Blame city council, not the city manager

April 5, 2017

Some have said that the city manager and his crew did the wrong thing in trying to foist an issuance of 40 million dollars of certificates of obligation primarily in order to fund shortfalls in the quality of life project funding.

Watching the video of the presentation before council we see that members of city staff had previously been asked by city council to come forward with suggestions as to how to fund the shortfalls.

Some might argue that city staff should have come forward with better suggestions.  They would be right.

However, from what we can see the city manager acted in accordance with the instructions that city council gave him.

Unfortunately we did not see council asking the city manager to provide solutions that did not involve spending additional money.

Many of us know that the problem here is that the prior city manager, mayor, and city councils provided us with under-estimates of what the projects would cost.  This was either an act of omission or commission but in either case the taxpayers are the ones that will pay for their acts.

It is unfortunate that we are not hearing discussions about de-funding some of the projects.  They might start with the arena and the cultural center.

Those are luxuries.  We have necessities like roads that are not being funded.

We deserve better

Brutus

12 Comments | City government | Permalink
Posted by Brutus

Returning to office

April 4, 2017

According to the Times city representative Niland will return to city council Tuesday, April 4,2017.

They say she has been absent since December 20, 2016.

She evidently has been handling a divorce.

An open records request should tell us whether she has continued to draw her city paycheck.

According to the Times article she has the authority to move her two children to Travis county or to Florida.

Will she move out of town and thus escape the high taxes that she helped foist upon us?

We deserve better

Brutus

12 Comments | County Government, El Paso Times | Permalink
Posted by Brutus

Saying ain’t doing

April 3, 2017

EPISD has generated a lot of publicity about their new web site.

Among other things it is supposed to provide local vendors with information relating to opportunities tied to the bond projects.

This came from the district:

Then again

If you take the time to look at their new web site you will see that there is no mention of bidding opportunities related to the design and management of the projects.

The district has already signed a $15 million contract with a firm to get them to manage the construction projects.  The firm is from out of town.

We deserve better

Brutus

10 Comments | El Paso Independent School District | Permalink
Posted by Brutus

City out of control

April 2, 2017

Let us know if we don’t have the facts here.

  • Ethics complaints were filed against the city attorney, the mayor, and some city representatives
  • The city attorney hired a law firm to act as outside legal counsel and to review the issues
  • The outside legal counsel dismissed the complaints against the people who hired him

Rabbit hole

We don’t see a provision in the city’s ethics ordinance for anyone other than the city attorney or the ethics review commission to dismiss a complaint.

If the outside counsel only made a recommendation to the ethics review commission we might suspect that he was doing his master’s bidding.  For the outside counsel to unilaterally dismiss the cases against his masters is a clear conflict of interest.

The chairman of the ethics review commission disagreed with the dismissal.

We deserve better

Brutus

4 Comments | City government | Permalink
Posted by Brutus

Alligators ‘n Roadkill

April 1, 2017

As it turns out one of our regular commenters also has a blog.

We are adding Alligators ‘n Roadkill to our “More blogs” button.

Brutus

1 Comment | Uncategorized | Permalink
Posted by Brutus

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