elpasospeak

Tomorrow’s (June 23, 2015) city council agenda has items on it that would authorize the sale of about $200 million of bonds

The way it breaks out is:

$35,375,000 from the $473,250,00 quality of life bonds that we voted for in 2012.  That will bring the total amount issued to $49,375,000.  It only took three years to handle 8.3% of what we voted for.

$110,000,000 of refunding bonds.  These bonds will be used to pay off bonds that we sold in 2007.  The bonds that we sold in 2007 were used to pay off bonds we issued before that.

$62,000,000 in certificates of obligations.  Council doesn’t think that we need to vote on these since they know a lot more about what is good for us than we do ourselves.

Debt policy

Council actually has a formal debt management policy.  They passed it last week.  In part is says:

“Bonds are generally issued with an average life of 20 years or less for general obligation bonds, certificates of obligation and revenue bonds but may be greater for some projects such as landfills and major utility facilities whose lives are greater than 20 years.”

Baloney!

The proposed bond ordinance says:

“the maximum maturity date for any Bonds issued to refund the Refunded Bonds shall not exceed December 31, 2033”.

Let’s see, 2015 to 2033, that’s 18 years.

Refund the Refunded Bonds

That’s 18 years for this sale.  What they are re-financing is bonds that were sold in 2007.  That brings us to 26 years.

Oh wait!  The bonds that were sold back in 2007 were actually sold to refund bonds that had been issued prior to 2007.

Talk about kicking the can down the road.

We deserve better

Brutus

Word got to me the other day that a citizen was complaining that the email addresses of city officials were disappearing from the city’s web site.

I decided to have a look for myself.

Checking each of the departments I found that many listed their personnel along with their phone numbers and email addresses.  Those that did not were:

City Attorney, phone numbers only.   I doubt that the city records phone calls and  you cannot use emails (which are subject to open records requests) with this department.

Destination El Paso, phone numbers but no email addresses for staff members listed

Economic Development, a phone number but no staff members listed

Human Services, phone numbers but no email addresses for staff members listed

Information Technology, as you could predict they have pictures of their managers but neither telephone numbers nor email addresses.  Don’t call them, they won’t call you.

International Bridges, no staff listed

Libraries, no staff listed

Municipal Clerk, phone numbers but no email addresses for staff members listed

Municipal Courts, no staff listed

Museum of Archeology, no staff listed

Office of Management and Budget, phone numbers but no email addresses for staff members listed

Office of the Comptroller, phone numbers but no email addresses

Parks and Recreation, interesting.  Phone numbers but no email addresses listed.  Clicking on the staff member’s picture brings up a form that you can use to send in your thoughts (sometimes).

Planning and Inspections, no staff members listed

Police Department, no staff members listed

Public Health, no staff members listed

Purchasing and Strategic Outsourcing, phone numbers but no email addresses

Office of Resilience and Sustainability, staff listed but no direct phone numbers or email addresses

Streets and Maintenance, no staff listed.  That explains a lot.

Sun Metro, no staff listed.

Consolidated Tax Office, no staff listed.

Zoo, no staff listed

With no email traffic deniability is easy.

We deserve better

Brutus

It is interesting to note that the city has changed the status of the San Jacinto Plaza project.

If is now listed as “matter no. 12-1004-214” whereas before when they listed the item for executive session there was no mention of a matter number.

San Jacinto Plaza Redesign, Solicitation No. 2014-043 (551.071)

San Jacinto Plaza Redesign, Solicitation No. 2014-043; Matter No. 12-1004-214 (551.071)

I believe that designating it as a matter means that the city attorney has now opened a case file on it.

Are they finally taking this seriously?

We deserve better

Brusut

City staff is displaying another way that they mislead council and the public.

This slide was part of a presentation made to city council on June 2, 2015:

Notice that the art project to be placed at spur 1966 is scheduled to be completed by September 2015.

That’s good

Well actually it isn’t.

As we wrote in Blue skies under the sun, nothing but blue skies, “At the February 24, 2015 city council meeting we were told that this $500,000 project would be finished and installed at UTEP (spur 1966) in April of 2015.”

The presenter did not bother to tell council that the project was late.  He just reported a different completion date.  If somehow the slide was referring to a different project, then he failed to tell council anything about this one.

Maybe they need the cloud for our monsoon season.

We deserve better

Brutus

Several people have asked lately what Brio stands for.

We don’t know if it is an acronym, but there is an actual word brio.

According to the online service available at meriam-webster.com the meaning is:

enthusiastic vigor :  vivacity, verve 

That it is.

Brutus