Empty throne

December 3, 2014

I thank the Times for letting us know that the county is busy remodeling parts of the county building to make way for the county administrator that they plan to hire next year.

The Times told us that $700,000 is being spent on the projects.

Maybe with the way many government officials consider themselves to be more important than the citizens it is improbable that the new county administrator might have chosen to just occupy an empty office somewhere in the building and save us this money.

Then again we could have waited to see what the new administrator wants.

Many of us think that the fix is in and that the new county administrator has already been chosen.

We deserve better

Brutus

4 Comments | County Government, El Paso Times | Permalink
Posted by Brutus

Failure to be fair

December 2, 2014

I am struck by the national news coverage of the events in Ferguson Missouri.

I don’t know who did what.  I can only hope that our legal system will handle the situation correctly.

The decision as to whether to prosecute the policeman involved is up to the grand jury.  Modern grand juries are often manipulated unfairly by the prosecutors resulting in the ability to indict “a ham sandwich”.

Yet in this case the grand jury has decided not to indict the policeman.

Media slant

Frequently this week I have heard news reports that the grand jury has “failed” to indict the policeman.  The word failed implies that they should have indicted.  Once again I don’t know what they should have done, but for some in the media to report that the grand jury has failed is unfair.

I would hope that if these reporters ever were being investigated that their grand jury would weigh the evidence and be fair.

We deserve better

Brutus

23 Comments | Uncategorized | Permalink
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Why pay bonuses to public officials?

December 1, 2014

Does our chief of police get an annual bonus?  How about our fire chief or the commanding general of Fort Bliss?

Why is it that the institutions that we are having the most trouble with (the county hospital and EPISD) pay bonuses to their chiefs?

The county hospital CFO and COO (chief operating officer) evidently have received bonuses also.  The CFO of the city regularly gave us wildly inaccurate forecasts and instead of getting a bonus she is no longer with the city.  Should the same thing happen at the county hospital?

Why is it that the rank and file workers do not get bonuses for doing their jobs while some of our chiefs do?

Yes I know that some businesses pay bonuses for specific performance.  Personally I would rather be paid a fair wage to do my job and get fired if I don’t.

We deserve better

Brutus

 

10 Comments | City government, County Government, El Paso Independent School District, Federal Government | Permalink
Posted by Brutus

Brio blues

November 30, 2014

Following up on the state of the Brio system, some promised features are not in operation.

Honor system

While you are supposed to pay for your ticket at the kiosk inside the bus stop, the reality is that the fare box inside the bus is not being used.  Just get on the Brio and wave at the driver.  The city tells us that from time to time they will have “ambassadors” on the bus that will ask you to produce your ticket.  So much for efficiency.  From their web site:

  • During the months of October through November, failure to show proof of payment will result in being given a verbal warning and required to pay the fare at the farebox.
  • Effective the month of December, failure to show proof of payment will result in being escorted off Brio and required to pay the fare at the Brio ticket vending machine.
  • Effective the month of January, Sun Metro will implement a graduating fare evasion policy that could include a verbal warning, written warning or transit fines.

Credit cards

If you are inclined to actually pay for your trip you will need to use cash at the kiosk.  The credit card readers are not functioning or at least they have not when I tried them.   The fare boxes and credit card machines are items that we have paid for, evidently because someone wanted the money.

Next bus

The Brio web information originally told us that one of the features of the new bus stops is that they would have a display device that would tell us when the next bus would arrive.  We have the display devices.  They do not provide arrival information.  One of the realities about our governments using web pages to provide information is that they can change what they tell us anytime they want to.

We deserve better

Brutus

3 Comments | City government | Permalink
Posted by Brutus

EPISD smoke screen

November 29, 2014

I got the tip for this post from one of our blog readers.  I hope that you all will continue to feel free to point things out to me.

While you are busy filling out your EPISD facility option surveys the school district has already decided what to do about their central office.

The city owns the land that the central office sits on now and wants the district to move.  District administrators have told us that the move will probably cost $40 million.  With the former chief financial officer of the city now on the district’s appointed board of managers we should all wonder what the $40 million will turn into.

The city doesn’t need the land, it just wants it.  Don’t be surprised if someday we learn of another sweetheart deal relating to the land.  In the meantime the school district’s taxpayers will just have to pay for the expense of moving.

The district would have us think that with the expected drop in enrollment and the possibility of closing schools maybe the central office people could be moved into one or more of the closed schools.

Not when they’ve already made up their minds

The district recently issued request for qualifications number 15-027.  The RFQ seeks statements of qualifications from architects.  Submitting a response to this RFQ will cost the firms both time and money, so no one will be happy if the district decides not to build the new building.

As far as re-using old buildings, the RFQ instead specifies:

Construction of new administration building with site improvements.

Location: 4900 Woodrow Bean Drive, El Paso, Texas 79924.

Legal Description: Being A Portion of Lot 5, Block 6, Castner Range Subdivision #1, City of El Paso, El Paso County, Texas

Land Area: Approx. 28.0 Acres

Proposed Personnel Capacity: 500 employees

Proposed Building Area: 120,000 Sq. Ft. (Approximate); 2 Floors; Separate Police Services Building.

So they evidently have decided to build a new building instead of using old schools.  They have decided where the building will be and how big it will be.

The district does not have to hire an architect or build the new building, but if the architectural firms spend the money to go through the selection process and the district does not build the building the district will have wasted a lot of private firm’s money.  People will not be happy.

The district evidently thinks that the central office needs 500 employees.  I suspect that many of the teachers would like to see that number closer to 200.

And as a loyal reader/commenter pointed out the other day the RFQ does not tell the potential architects to make plans for moving our existing planetarium.  The planetarium is an educational facility.  I guess that can just be torn down like the city did Insights.

In the meantime fill out your surveys so that you can be ignored.  Moving into old schools or acquiring one of El Paso’s many vacant warehouses evidently is not in the cards.

We deserve better

Brutus

 

6 Comments | City government, El Paso Independent School District | Permalink
Posted by Brutus

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