elpasospeak

EPISD–picking school principals

February 9, 2017

We keep hearing from EPISD that they want community input in the selection of school principals.

In fact the district creates a separate committee for each principal being selected.

We spoke the other day with a lady who has served in the past on two of these principal selection committees.

She told us that the committee is allowed to observe the questioning of the top three (chosen by the district) candidates.

Observe is the operative word here. The committee members are not allowed to ask questions of the candidates. The questions are asked by a district employee.

This situation is one more example of our government agencies pretending to do things that they do not.

We deserve better

Brutus

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

Filibuster

February 8, 2017

The is quite a bit of talk of there being a filibuster in the senate to delay the confirmation of the current supreme court nominee.

Please correct us if our understanding of the process is incomplete or wrong.

It works like this:

Any senator can speak for as long as he/she wants

The senator cannot sit down or leave the senate floor even momentarily

The senator can yield the floor but must remain in attendance

The senator can only take the floor one time to speak about an item under debate

In practicality that means that each senator might be able to filibuster for about 24 hours before nature’s call requires them to quit.

The senator is entitled to a quorum of the senate and may call for a confirmation of there being a quorum at any time. That means that at least 51 senators need to be in their seats throughout the process. Otherwise the senator that is filibustering can take a break until there is a quorum.

Keeping the other senators from going home will not go far to engender feelings of good will.

Short term

The long and the short of the issue is that the filibuster cannot last forever.

However while it is going on the senate cannot get anything done.

To some of us that would be a good thing.

It looks like the nominee will be confirmed eventually.

We deserve better

Brutus

7 Comments | Federal Government | Permalink
Posted by Brutus

Picking a spot for the arena

February 7, 2017

Today city council is going to consider giving a $250,000 contract to yet another out of town company.

Arena

The contract would require the company to recommend a site for the proposed arena.

There are evidently economic advantages to us if the new arena is located within 1,000 feet of the current convention center.

The convention center is a pretty good sized piece of property. The graphic below shows an area with a radius of 1,000 feet from the red arrow. The arrow could be moved along the perimeter of the convention center if they need to move the circle.

For a lot less than $250,000 we could write a report for the city. In case they want to do what they did with the old city hall they might want to consider the following for destruction:

The ball park

The building the Times is located in

Plaza theater

Mills Building

Union Plaza Parking Garage

The art museum

Hotel Paso Del Norte

Plaza Hotel

Museum of History

Masonic Temple

Paisano Drive

Loop 375

Circles are not complicated.

We deserve better

Brutus

9 Comments | City government | Permalink
Posted by Brutus

Condemned for doing what they want

February 6, 2017

Our situation gets “curiouser and curiouser”.

USA TODAY wants us to know that the current supreme court nominee is “pro gun”. You should be able to read their condemnation here.

Their proof?

Evidently the justice heard a case in 2012 where a convicted felon was accused of violating the terms of an earlier guilty plea that banned him from possessing firearms.

The justice agreed that the lower court had interpreted prior rulings correctly and refused to reverse the conviction.

He voted to affirm the conviction thus sending the felon to jail for possession of a firearm.

Pro gun?

How does that make the justice “pro gun”? Well, he wrote in his opinion that he personally thought that the government had not been held to the congressionally specified burden of proof. However he felt it was his duty to uphold prior circuit court rulings.

His duty

It seems that we have a justice that had a personal opinion that was different from what prior courts had ruled. He felt it was his duty to follow the decisions of prior majorities.

In our book that makes him a justice that enforces the law instead of making up his own.

Isn’t that what we want from our supreme court?

And since when has being “pro gun” bad? Don’t we have a second amendment?

We deserve better

Brutus

1 Comment | Federal Government | Permalink
Posted by Brutus

EPISD lags behind other local school districts

February 5, 2017

If you take the Texas Education Agency’s recent A-F ratings of our schools and convert the letter grades to a four point average, this is our local school districts did:

We deserve better

Brutus

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

elpasospeak

EPISD–picking school principals