Super secret sessions

October 12, 2015

We had an incident in last week’s city council meeting where one of the city representatives made it known that the city had culpability in the problems in the ongoing San Jacinto Plaza disgrace.

City council has been discussing the problems with the quality of life project in executive session for many weeks now.  They use executive session so that the public will not know what is going on.

At one point the city representative started to discuss an aspect of the problems with the project and the mayor interrupted in a manner that indicated she should not continue disclosing information.

Executive session discussions are not required to be kept secret

The Texas Open Meetings act makes it illegal to disclose to the public a certified agenda or tape of an executive session.  Participants in executive center are allowed to discuss and make statements about what occurred.

Why not?

Council’s discussions about the project do not need to be conducted in executive session.  They could instead have a status report made during the open session each week telling us what the current situation is.  They would not have to discuss the city’s potential liabilities to the contractor.

Council had indications that this project would be a problem when they approved the contractor.  Unsuccessful bidders stood in front of council and the public and told us that the project could not be done for the money being discussed.  Council ignored the information and gave the contract to the firm that did much of the remodeling needed to move city hall.  Those contracts were on a no-bid basis.

The city representative was trying to do the right thing.

City staff resisted.  It looked like another railroad job.

Thankfully council prevailed.

We deserve better

Brutus

 

5 Comments | City government, State Government | Permalink
Posted by Brutus

County failures

October 11, 2015

Last week saw more failures for our county judge.

Her county manager resigned after less than one year on the job.

Her county hospital administrator announced that he would not seek a new contract when his current one expires.  It looks like his action was part of a quid quo pro in the much heralded potential settlement between the county hospital and the children’s hospital.

We should try to find competent people to run for office and then work to get them elected.

We deserve better

Brutus

5 Comments | County Government | Permalink
Posted by Brutus

More important than you

October 10, 2015

City council recently changed the order of their meeting agendas.

Now the consent agenda is taken up before the proclamations and recognition section.

I guess their thinking is that important people were having to wait for the consent agenda to be passed.  Now they can get on with their business without having to tolerate the little people.

There was a time when even council members had enough sense to respect the public.

We deserve better

Brutus

2 Comments | City government | Permalink
Posted by Brutus

Educated or manipulated?

October 9, 2015

The Ysleta school district is conducting a $430 million  bond election after having lost a $450 million one just six months ago.

The loss was a narrow one so they are trying again.

This time they are employing a new tactic.  As it turns out there are about 1,000 school kids who are eligible to vote since they have turned 18.  The district has launched a campaign to get these kids to register to vote.

Our state senator has been active in the campaign.  He has not been active in any similar campaigns in our other school districts.  That pretty much tells me what his real motivations are.

I wonder if these civic minded school district employees have explained to the 18 year olds that it will be the younger voters who bear the brunt of the bond costs if they pass.  If the bonds are 20 year ones these kids will be paying into middle age.  I also have to wonder if anyone has explained to them that apartment dwellers pay the costs through their rent.

Hopefully some parents will explain the issue so that our new voters understand the facts.

We deserve better

Brutus

5 Comments | Uncategorized | Permalink
Posted by Brutus

Don’t forget who did this to us

October 8, 2015

Why is it that we have not seen an organization step in and offer to take over the children’s hospital?

Is it the rent that our county hospital is charging or is it that no one thinks that they can operate a viable children’s hospital in our community?

If we gave free rent to one of these organizations could they make it work?

Unless there is a deal in the works that we don’t know about, it looks like the out of town organizations  have looked at this and decided that the project would not be viable.

Whose fault would that be?  Ultimately the voters approved the bonds so it is out fault.  However, let’s not forget the people who were telling us that this was a good idea.  They told us to believe them because they are experts.

It seems that they are expert in something other than telling the truth.  There were plenty of independent studies that told us that this was a bad idea but these people insisted that they were right.

We deserve better

Brutus

5 Comments | County Government | Permalink
Posted by Brutus

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