It seems that our mayor’s legendary vanity is not going away.
The Times ran this picture the other day along with a recent op-ed piece the mayor sent in that talked about what a wonderful job he has been doing:
A few days later in an article about the legal costs associated with the arena the Times ran this picture:
Maybe he does see things differently.
We deserve better
Brutus
5 Comments | 
City government | 
Permalink
Posted by Brutus
If you or I want to go down to city council and speak against something they are doing our mayor is very strict about limiting our speaking time to three minutes.
After all rules are rules and city council can’t be asked to waste time with your ignorance.
On the other hand if you want to support something that they are trying to do our mayor uses a different stopwatch.
Such was the case the other day when a local personality gave a rambling, emotional, wandering talk about the Durangito area. He spoke for 9 minutes.
Our city parliamentarian should also have intervened.
Our thanks to Jud Burgess for pointing this out.
We deserve better
Brutus
2 Comments | City government | Permalink
Posted by Brutus
This note came to us from a third party:
The purpose of this E-Mail is to update you on the infestation of El Paso by IDEA Public Schools. We are sometimes so focused on surviving the semester, Fighting Forwards for a Bonus, and Fighting Back on individual and collective Advocacy Issues, we lose track of the greater threat of our students, our schools, our district, and our profession. That is the impending arrival of a major predatory Corporate Charter profiteer, “IDEA Public” Schools in El Paso.
Here is what has happened so far, this school year.
1. IDEA has begun actively and aggressively recruiting students to exploit. Presumably you have seen or heard their radio and TV spots. They set up a roadside recruiting stand across the street from a Socorro ISD Elementary School this week.
2. Construction has begun on two IDEA locations in East El Paso. Needless to say, they are using non-Union contractors. Our brothers and sisters in the Iron Workers and Building Trades Council are protesting at the work site. IDEA uses low quality “educators”, so why be surprised they are using low quality labor to build their “schools”.
3. We prematurely thought that we had ‘dodged the bullet’ for a while in EPISD and that Socorro and Clint ISDs would take the brunt of their initial attack on our Public Schools. That feeling of relief ended when it came to light that the former Jewish Community Center building at 405 Wallenberg Dr. had been sold to Tommy Torkelson’s Bad IDEA. That places an IDEA “school” in the middle of the Morehead MS and Johnson ES Attendance Zones. Both Title 1 schools are with 750 feet of the Bad IDEA “school”. And, it is very disappointing and disconcerting when you look at who sits on the Board of Directors of the organization that had to authorize the sale last school year.
Tommy’s Bad IDEA “schools” will soon be trying to recruit faculty and staff. Of course, Tommy will go to his alma mater, Teach for America and its ‘drive by’ 30 day wonder teachers as a source of staff. But also look for them to try to recruit you. Oh boy, lower payer, no due process, no to very low expectations of being kept past three years, no rights, and no academic freedom, just drill and kill.
In Solidarity,
Ross
6 Comments | El Paso Independent School District | Permalink
Posted by Brutus
One of the aspects of the public private partnership issue that came before city council the other day concerns city staff not knowing their place.
City employees work for the city manager, not city council. City council should be deciding issues and specifying direction.
The city manager is supposed to implement the policies of city council if they can be implemented.
In this situation at least three city council members felt that the issue was “sprung” on them as a surprise and that they wanted more information before taking action.
A respected member of the development community stood before council and explained that the procurement process that was defined as part of the request for proposals was not followed. He felt that he and other competitors had not been given a fair chance.
We don’t know enough about the various offers that the city received to comment on which one should have been chosen. Evidently at least three members of council felt the same way.
Instead of listening to council’s concerns city staff took an active role in pushing the vote through. Senior staff from several departments took positions as advocates for taking action. It looked like at least one of them chose to tell part of the truth but not the whole story.
If things are being run properly they should not have been able to do this without the city manager’s knowledge, thus leaving us with the belief that their advocacy was allowed by the city manager.
We unfortunately have a city manager form of government. The mayor and city representatives enjoy the luxury of hiding behind that fact.
Has our current city manager decided that it is his job to tell council what to do?
We deserve better
Brutus
3 Comments | City government | Permalink
Posted by Brutus
elpasospeak 
You must be logged in to post a comment.