BLOGGING MATTERS!

January 18, 2015

This from Helen Marshall:

BLOGGING MATTERS!

The El Paso Naturally blog (www.elpasonaturally.blogspot.com) started a campaign on Monday, January 12, to raise awareness about the condition of the huge Mondel pine tree that has served as the city’s Christmas Tree since 1998 when it was donated to the city. http://www.elpasonaturally.blogspot.com/2015/01/save-el-pasos-christmas-tree.html

The blog directed readers to an online petition to save the tree, directed to Mayor and City Council. The story was apparently noticed by at least one El Paso TV station, http://www.kvia.com/news/san-jacinto-christmas-tree-damaged/30692650, which led some listeners and readers to write to their city reps about the situation.

That in turn prompted the City Engineering Department to produce a memo claiming that it was doing everything possible to save the tree. Nothing was said by either the Mayor or City Manager or the City Arborist, or the required Project Arborist, so the City has yet to come clean on this on what happened and why.

http://www.elpasonaturally.blogspot.com/2015/01/city-cover-up-of-christmas-tree-scandal.html

But the commotion led both the El Paso Times and El Diario to put the story on their front pages on Saturday, January 17. http://m.diario.mx/nota.php?id=2015-01-16_d67c04fc

http://www.elpasotimes.com/News/ci_27335966/El-Pasoans-petition-to-save-pine-tree-at-San-Jacinto-Plaza

I’d guess that this story is not over; kudos to El Paso Naturally! And let’s take this as a message to El Paso Speak readers and contributors…if we see something wrong, let’s try to figure out how to “give it legs,” create a petition or a letter-writing campaign to let the “Bigs” know that we are watching them and we’re not happy.

 

1 Comment | City government, County Government, El Paso Times | Permalink
Posted by Brutus

El Paso Border Youth Athletic Association

January 17, 2015

I ran across a local organization that deserves some recognition.  The El Paso Border Youth Athletic Association has this web site.

This is from their site:

The El Paso Border Youth Athletic Association (EPBYAA) has been working to grow baseball programming for El Paso’s youth for thirteen years. Since its inception in the year 2000, EPBYAA has served thousands of El Paso kids ages 10-19, contributing to the health and well being of area youth through baseball programming.

Take a few minutes to review what they are doing.

It looks like they have an indoor training facility that should make us proud.

Spread the word.  It looks like this low-keyed organization deserves our support.

Brutus

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Vini, vidi, vici

January 16, 2015

Our hospital administrator has been acting pretty smug at recent public events according to stories going around town.

For a while it looked like he would be publicly admonished by his board for his behavior.  It looks like that will not happen now, but then again two of the board members have to be reappointed three months from now and unless our county commissioners pull a fast one those two  will be out the door.

Back in April of 2013 our hospital administrator came to the county commissioners with a request for $162 million of bond money to build three new outpatient clinics.  Commissioners, ever the fiscal conservatives, only gave him $152 million.

Then just one month later in May of 2013 he told his hospital board that they will need to “repurpose” the money.  Actually $29.3 million of the original request was not for new clinics but instead was to be used to remodel floors of the existing hospital–something that should be done with operating funds if the hospital is truly profitable like he claims.

Now word on the street is that he has taken over $20 million of the new money to pay for software for the hospital.  The money for the clinics is dwindling especially if you consider the hospitals habit of paying bonuses.

Is our hospital administrator trying to become emperor?  Well his name appears to be Italian.  He seems to be winning his battles.  Then there is the size comparison.

We deserve better

Brutus

 

 

2 Comments | County Government | Permalink
Posted by Brutus

Saint Joyce

January 15, 2015

This is from Helen Marshall:

Saint Joyce

Joe Muench posted a fawning essay about Joyce Wilson in the El Paso Times print edition of January 11, 2015 http://www.elpasotimes.com/opinion/ci_27296772/joyce-wilsons-current-role-may-be-bigger-than

saying that Ms. Wilson stuck around in El Paso after she left her nurturing role as the first City Manager, rather than retiring in Florida (I thought she had a job possibility there?) or taking other high-paying jobs elsewhere. Instead, she is running the “public employment agency” in order to work with the real “bigs” in town to “build us a better place to live.” No underlying reason is giving for her decision to “be a big player in dragging us, like it or not, to a position where we like it a lot.”

As they said in the elite schools in England, Bend Over and Take It Like a Man.

Muench then moves on to tell us that we have to get cracking on the three BIG quality of life bond projects, and slams Rep. Limón for not getting on the bandwagon. Perhaps Joe did not notice that it was Council, not Limón by herself, who asked current City Manager Gonzalez to provide a new list of site and financing options, “possibly within the next three months.” (http://www.elpasotimes.com/News/ci_27277606/City-does-not-disclose-potential-sites-for-El-Paso-bond-issue-projects)

That would be in response to the options briefed to council in closed session by the outside consultant, HKS Urban Planning. This firm has obviously done a bang-up job of assessing El Paso, which its written report states is 43% percent “Latino.” Destination El Paso manager Crowe said he was sure that was a typo, but as we are also told by the Times that the HKS briefer at the closed session said the “Latino” component was “40%,” it would appear that the typo has some deep roots. But gee, what can you expect when you only pay $500,000 for advice?

Perhaps Joe was miffed by Limón’s statement that “I want to make sure that there is full disclosure on all the projects, and that there are no hidden costs.” Sounds like a reminder of the Stadium Caper to me, how dare she?

Mr. Gonazalez noted that staff would have to figure how to get these projects built and sustained, as “the bond issue planners failed to factor operations and maintenance costs into the bond issue calculations ” That would be Saint Joyce and her team… Joe Muench notes that Joyce coined the best name for those who opposed her plans to remake the city – the “Crazies.” I’d have said that it’s a pretty good name for a team of Bigs who can’t even remember that once built, you have to operate and maintain something. I wonder who’s paying those costs at Southwest University Park? Meantime, let’s not forget that Wilson also presided over a city bureaucracy that failed to get the paperwork done on time, losing some $5.1 million in funding for street projects such as bicycle lanes, and $14.2 million in federal funding for other projects. The incoming City Manager asked the citizens of El Paso to remain calm despite the delays. (Keep calm and carry on, anyone?) We can only hope that Ms. Shaung is contemplating these delays calmly as she waits for her pension rights to kick in. http://diario.mx/El_Paso/2014-08-02_7b433fcd/se-pierden-$51-millones-de-cuatro-proyectos-viales/

8 Comments | Ball park, City government | Permalink
Posted by Brutus

Do-over?

January 14, 2015

This would be a good time to contact city council and let them know what your thinking is about the quality of life bonds.

We are now being told that the financial estimates that we were given with each project were not developed by people in the construction business.    We are beginning to see that the estimates were low and that more money will be necessary to accomplish construction.

Word on the street is that the improvements to the archaeological museum have already been sacrificed to build the digital wall.

The other day  our new city manager told the public that the costs of operation and maintenance of the new facilities have not been budgeted.

What we have is a recipe for disaster.  We need to remember what happened years ago when the county judge tried to build an indoor swimming pool.  They ran out of money in the middle of the project and what we ended up with was an overly expensive outdoor pool.

For the record, I am not against quality of life projects or children’s hospitals.  I am against wasting money building part of what we want and not getting us what we agreed to and then not having the money to operate the facility.

Do we need a do-over here?

Should we stop where we are and start over?  First we should decide what we want to have.  Then we should have competent people tell us what it will cost.  Then we should have another election but this time the projects should be put on the ballot as separate items so that we don’t get railroaded into another “all or nothing” decision.

The people who did this to us should be ashamed.

We deserve better

Brutus

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