A wise old saying

April 3, 2020

I heard this the other day:

“We were given two ears and one mouth for a reason.  We should listen twice as much as we speak.”

We deserve better

Brutus

2 Comments | Uncategorized | Permalink
Posted by Brutus

A fair question?

April 2, 2020

Elrichboy over at elchuqueno.com published an interesting post about the the ownership of El Paso Electric and The El Paso Times.

It seems that the same investment firm has significant ownership of both companies.

We should have at least expected the Times to tell us that.

We deserve better

Brutus

4 Comments | El Paso Times | Permalink
Posted by Brutus

Power play foiled

April 1, 2020

City council rejected an ordinance that would have required three city council members to agree to put an item on their agenda.

No one would say where this came from but it is a bad idea.

Any city council member should be able to place an item on the agenda.

This is better

Brutus

5 Comments | City government | Permalink
Posted by Brutus

No competition

March 31, 2020

The city’s Emergency Measures ordinance has some unfairness built into it.

Why for example do bookstores have to close yet Walmart and Target are allowed to sell books?

How are title companies essential?

Sporting goods stores are closed but you can buy those items at Walmart and Target.

Why can you buy clothes at Walmart and Target but department stores and local shops are closed?

Should the city prohibit the sale of certain items instead of letting the big box stores do whatever they want?

We deserve better

Brutus

 

13 Comments | City government | Permalink
Posted by Brutus

Does nobody care?

March 30, 2020

The Tuesday, March 31, 2020 city council agenda has this item on it:

That the Mayor be authorized to sign an Interlocal Agreement between the City of El Paso (“City”) and the University of Texas at El Paso (“University”), for a period of 12 months, whereby the parties agree the University shall assist the City by assigning University employees, faculty and/or staff who are trained in, among other issues, nucleic acid extraction and PCR methods, to assist the City and the City Department of Public Health in the testing of community specimens for COVID-19.  This Interlocal Agreement requires the City to reimburse the University for services and equipment in an amount not to exceed $200,000.00 over the term of the Interlocal Agreement.

Got it

The public health department needs help in its laboratories.

Don’t understand

What we don’t understand is why the city has to pay UTEP.  Clearly there are a lot of UTEP laboratory trained people that have reduced work loads right now but are still being paid with public money.

Why can’t these people just volunteer?

Or absent volunteers why can’t UTEP just reassign the duties of a few of them while the need exists?

Why do local taxpayers have to fork over $200 thousand dollars?

Won’t the city have to assign an administrator to handle the billing?  Won’t UTEP have to assign an administrator to create the bills?  How much will that cost?

Leadership

Do the leaders involved think that the only way to get things done is to pay people?

Could it be that they would never think of doing something for the public good for free and thus cannot imagine anyone else doing it?

We deserve better

Brutus

 

16 Comments | City government | Permalink
Posted by Brutus

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