We forgot to ask how much

December 17, 2015

Our county judge and the folks over at our county hospital want us to believe that they now have the children’s hospital financial failure under control.

Never mind that they were the ones who set up this mess.

As part of the bankruptcy process (the one that both sides agreed to) there will be a new interim management team at the children’s hospital.

Now, according to an article in the Times, some county officials think that the new team will be paid too much.

Never mind that they helped pick the new management group.

Is this negligence or are they lying:

According to the Times:

Both DeGroat [the chair of the county hospital board] and Escobar [our county judge] agreed that while there was a consensus to hire Deloitte CRG because the company is already working with UMC, there was never a discussion on a cost amount.

“I don’t even know how much they are going to charge — $170,000 is a lot of money.  That’s way too much money. If we have anything to do with that, we are not going to approve $170,000 a month,” DeGroat said.

Escobar said she would not support the fee. She expects that the newly appointed board members will have a say on the contract and will try to lower it.

Doesn’t wash

How could they possibly agree to hire the firm without discussing cost? Am I mistaken in understanding that the chairman of the county hospital board is a financial advisor?

It doesn’t look like the long term situation is going to get any better.

We deserve better

Brutus

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

Who had the power to sell the ballpark bonds?

December 16, 2015

Yesterday’s post did not include proof of our assertion that the trigger was pulled on the baseball park bond sale May 28, 2013.

That date was well before the difficulties in the bond markets caused interest rates to go up.

Some members of city council tried to blame the bond advisors for the delay and that has led to a scandal concerning an effort to fire the bond advisors and bring in ones that have ties to at least one member of council.

Reports were requested from city staff explaining how the delay was caused.  An email from the former city manager confirms that the delay was deliberate and was intended to influence the outcome of the upcoming city election.

The fact is that the bonds were authorized for sale on May 28, 2013 and that any one of three people were “hereby authorized to act on behalf of the Corporation in selling and delivering the Series 2013 Bonds …”.  The issue was out of city council’s hands.

Who were the three people?  Our former city manager, our former chief financial officer and the city clerk.  The failure to issue the bonds until after the election and the consequent $22 million or so cost increase lies squarely on their shoulders.

Follow this link to read the whole document.

The agenda item proposing the resolution is below:

downtowndevelopmentbondminutesresolutionforwp

and the portion of the minutes showing approval:

downtowndevelopmentbondminutesvoting

The city has commissioned yet another report on the subject.

The facts seem clear.  It looks like these three people could have sold the bonds.  The did not.  We will pay for their failure.

We deserve better

Brutus

 

11 Comments | Ball park, City government | Permalink
Posted by Brutus

The gift that keeps on stealing from us

December 15, 2015

The truth about the ballpark financing is finally coming out and the picture is not a pretty one.

Even though city council authorized incurring the debt,  a decision was made to not do so until after the May 2013 city elections.

The delay ended up costing the taxpayers about $22 million.

Our former chief financial officer and city manager must have been right in the middle of the mess.

The former city representative that was running for mayor in that election indicates that he did not try to delay the issuance of the bonds.

It is possible that some of the city council members wanted the issuance delayed but none of them had the authority to delay them.

As it worked out city council created the Downtown Development Corporation and gave them the authority to manage the bonds.  Our former city manager, the city clerk and our infamous former chief financial officer were designated as pricing officers and were the ones that had the authority to sell the bonds.

We should make an extra effort to tell each of these individuals how we feel about their failure.

We deserve better

Brutus

16 Comments | Ball park, City government | Permalink
Posted by Brutus

Increasing our debt

December 14, 2015

At today’s (Monday, December 14, 2015) special city council meeting one of the things that they plan to discuss is increasing the debt cap placed on the city.

Item 2 on the agenda reads:

Discussion and action regarding the proposed amendment to the City of El Paso Debt Management Policy to consider an increase to the debt cap.

Really very special

Why is this issue being discussed in a special city council meeting instead of a regular city council meeting?  Could it be that very few people attend the special meetings, often because they do not have items on the agenda?  Or maybe they know that the minutes of special council meetings are published much more slowly than those of regular meetings?

We deserve better

Brutus

3 Comments | City government | Permalink
Posted by Brutus

Road destruction

December 13, 2015

My ride last Sunday at one point had me traveling on the northern portion of Paisano.

Contractors have reduced it to one lane in each direction.

The site was idle.  No work was being done.

With I-10 in the middle of a multi-year construction project and portions of Mesa being closed for periods of time it would be nice if they would finish the construction on a schedule that is less inconvenient to the citizens and less so for the contractors and governments.

Instead we are enduring daily delays of over one hour.

We deserve better

Brutus

1 Comment | State Government | Permalink
Posted by Brutus

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