If you go to the city’s website you will see that they have posted agendas for somewhere around 48 separate meetings of the bond oversight advisory committee.
They have only posted minutes for these eleven meetings:
We deserve better
Brutus
Oversight but not by the citizens
August 22, 2017
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1984
August 21, 2017We are going through a period in this country where some people want to obliterate references to past figures and events that they find to be offensive.
Those same people might live to regret the day when the same thing happens to them.
Many of our elected officials are jumping on this bandwagon as a way to deflect focus away from their failures.
What is happening now is dangerous. Once this type of thing starts there is no telling where it will stop.
We deserve better
Brutus
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Sun Metro could improve their numbers
August 20, 2017At the Tuesday, July 11, 2017 meeting of the Mass Transit Board (city council) the director of Sun Metro gave a presentation relating to their 3rd quarter fixed route performance. We wrote about the report in Sun Metro continues to sink.
When discussing the issue of decreasing ridership he spoke of lower gasoline prices, the peso devaluation, low interest car loans and disruptions caused by street car rail construction. He also pointed out that he believed that bus ridership was down across the country.
Unfortunately we did not hear the director speak about taking any affirmative steps to improve either the ridership numbers or the system’s high operating cost per passenger.
Isn’t it time to rethink our strategy instead of spending more and more money on a service that fewer and fewer people want? Isn’t there a way to provide this service to people who need or want it in such a manner that we spend less money, as ridership falls, instead of more?
We deserve better
Brutus
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Posted by Brutus
Health care as an entitlement
August 19, 2017 An emergency room doctor wrote this on his blog. M. T. Cicero sent it in.
We fling open the doors of America’s emergency departments to help those who can’t afford health care. We have legislated this protection: No person can be turned away for financial reasons. This is very compassionate and represents the higher angels of our culture. Alas, it also is emblematic of the stupider demons of government. You see, the ER demonstrates the inverted priorities of American society.
In the ER, expensive tattoos abound. Piercing is ubiquitous. Almost every adult and child has a smartphone, it seems. All too many spend the duration of their ER visit glaring at the screen of said phone; barely looking up at the physician who is attempting to engage them in meaningful conversation about the reason they came for care.
Cigarettes populate purses and drug screens are notoriously positive for at least chronic narcotic pain medications, but often other substances, among them marijuana and amphetamines.
Dental care? It is regularly ignored because, in the words of my patients, “I don’t have dental insurance.” Guess what. Neither do I, and I pay a lot for insurance. Dental care has typically been a cash business. That’s why dentists, crafty guys and gals that they are, spend their time mucking around the human mouth. Floss and toothpaste? Seems a bit excessive compared to a nice new tattoo.
But, on the southern end of things, carefully groomed pubic hair is not at all out of the question. The teeth may fall out; the nether regions will be carefully tended.
It’s all about priorities: those of individuals and those of leaders. Our leaders, ever convinced that we must give medical care to those perceived to be in need, often forget that modern definitions of poverty and need may be a bit different from need throughout human history. And that if a family has an expensive cell plan, new truck and big-screen TV with satellite, it might not be unreasonable to ask them to put up a little money for their own health care.
A woman told me, recently, that her daughter (at birth) had a minor congenital abnormality that required daily application of a cream. “And I had to spend $200 of my own money!” She was aghast. As are all of those who will gladly pay anything for Oxycontin (legal or otherwise), but who are offended and downtrodden when their antibiotic isn’t free at the local pharmacy.
We can’t keep this up. We’ve created a monstrosity of entitlement. I care for the poor; I love the poor and have always tried my best to help those in genuine need. Those truly hurting.
But when cosmetics, vices and electronics are considered reasonable expenditures while the rest of us pay for necessities like prescriptions (or over the counter Tylenol and Motrin as I’m often asked to prescribe for Medicaid), then we are entering the death spiral.
Hate me if you want. The truth is unpleasant.
But it is clean-shaven.
Edwin Leap is an emergency physician who blogs at edwinleap.com and is the author of The Practice Test.
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Posted by Brutus
Power to the people
August 18, 2017There are two bills being considered in our Texas legislature that would limit property tax increases that cities and counties can hit us with.
Currently a city or county can increase their property tax rate by 8% a year. Anything over that subjects them to a roll back election. The process is a difficult one for the citizens and is almost never successful.
One of the bills would limit the increase to 6%, the other to 4%. Both would also automatically trigger a roll back election. That would give the voters a chance to approve or disapprove.
Elected officials from across the state are actively trying to kill the bills. Their position is essentially that they need the money for things that we must have.
Why not let the voters decide?
The answer is simple.
We deserve better
Brutus
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Posted by Brutus
elpasospeak 
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