elpasospeak

Not shocking, just par for the course

June 12, 2015

They’re about to do it again.

Item 4.1 on the consent agenda (that’s the one where there is no discussion) of the city council meeting to be held Tuesday, June 16, 2015 is listed as:

That the City Council approves the change order for the expenditure of additional funds in the amount of One Hundred Ten Thousand and 00/100 Dollars ($110,000.00) to BASIC IDIQ, Inc. for the relocation of electrical service equipment and feeders above ground to below ground for the San Jacinto Plaza Redesign Project, Solicitation No 2014-043. An additional seventeen (17) days will be added to term of contract number 2014-043. The new contract sum, including this construction change order is Four Million Nine Hundred Fifty Six Thousand Six Hundred Sixty Eight and 52/00 ($4,956,668.52).

There is backup material and it tells us a lot, including:

“The contractor installed the electrical service equipment above ground. This change order will allow for electrical equipment and feeders to be placed below ground.”

Huh?

We should assume that someone at the city was watching as the power equipment was suspended in the air. Now that the work is done we will pay to have the new stuff ripped out and put underground. Were the plans vague? Has the city decided that they now have extra money and they want to upgrade the plaza? Could it be that this change order is a way to funnel more money to the contractor?

More conflict

The backup material indicates that 17 days will be added to the term of the contract. They don’t say whether those are calendar days or are work days or maybe biblical days.

Unfortunately the contractor’s proposal to the city says: “This work will add approximately five weeks to the overall timeframe of the project”. We don’t know if that means 35 calendar days or 25 work days, to say nothing about how we can quantify approximately.

The contractor’s proposal was for $123 thousand. The city’s project manager crossed that amount out and wrote $110 thousand and initialed the change.

The five week extension was not changed. Curious, isn’t it.

See for yourself:

The backup material shows this as change order number 6. One through five must have been doozies.

I guess it would just be to much for us to expect that the city would be precise.

We deserve better

Brutus

7 Comments | City government | Permalink
Posted by Brutus

Wrong if you do it, but not if I do

June 11, 2015

Our county judge has been complaining publicly about the fact that the children’s hospital is using an out of town law firm to handle their bankruptcy.

She fails to point out that the county and the county hospital both use an out of town firm to handle their bonds. The same lawyer seems to be at the bottom of some of El Paso’s most controversial issues. He is now with the law firm of Norton Rose Fulbright out of their Dallas office.

Searching the web you will find that the firm has a few local clients:

The City of El Paso (evidently including the ball park)
The County of El Paso (evidently including the clinics and the children’s hospital)
El Paso Independent School District (evidently including the corporation that wants to issue the bonds for the new central office)
El Paso County 911 District

They may be involved with other local governments, time will tell.

This graphic comes from a presentation that the county hospital was using to sell us on the children’s hospital bond issue:

At the time the lawyer was with his own firm. He evidently later joined Norton Rose Fulbright.

The county judge is certainly being disingenuous when she complains about the children’s hospital while she is doing the same thing.

We deserve better

Brutus

6 Comments | Ball park, City government, County Government, El Paso Independent School District | Permalink
Posted by Brutus

City secrecy part three

June 10, 2015

Our city attorney seems to be the chief enabler of secrecy at city council meetings.

It seems that somehow she is also our city parliamentarian and is the one who should be enforcing the rules.

Back on July 6, 2013 Public confession told us about how in a discussion about agenda and backup posting rules our city attorney/parliamentarian told us “council wasn’t doing that anway”.

Whose fault is that?

We could say that the parliamentarian should have put a stop to it. Then again the city attorney should have since at the time it was a violation of the city’s ethics ordinance.

Oops, that’s the same person. One problem here is that the city attorney can be removed with the vote of the mayor and the majority of city council. A city attorney might value his/her job more than their integrity.

Separate jobs

Don’t we deserve to have a separate parliamentarian or at least someone who sees to it that council obeys the law? Maybe this is something that the Ad Hoc Charter Committee committee should take up.

Could we somehow have a city parliamentarian that is not beholding to city council for his/her job?

Why?

Another question is why the parliamentarian/city attorney allows this to happen.

Secrecy is the most plausible answer to me. Some seem to think that the voters should be kept in the dark.

We deserve better

Brutus

7 Comments | City government | Permalink
Posted by Brutus

Are the city’s goals just a joke?

June 9, 2015

I couldn’t help but laugh when I saw this on the city’s June 9, 2015 council agenda:

Goal number 5 is: Promote Transparent and Consistent Communication Amongst All Members of the Community

The communication and public affairs person was to make a presentation about goal 5.

You can see on the right of the web page that no backup files were available for public review.

Typical.

We deserve better

Brutus

1 Comment | City government | Permalink
Posted by Brutus

Saved from nothing

June 8, 2015

A loyal reader pointed this situation out to me.

According to the Times our new city manager has saved us $3.5 million dollars through personnel cuts.

Good for him. I mean it and thank him for his efforts.

Can’t wait

I can’t wait to get my refund check.

I can’t imagine that would actually happen. It would take city council deciding to save us the money.

Instead they will find something else that they think that we “need” or at least that they think we will not stop them from spending.

As it turns out the new fee/tax they imposed on us through the water utility was not necessary. Dare we think that they should rescind it?

Now all of the old deputy city managers are gone. That tells us what the new city manager thinks of the old organization. Once again I am happy to agree with him.

Bad things happened to local businesses under the old regime.

We deserve better

Brutus

6 Comments | City government, El Paso Times | Permalink
Posted by Brutus

elpasospeak

Not shocking, just par for the course