elpasospeak

The front page of the Times yesterday, indicated the Texas Attorney General Greg Abbott ruled that the Cities can’t offer partner benefits.  This refers to El Paso I guess and proposition 7  of the current election.  The City Manager countered with its not binding.  But the The County Judge and City Representative District 2, floored me when they stated Abbott is a politician. 

What are they, both card carrying Dems.  Are they saying you can’t trust what a politician says? 

That’s what we have been saying along.  Just read the Amendments among other things.

I think they got it!!

The ELP Time’s editors came out with their endorsements this morning. Talk about hedging your bets, they endorsed two of the leading candidates for Mayor, both Ortega, the anointed one, and Leeser. My wife commented that was strange since they have clearly indicated who they wanted to be the next Mayor. I told her to look at the last section of the paper. She said, “That’s only Automobile Advertising“. I said “Get it” she said “Oh…Got it”.
“Don’t Rock …..”.
The day before, poor Robert Cormell got hammered. The the Borderland Headlines stated he may face a tax dilemma if elected. The article on the cover page talks about the law clearly states that all judgements must be settled before taking office. Would you believe Cormell owes back taxes? The city attorneys office wouldn’t comment. They were reviewing the Proposed Amendments for omissions again. If you go on to read page 6B which I’m sure many readers didn’t bother since they went to the sport pages, you will find out this is old news and that he made arrangements to pay delinquent taxes on a property he bought last year.
Is this blowing smoke?
The point is Mr Cormell who is excellent and well qualified candidate for mayor, should find a more rewarding way of using his advertising dollars for his Bagel Shops.

The Ballot Amendment #2 will read like this:

     Read carefully  

                       SECTIONS 3.5 A AND D, 3.7, 3.9 B AND C, 3.14, 3.18 AND

                                               4.1 B

OF THE CITY CHARTER BE AMENDED, RELATING TO CITY COUNCIL PROCESSES, PROCEDURES, AND APPOINTMENTS: TO ALLOW FOR THE CANCELATION OF NOT MORE THAN SEVEN REGULAR COUNCIL MEETINGS ANNUALLY AND NOT MORE THAN TWO IN A ROW; TO ALLOW THE COUNCIL TO AUTHORIZE LEASES OF PUBLIC PROPERTY AND TEMPORARY USES OF STREETS AND RIGHTS-OF-WAY BY RESOLUTION; TO PROVIDE THAT ORDINANCES AND THE CITY CODE BE MADE AVAILABLE BY CONTEMPORARY MEANS SUCH AS THE INTERNET; TO PROVIDE THAT THE CITY ATTORNEY IS APPOINTED BY THE CITY COUNCIL SOLELY ON THE BASIS OF LEGAL EXPERIENCE AND QUALIFICATIONS; AND TO PROVIDE THAT THE MAYOR AND REPRESENTATIVES EACH UNIFORMLY HAVE THE ABILITY TO SUBMIT NOMINATIONS FOR THE APPOINTMENTS TO THE CITY’S BOARDS AND COMMISSIONS?

Amendment #2, section 4.1 subsection B: The Powers of the Mayor” read as such:

The Mayor shall……….break tie votes, veto legislation except for City council actions which removes the City Manager………… 

     Notice any similarities?  Any differences?  Coincidence?

If this Amendment passes the mayor will become a pawn, a figurehead.  He will be relegated to kissing babies and giving out “Keys to the City”  (hope he can sing and play some instrument)

Who, I ask you, carefully crafted this this amendment and directed someone to leave out the Beef.  If you know, vote for change and “no” for all 9 amendments ( actually 34 amendments wrapped into 9,  by last count). 

Wake up El Paso.

(Submitted by Desdemona)

This week’s Sunday Times, with the front page tribute to anointed Mayoral Candidate, had an interesting article on the editorial page about our outgoing mayor by none other than Mr Joe.

Sports writers are generally, pretty funny guys and Mr Joe does does write some funny stuff. They have to be funny, if you think about it. Really, there not many interesting things about baseball games so you make funny. (Well maybe the shortstop and the left outfielder colliding while going after a fly ball….. but I digress).

So picture this: Mr Joe is sitting at his desk, thinking about what to say nice, nice ( that’s a deliberate double ) about our “to be former Mayor”. (Bear with me, the spell check just crashed)

Let’s see:

He had an “open door policy” every Friday for all Constituents.

“Mr. John, the ankle biters Schecter and Gilbert are here to see you ”

“Tell them I’m meeting all day with the Mayor of Dell City”.

“I told them that last week”.

“Tell them its the the Mayor of Ysleta”

Don’t think that will work. He keeps it simple and kisses babies

How about “he plays the Banjo and sings to his constituents“.

“Its a guitar and he only knows 3 chords, C, F sharp and B flat”.

“His singing voice has no vibrato and he’s usually a little off key”.

Or maybe:

“He really was against all the hair brain ideas of the City Council like tearing down City Hall and building a postage stamp baseball field downtown……”

“He just voted…. well… wrong. Only once ………. maybe twice?”.

I got it!

Well, we can say;  “the Devil made him do it”.

Maybe he needs an exorcist?

Does Pastor Brown do this type of thing? He beholding since he has a judgment against him.

Come to think about it, I may have come up with something else.

Now I know

“What was that old Show biz saying: “Never follow a Banjo player“. Well,…. Guitar? Banjo? What’s the difference.

“That should scare the beje_us out of that Mama’s Boy used car salesman along Mister Bagel-guy from taking on our Stevie”.

We deserve better.

Brutus started a series of individual posts about each of the nine proposed city charter amendments.

In Not in my backyard, or maybe yes Brutus wrote about the 1,000 acres of existing development that city council wants to rezone without a public vote.  Then in Proposition 5, fox in the hen house he pointed out that the city auditor would report to the city manager if proposition 5 passes.  He wondered if the authors were nuts.  These were posted on Sunday, the day city hall was demolished.

Saturday Brutus posted Proposition 4, the blank check.  It would give the mayor and city council automatic salary adjustments and we would no longer get to decide how much they get paid.  I posted Still uncertain.  The city has a document on the web site that pretends to explain the proposed changes to the city charter, but of course does not.

Friday Brutus wrote Proposition 3, have one for the smart code.  A reader suspects that it may have to do with the ball park.  In Say you did it, not me he pointed out how a city representative and the city manager appear to have conspired to lie to city council and the public.

Proposition 2 or the shady deal enabling act came out on Thursday.  Brutus had major problems with this proposition.  Among other things it would allow council to lease out city property with a simple resolution instead of by ordinance making it simpler for a future council to slip things by the public.  I wondered in Hauling what inconveniences would be caused by the 1,000 truckloads soon to be coming out of the old city hall site.  A reader evidently thought that asking a question was tantamount to making an accusation.

Brutus wrote Proposition 1, authorizing nothing Wednesday.  He pointed out that moving city elections to November would make getting citizen petitions under the city charter much more difficult, thus making it harder to fight city hall.  I offered Congratulations El Paso Times.

Tuesday saw Seeing into their hearts, an example of disdain for the public from a city representative and the city manager.  Some readers took Brutus to task for this post, while some others defended him.  Then I wondered in Got the lead out? if there is going to be an environmental problem with the rubble from city hall.

New Medical Clinics was posted by M. T. Cicero Monday.  He suggested ways to avoid building new clinics by using the ones we already have more wisely.  I criticized the county plan to spend $162 million in Our two cents.