Hard to explain

March 25, 2015

This document:

casatrucks

was part of the backup material for a city council agenda item the other day.  The purchasing department was ranking various vendors for the purpose of deciding who to buy from.

I found the awarding of zero points in the category of “Reputation and Quality of the Bidder’s Service” to one of our oldest dealerships interesting.  Further down the page they have the category of “Past Performance” where the city gave the dealership a rating of 5, the highest value that could be given.

The dealership has a good reputation for service.  Their quality has been fine in the past.  Given that no organization is perfect I can see that the city might not have given them the maximum of 20 points on this item.  However the city gave them a zero, meaning to me that the city considers the dealer’s reputation and service quality to be horrible, non-existent, not worth considering.

The dealer offered one of the two lowest prices.  It is interesting to note that the other dealer with one of the lowest prices was also given a zero in the same category.

Could it be that city staff found the bidders prices to be inconvenient?  Would staff have had to give the business to someone that they might not like just because of price?  Did they use low ratings in the reputation and quality category just to knock out the two low bidders?

Also interesting is the “Vehicle Fuel Economy” category.  The dealership that the city has chosen to give the business to received the maximum 5 points that could be given here.  All of the other dealerships were given a zero.

How can that be?  It would seem to me that we would see some other numbers here.  Or is the city saying that the losing dealerships were offering vehicles that used an infinite amount of fuel?

We deserve better

Brutus

8 Comments | City government, Purchasing | Permalink
Posted by Brutus

Chili sauce and heritage

March 24, 2015

Helen Marshall sent us this piece:

[The op-ed piece in the Times the other day]  appears to argue that El Paso does not have any problem just building a Hispanic Cultural Center (whatever that means, it is never defined, except by asserting what it is NOT) because by virtue of moving here everyone becomes Hispanic, unless you consciously opt-out.  All you need is a strong preference for red or green sauce (I thought that was New Mexico’s motto…). 

If this “longtime educator” has no clearer understanding of words than this, I wonder what he taught his students.   Straight out of Alice – “when I use a word, it means just what I choose it to mean…”

 
Hispanic culture is rich, complex
By Juan Sybert-Coronado / Guest columnist

Posted:   03/22/2015 12:00:00 AM MDT

The current kerfuffle over the Hispanic cultural center is based on two misunderstandings: Culture is not race and a cultural center is not a history museum.

In the United States, people are assigned a race at birth. Usually this is done based on skin color.

Culture is developed by each individual over the course of a lifetime based on experiences, associations, and personal tastes.

Hispanics are as güera as Shakira and as dark as Nolan Richardson.

The Hispanic racial umbrella is based on the concept of mestizaje, the notion of an infinite horizon of hybridity. As the Mexican-American comedian Louis C.K. says, “Mexico is just like America — it’s made up of some white people, some black people, and some brown people.”

But Hispanic culture is not color bound. Anyone who lives in a Hispanic environment and adopts some of its customs becomes Hispanic.

This defines almost everyone in our city. If it doesn’t it’s not because they have been excluded, but because they have consciously decided not to participate.

If you have a strong preference for red or green enchilada sauce, you might be Hispanic.

If you think that “The House on Mango Street” or “The Last of the Menu Girls” speaks to your understanding of the world, you are definitely Hispanic.

But there is more than one way to be Hispanic.

Our musicians include Vicente Fernandez, Dinah Shore, Carlos Santana, Jerry Garcia, and Fergie.

Hispanic visual artists are just as varied. Frieda Kahlo is important. But so are Hal Marcus, Luis Jimenez, Gaspar Enriquez, and the endless interpreters of the Virgin of Guadalupe.

Everyone who has settled in El Paso has contributed to the ongoing process of creating our unique Hispanic culture.

This includes the Buffalo soldiers who remained in our city after their enlistments and often married Mexican women, beginning the Blaxican culture of our community. It also includes recent arrivals who quickly learn that we don’t wear sombreros, but we appreciate a pair of Lucchese boots as much as a pair of Nikes.

It is the role of cultural centers to celebrate the contributions of everyone who has created that culture while acknowledging their races or previous cultural backgrounds.

A Hispanic cultural center should be designed to bring us together by examining the thousands of threads that weave our social fabric into a unique El Paso Hispanic tapestry.

Many of the desires of the proposed center’s critics are historic in nature.

Hopefully, Donald Williams and Bernie Sargent will address their legitimate concerns to the El Paso History Museum whose mission is to preserve and tell the story of El Paso’s past.

They should also visit a few other institutions before insisting that the proposed Hispanic cultural center become another history museum.

Mexico City’s anthropological museum is a good model for us.

It uses history to illuminate the origins of Mexico’s multiple cultures, but its chief focus is on the how the ongoing hybridizing process of culture creation is making Mexico a vibrant country today.

Juan Sybert-Coronado is a longtime El Paso educator.

6 Comments | El Paso Times | Permalink
Posted by Brutus

Questions for city council candidates #1 (PSB)

March 23, 2015

Some of us will be attending various public meetings where we get to meet the candidates and ask them questions.

Maybe we can use this blog to help voters decide what issues are important to them.

In that spirit, let’s pose this question:

Should the city leave the public service board as it is or should the city take more control?

Please consider sending your questions to us through our email (brutusep@yahoo.com) so that we can feature them as posts.  Because of the way the blog works posts get more readership than comments.  We will post your questions without attribution unless you specifically allow it.

We deserve better

Brutus

 

5 Comments | City government | Permalink
Posted by Brutus

And we need monitoring?

March 22, 2015

In Lied to again we saw our non-elected EPISD board of managers violating the public trust by  “repurposing”  $57.9 million from the 2007 bond election.

Much of the money ($49 million) was voted on to build a new high school in the northeast.

This board told us that they knew what to do.  The high school was not necessary.  What was necessary was a couple of football stadiums and a $10 million theater for Andress High School.

That meeting took place February 4, 2014.

One month later on March 4, 2014 the A/E Procurement and Facilities Management Committee (comprised of two members of the board of managers) met to discuss “the objectives of the Facility Assessment and Facility Use Master Plan”.  From the meeting minutes:

A process overview and associated timelines were also presented, which included five stages as follows:  1) project setup (February 2014); 2) data collection (March and April 2014); 3) data analysis and compilation (April and May 2014); 4) master planning (May through August 2014); and 5)implementation.

They knew

The board voted to “repurpose” $59 million of our money–money that we voted to spend for specific purposes when they knew that they had hired a consulting firm to help decide what to do about our school building inventory.  In fact at the March 4 meeting they discussed both the facility study that was being done and the status of construction at Andress.

Guess what happened

In January of 2015 the consulting firm came in with their recommendations.  Among them were to tear down Andress and build a new school on the same site.

The cost?  The study estimates the cost to be $63 million.  Remember the $59 million we had allocated for a new high school?  Well that got “repurposed” and isn’t available any more.

We deserve better

Brutus

 

 

2 Comments | El Paso Independent School District | Permalink
Posted by Brutus

Another cancelled bid

March 21, 2015

Lest you think that our post the other day about the city rejecting all construction bids for a project at the zoo because of bad specifications, here is another one:

vendingbid

This time four bidders spent time and money responding to a city bid and were then told that now that the city had their financial numbers the process would start over.

We deserve better

Brutus

1 Comment | City government | Permalink
Posted by Brutus

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