elpasospeak

The November 11, 2014 Mass Transit Board (Sun Metro) had another example of spending for spending’s sake.

Our new Brio system has problems with it’s mechanized ticketing system.  The ticket readers on the busses are not used.  Maybe they don’t work.  The result is that traveling on the Brio is based on the honor system.

Sun Metro tells us that from time to time they will have a monitor ride a Brio bus and check to see that the passengers have purchased tickets.  Sun Metro calls these folks “ambassadors”.

The penalty for not buying a ticket?  Right now you might get a stern verbal warning.

Ticket machines

Each Brio stop features a ticket vending machine.  These machines are supposed to accept cash and credit cards, but of course the credit card readers are not functioning.

At the November 11, 2014 meeting the board was asked to spend $117,000 for two new machines.  That works out to $58,500 each.

The reason?  They feel that they need a spare just in case of “catastrophic” damage to one of the existing units.  They will also use the spare as a training machine for their staff.  Keep in mind that members of the public don’t get training on how to use the machines but evidently their staff needs extra help.

They claim that they will eventually get the credit card portion working.  Remember that the regular fare is $1.50 and the fare for seniors is 30 cents.  We have to wonder how much Sun Metro will have to pay the credit card processors and what will be left to put tires on the busses.

We deserve better

Brutus

Item 7.1 on the March 3, 2015 city council agenda indicates the sad state of affairs at our engineering and purchasing departments.

The city went out to bid for the Zoo’s African Wild Dog Exhibit.  Three firms responded with bids.

Now the city wants to reject all of the bids and start over.  This language is part of the agenda backup material:

Recommend rejection of all bids.  Upon further review of all components of the bids submitted various factors were identified:  the Competitive Sealed Proposal Process was not the most effective bidding mechanism for selecting a qualified contractor for this project, references in the technical specifications with regards to the requested qualifications could have been better identified, and the past performance evaluation does not clearly represent projects associated with the requested technical qualifications.  The project will be re-bid as lowest, responsible bidder highlighting the required experience

In other words, we want someone else.  The city clearly has the right to reject all bids and start over.

In this case they did a poor job defining the experience that they were requiring and ended up wasting the time and money of three local businesses.

Let’s see how this situation supports the achievement of some of the city’s stated goals:

We deserve better

Brutus

City council has authorized the formation of an “Ad Hoc Charter Advisory Committee”.

Our mayor told us that he would bring the issue of the type of government (city manager or strong mayor) to the voters at the next election where city charter amendments can be made.

Looking at the video of the city council meeting the other day it appears that our city manager and at least two of our representatives want to limit the issues that the charter committee considers.

They spoke of making changes that cause inefficiencies in city government.  There are evidently parts of the charter that contain language that was more appropriate when we had a strong mayor form of government but are now inconsistent with the city manager form of government.

If they are successful in limiting the ideas that the committee can consider then we probably will not be given an opportunity to vote on the form of government that we have.  The possibility of returning to two year terms for the representative instead of the new four year terms probably won’t be considered either.

The city manager should stay out of this issue.  He has a conflict of interest.

The mayor should see to it that we get what he promised.

We deserve better

Brutus

We now have a flap about the cultural center that we voted for as part of the 2012 quality of life bonds.

City council passed an ordinance that called for the quality of life bond election.  The ordinance specified the language to be used on the ballot.  Evidently the ordinance specified a “Hispanic” cultural center but the language on the ballots specified a “Heritage” cultural center.

Was this done deliberately?  Did someone change the language in the ordinance with the belief that the changes would make the issue more likely to pass?  Who is responsible for making certain that the two documents are precisely the same?

We now hear that our city attorney believes that the language on the ordinance should decide the issue, not the language that we voted on.  Incredible!

How many of us would go to a restaurant and order a steak and then not object when brought tuna?

We have a problem here with how the wording was changed.  That should be looked into and the culprit should be exposed.  How can this not be fraud?

We also have a problem with a city attorney that once again thinks that the voters should be ignored.

We deserve better

Brutus