Part timers

September 4, 2015

Another proposed city charter amendment that we will get to vote on in November will be put on the ballot this way:

Should section 3.5 A of the City Charter, relating to city council meetings,  be amended to require Council to hold regular meetings no less than once every other week instead of once every week?

They are putting pay raises for themselves on the ballot.  Now they want to take every other week off.

We have a hard enough time having our voices heard as it is.  First they stopped working on Fridays.  Next they moved the elected officials into a building separate from the buildings where city departments are located.

We deserve better

Brutus

5 Comments | City government | Permalink
Posted by Brutus

Lowering their standards

September 3, 2015

Another proposition on the November 3, 2015 ballot looks sneaky.  Maybe some of our readers will take the time to figure out what they are really up to.

Should sections 7.2, 7.3 A, B, C and D of the City Charter relating to the City’s budget adoption procedures and requirements, be amended to require only that which is required by State law?

I suppose getting them to follow state law would be a good start, but why are they trying to reduce the requirements?

I can’t imagine their efforts being designed to help the citizens.  If there is something in our city charter about the budget process that does not work well why don’t they put their specific modifications in the ballot language?  Instead they are asking to be held to the lowest legal standard.

We deserve better

Brutus

1 Comment | City government, State Government | Permalink
Posted by Brutus

Is the jig up?

September 2, 2015

The Times published an article  about the ongoing troubles between our county hospital and the children’s hospital yesterday.

It looks like there may be a new party at the table now.  According to the article our county hospital and the children’s hospital colluded to get federal money that they should not have received.

The article quoted a former lawyer for the children’s hospital:

She said that as a governmental entity, UMC could put up money for federal health grants known as intergovernmental transfers. For each dollar UMC put up, the feds put up $1.40, Vogel said. The idea was to use Children’s Hospital’s rent payment for the local match, but federal rules prohibit such an explicit quid pro quo, so the deal wasn’t put in writing, Vogel said.

Liars, cheaters, thieves?

According to the article the children’s hospital recently made claims in front of a federal bankruptcy judge that any rent money that have paid in the past was actually used to scam a federal matching fund program.

We will have to wait to see if the feds take legal action.  We should probably expect them to demand a return of the money.

Will we see this prosecuted as a criminal case?

Can we believe anything that either side says at this point?

We deserve better

Brutus

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

Proposed charter amendments

September 1, 2015

The city has decided to place 9 proposed city charter amendments on the ballot in the November 3, 2015 election.  We’ll spend some time this week highlighting some of them.

We have previously written about two of them.  When resolving is dissolving was about allowing council to use resolutions instead of ordinances to do what they want to do if some other law does not specifically require than an ordinance be used.  The most obvious potential use of this change would be to use a resolution to sell or lease property.  Resolutions only take one council meeting and if properly cloaked like we have seen other agenda items the public will not even know what is about to happen.

Sold out again pointed out that we were not going to get to vote on our form of government (strong mayor vs. city manager) nor will we be allowed to set the terms of office for city representatives back to two years instead of the four year terms that we have been suffering with for the last decade.

Stay tuned for more about the proposed changes.

We deserve better

Brutus

7 Comments | City government | Permalink
Posted by Brutus

Is this an awakening?

August 31, 2015

According to this article in the El Paso Times our county commissioners are going to propose a property tax rate for this year that actually lowers each homeowner’s tax payment a little bit.

It hasn’t happened yet but we can hope.

We have to wonder why.  Could it be that the commissioners are beginning to recognize the feelings of the citizens?

Or is it possible that our new county administrator is saving us money?

The article also predicts that the commissioners will turn down a proposal to increase the property tax rates of two of our emergency services districts.  The districts provide fire and ambulance services to some areas of the county.  According to the article the districts want to increase their rates by 10 cents per hundred dollars of valuation.

By way of comparison the county tax rate is about 45 cents per hundred.  According to the county’s web site emergency services district one had a tax rate of 9.9 cents per hundred last year.  A 10 cent increase would more than double their existing rate in one year and bring them to almost half of what the county charges.

These guys evidently have not been listening.

County hospital

Another possible reason that the commissioners might slow down the tax increases is that our county hospital needs money.  While the hospital’s published proposed tax rate for this year will remain the same as last year, we have the issue of the children’s hospital bankruptcy.

County hospital losses also pointed out that they lost $12 million dollars in 2014 without considering any of the children’s hospital issues.

We deserve better

Brutus

3 Comments | County Government | Permalink
Posted by Brutus

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