62 million.  The city manager recently told council that we will not know the cost until all of the bids are in.

We bought a stadium without knowing how much it will cost.

Lottery tickets

Then again buying season tickets now seems like more of a gesture of moral support than a prudent purchase.

We don’t even know that the arena will be finished.  The city manager told us the other day that if the financing bonds do not sell she will have to stop construction.

Also we do not know if the arena will be finished in time for next year’s season.  According to the city manager they have not even received all of the bids, much less contracted for the work.

If the costs go up again city staff will have to go back to council (sitting as the Downtown Development Corporation) to ask for more money.

Things could happen between now and then.  Buying the tickets now seems like the triumph of hope over reason.

Muckraker

Somewhere along the line I learned that being jealous is not good.  I should be happy when someone does well.

Congratulations Juarez!

Children’s museum

Our border neighbor is opening it’s brand new $23 million dollar children’s museum this Friday.

One board member (this person is also a member of the sports group in El Paso) was quoted recently as saying “We want to present (children) with something different from their daily lives and that they can dream big.”

The museum board president said “It is a temple of the city’s restructuring, where children will be learning and constructing a new city”.

Baseball park

Also, on November 19 of last year Juarez opened it’s brand new 12,000 seat baseball stadium costing  $15 million.  Their AAA team, the Indios will play there.

The famous entertainer Juan Gabriel performed at the opening.

It is located at the corner of Reforma and Sanders, an irony that none of us “crazies” could have made up.

Congratulations El Paso

Children’s museum

El Paso might eventually get a new children’s museum.  We voted to fund one in the quality of life bonds.  The city does not have the museum in it’s current roll out plan that covers the next three years, but don’t give up hope we might get one eventually.

Our museum is scheduled to cost $19.25 million.

We had one but it got torn down to build what is evidently our “temple of the city’s restructuring” — our new baseball stadium.

I guess our children’s big dream will have to be about the big debt that our local leaders are leaving for them.

Baseball park

We might get a new baseball park too.  If nothing else goes wrong ours will cost more than $64 million before financing.  Current estimates are that it will seat 8,000 to 9,000 people.

While we probably will not be able to afford Juan Gabriel (look at the city budget) we might be able to get our former mayor to play his guitar.

Greener grass

Lest any of you think that Juarez is getting a better deal here, I need to point out that while El Paso destroyed it’s city hall at a cost of over $70 million for it’s new ballpark, the poor people of Juarez had to tear down a brewery to make room for their ballpark.

We deserve better