Wrong by a whole bunch

December 2, 2015

Last week city council finally discussed the fact that the ball park financing cost us $22 million more than it should have because someone(s) decided to delay issuing the bonds until after the municipal election.

We don’t have a clear picture of who caused this.  Some think that city council members intervened.  Others think that it was our former mayor.  Our former chief financial officer may be to blame.

What was not clear to me until I had a chance to calm down is the magnitude of the problem.  The bonds were supposed to be issued for $60 million.  The mistake cost us another $22 million.

That’s a massive mistake.  We probably won’t be able to hold those who did this to us responsible.

We can however find out who did this and then let them know what we think of them.

We deserve better

Brutus

13 Comments | City government | Permalink
Posted by Brutus

Ready, fire, aim

December 1, 2015

This is getting old.

The city is once again proving to be a menace to local businesses.

It should not be a surprise to anyone that we have been losing out on external funding of highway projects because our city staff cannot follow the funding rules.

Earlier in the summer we saw city council calling for heads to roll.  The proposed solution was to hire outside firms to manage the process for us.

The city issued a request for proposals to accomplish this in July.  Four local firms bid.  Now city staff wants to reject all of the bids.

Why?

As it turns out the specifications were incomplete.  Now that they have the four proposals and can evaluate the numbers they want to reject the bids and start over.

Item 14.1 on the Tuesday, December 1, 2015 council agenda reads:

Request rejection of all proposals received for Solicitation No. 2015-1142R (Management of Texas Department of Transportation (TXDOT) and Federal Highway Administration (FHWA) Porgrams as recommended by the Purchasing & Strategic Sourcing Department and Capital Improvement Department, in order to incorporate new requirements to ensure TxDOT reimbursements are provided for federally funded projects.

Once again four businesses have spent money chasing city business only to have their proposals rejected because the city does not have it’s act together.

We deserve better

Brutus

 

3 Comments | City government, Purchasing | Permalink
Posted by Brutus

Part timers

November 30, 2015

City council is going to an every other week meeting schedule starting January 12, 2016 if item 6.1 on the December 1, 2016 council passes.

This is the resolution:

biweeklycouncil

This will give city staff even more control.

We deserve better

Brutus

7 Comments | City government | Permalink
Posted by Brutus

College Readiness

November 29, 2015

The document below was part of a presentation made at the EPISD board of trustees meeting the other day:

EPISD-SAT-2014

It certainly does not look good.

Before any of our loyal commenters point this out, let me say that I know nothing about how to interpret these results.  Having more students taking the test could certainly explain the decrease in scores.

What got my attention is the last paragraph.  “16% of those who took the SAT in the class of 2015 met the College Readiness benchmark”.

EPISD is teaching the kids what the state requires.  Our kids score about as well on the state tests as those in other large cities so it would appear that EPISD is doing what the state expects.  Could it be that the state is getting in the way?

Maybe as citizens we should find ways to help educate these kids.

Maybe some of our readers can enlighten us.

We deserve better

Brutus

 

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

They obviously don’t care

November 28, 2015

Some more information came to us regarding the closure of I-10 the other day.

As incredible as this sounds, the east bound folks that were routed up Executive and then south on Mesa experienced lane closures on Mesa!

There are three ways to go from the west side to downtown.

I-10 was closed.

Paisano was reduced to one lane in each direction.

Mesa had lane closures.

Is this what our west side city representative calls “all we can do”?

We deserve better

Brutus

7 Comments | City government | Permalink
Posted by Brutus

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