Danger on I-10

October 26, 2017

I saw something the other day that I haven’t seen for quite a while.

The El Paso Police Department had a motorcycle officer parked on I-10 in one of the few wide sections.  Unfortunately he was not paying attention to traffic.  He was busy fiddling with whatever communication device he had.

His presence did have the effect of slowing down traffic.

Since the construction on I-10 began, we have seen more and more instances of aggressive drivers tailgating at high speed and attempting to intimidate slower drivers to move over.  These idiots are going to get someone killed.

The police department needs to come up with a strategy to handle this without getting an officer killed.

We deserve better

Brutus

10 Comments | City government | Permalink
Posted by Brutus

County bridge useless

October 25, 2017

According to this article in the Times past county commissioners have gifted us with another disaster.

From the article:

Construction of the Tornillo port of entry cost at least $133 million.  More than $91 million of that amount was paid by the U.S. General Services Administration and Customs and Border Protection.

El Paso County covered remaining costs…

That puts our portion of the bill at $42 million if our math is correct.

Bridge to nowhere

Again, from the Times article:

“CBP” has suspended commercial processing at the Tornillo crossing.

and later:

But Maier said since the opening of the cargo facility in early 2016, CBP processed only five formal commercial entries — shipments with a value in excess of $2,500.

We deserve better

Brutus

3 Comments | County Government, Federal Government | Permalink
Posted by Brutus

Soccer madness

October 24, 2017

We learned the other day that an effort is being started to get city and/or county money (that’s really our money, just for the record) to build a stadium to host a professional soccer team.

Our former county judge said that maybe that should be a county project.

Does that mean that they will tear down the county courthouse and the downtown jail to make room for the soccer field?  An article in the Times told us that the soccer league wants the facility to be located downtown.

That is just baloney.

What the soccer league wants is for the team to draw heavy attendance and thus be profitable.  The location of the soccer field is irrelevant if people will go to it.

The requirement that it be downtown is just another part of the whole downtown re-development effort.

We need to speak up unless we want the politicians to put us further in debt.

We deserve better

Brutus

9 Comments | City government, County Government | Permalink
Posted by Brutus

You load 16 tons

October 23, 2017

Our thanks to elrichboy over at elchuqueno.com for pointing this out to us:

El Paso is as red as they get.

Detroit and Milwaukee are number one and two in terms of having the highest tax rates of the top 50 U.S. cities.  El Paso is ranked third.

At least Detroit and Milwaukee have lower debt percentages.  They probably get to spend their money on things they want instead of us where we have to spend our money to pay for past purchases.

We deserve better

Brutus

3 Comments | City government | Permalink
Posted by Brutus

Streetcar operating costs

October 22, 2017

Helen Marshall sent this in the other day:

 

An article about the streetcar project in yesterday’s Times notes that the operating costs for Sun Metro will be an estimated $2.5 million per year.
So..that is 2.5 million riders at $1 per ride…or 1.25 million at $2 per ride..or 500,000 riders at $5 per ride..
Wadda ya think will happen?

20 Comments | City government | Permalink
Posted by Brutus

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