West side El Pasoans have a new representative on the El Paso Independent School District Board.
She has a Facebook page at Dori Fenenbock EPISD School Board.
I hope that she uses the page to communicate with the citizens.
We deserve better
Brutus
Dori Fenenbock EPISD School Board
July 12, 2015
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El Paso Independent School District | 
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Posted by Brutus
Kiwanis and the Border Youth Athletic Association
July 11, 2015Did I ever mess up!
I good friend sent a press release in with the hope that some of you would read it and attend the event.
I did not read the whole accompanying note when I got it and I missed the then future event.
It is still a story worth telling. Local people helping local people.
No government involvement. Imagine.
Click on the link below to read the press release.
My thanks to the Kiwanis and the Border Youth Athletic Association.
Brutus
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Posted by Brutus
Missing in action
July 10, 2015It seems that our city engineer is retiring at the ripe old age of 56.
Am I the only one that found it strange that our chief financial officer made the public announcement? You might think that the city manager or the chief performance officer would do that.
We are seeing more and more of the chief financial officer while I cannot remember seeing the chief performance officer.
Could it be that our city manager and chief performance officer are looking for a way to depart?
We deserve better
Brutus
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Posted by Brutus
Over and out
July 9, 2015Our west side city representative for the last ten years is no longer on city council. Unfortunately we still do not know what happened to the investigation relating to her alleged threatening of a city employee.
If I have my facts straight the Times reported back in October of 2013 that the city representative was being investigated to see if she threatened a city employee who had been instructed to trim a tree on her property. The tree was evidently obstructing a traffic sign.
We don’t know what the city representative did or did not do, but a serious crime may have been committed. From the Texas penal code:
Sec. 22.01. 
ASSAULT
. (a) A person commits an offense if the person::
(2) intentionally or knowingly threatens another with imminent bodily injury, including the person’s spouse; or
(3) intentionally or knowingly causes physical contact with another when the person knows or should reasonably believe that the other will regard the contact as offensive or provocative.
(b) An offense under Subsection (a)(1) is a Class A misdemeanor, except that the offense is a felony of the third degree if the offense is committed against:
(1) a person the actor knows is a public servant while the public servant is lawfully discharging an official duty, or in retaliation or on account of an exercise of official power or performance of an official duty as a public servant;
We wrote in Do you know who I am? that:
City Manager Joyce Wilson said all council members have to go through standard investigative procedures when allegations are raised against them.
“They are treated the same as any other citizen. An investigation takes place and the outcome is referred to the District Attorney,” she said in an email.
The case has been handed over to the Special Investigation Group, a police unit formed to investigate allegations made against public officials.
We learned that her statement was just plain hooey to put it politely.
Then in Two strikes and you’re out as part of the discussion over the firing of a deputy city manager we heard of rumors that the same city representative wanted the employee to be fired.
Charter violation? discussed the possibility that the city representative might have also violated the city charter. We wrote:
Our city charter says:
Section 5.5 INTERFERENCE WITH PERSONNEL OR ADMINISTRATION.
Except for the purposes of investigations under Section 3.8 and inquiries, the members of the Council shall deal with City employees who are subject to the direction and supervision of the City Manager solely through the City Manager, and neither the Council nor any of its members shall give orders to any such employee, either publicly or privately. Neither the Council nor any of its members shall in any manner control or demand the appointment or removal of any City employee whom the City Manager is empowered to appoint, but the Council may express its views and fully and freely discuss with the City Manager anything pertaining to appointment and removal of such employees.
In other words a city representative does not have the right to give orders to a city employee “either publicly or privately”. According to the charter:
“The failure of any officer or employee to comply with this chapter or the violation of one or more of the standards of conduct set forth in this article, which apply to him or her, shall constitute grounds for expulsion, reprimand, removal from office or discharge.”
Then in Private club we pointed out that both the district attorney and mayor appear to have responsibilities here.
We deserve better
Brutus
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Posted by Brutus
Better, but not much
July 8, 2015Looking at the numbers in the National Transit Data Base that Sun Metro self reports we can see that bus ridership is up since they introduced the Brio.
In the period from November 2013 through April 2014 Sun Metro had an average of 994,788 people get on a bus each month.
During those same months of 2014 through 2015 the average was 1,048,497.
That means that on average 53,709 more people boarded buses system-wide each month this year than last year.
Previously in Brio ridership numbers we wrote that according to an article in El Paso, Inc. more than 60,000 people were riding Brio each month. Those numbers are only 11% off. Many of us would consider that to be pretty good for a city department.
While the numbers are an improvement, we still have a long way to go. If we take the number of miles that the buses drive in a month and divide that into the number of people that board the numbers come out to 1.7 new passengers each mile.
Shouldn’t we reconsider the Alameda Brio? If we feel the need to improve bus service on Alameda couldn’t we do it by adding more traditional buses instead of spending $35 million of city money (not federal)?
We deserve better
Brutus
6 Comments | City government, El Paso Inc. | Permalink
Posted by Brutus
elpasospeak 
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