elpasospeak

It has now been over a year since the incident where our west side city representative was accused of threatening a city employee.

His crime?  Evidently telling her that his job required him to trim a tree that was on her property and obstructing street signage.

No one that knows where the case stands is talking.

The Times reported back in October of last year:

City Manager Joyce Wilson said all council members have to go through standard investigative procedures when allegations are raised against them.

“They are treated the same as any other citizen.  An investigation takes place and the outcome is referred to the District Attorney,” she said in an email.

The case has been handed over to the Special Investigation Group, a police unit formed to investigate allegations made against public officials.

Baloney

Our city representative is not being treated the same as any other citizen.

I hope that  one of our governmental watchdogs that attend city council meetings will ask the question.

We deserve better

Brutus

Our former city manager accepted a job as the interim chief executive officer of the Upper Rio Grande Valley Workforce Commission in July of this year.

At this point we have heard nothing about the organization launching a talent search for a permanent CEO.

Were we mislead originally?  Was the city manager really hired on a permanent basis?  Could it be that she is doing such a good job that they have figured out that they want to keep her?

If they have decided to keep her why don’t they say so?

We deserve better

Brutus

I did not want to mix the good with the bad the other day when talking about riding the Brio.

On the minus side the buses ride like a skate board.  The ride is really bumpy.

There is probably a problem with the fare boxes.  Although the ticket I buy is a fancy magnetic striped one I was never required to surrender it to the fare box.  In fact I have yet to see any other passenger do it either.

Unnecessary waste

Right now the buses are pretty much empty.  I have yet to see more than 5 people on a Brio at any one time.

The Sun Metro web site tells us that the buses cost $790,000 each and that they seat 48 passengers.  That comes to about $16,500 per seat.  The traditional buses that the system has been buying cost $525,000 and seat 38 passengers yielding a cost of about $13,800 per seat.

According to the web site it cost $27 million to build the system.  No one can put a cost to the inconvenience we have all endured as the city blockaded Mesa for months while building the extra long stations.

Why?

If the city wanted shorten the amount of time that we have to wait for a bus they could have added regular buses.  The buses could keep the same schedule as the Brio’s.  Scheduling could be more dynamic.

We would not have had to build new bus stops.  We would not have had to waste millions of dollars.

We deserve better

Brutus

We asked for it and we are going to get it.

El Paso’s voters approved transferring the responsibility of handling storm water issues from the city to our Public Service Board (PSB)  at the May 9, 2009 election.

Of course we were told that the  PSB would handle our money wisely.  Prior to the election whatever funds were spent on storm water came from the city’s budget.  When the transfer was made we did not see a corresponding decrease in property taxes.  Instead we saw a monthly fee tacked on to our water bills.  That was a double whammy.

The PSB web site today tells us that the money they collect is only used to handle the once or twice a year drainage problem.  This is their statement about the fees:  “They are used only for stormwater utility expenses”.

Quite to the contrary, Money down the drain showed us that $1.3 million is spent on “indirect cost allocation”.  Another $1.7 million is spent on general and administrative expenses.  They have borrowed about $66 million so far.  They pay about $2.2 million a year in interest and another $2.5 million in principal.

Our reward

The Times reported the other day that the PSB now says that they need about $544 million to fix us up real good.  If the borrowing numbers work out the same way as the previous $66 million, we will be paying another $18 million a year in interest and about $20.6 million toward principal reduction.

This represents a $600 million dollar tax increase before interest expense and “indirect allocations” that city council would have had to justify to the voters.

How do they propose that we pay for this?  Their solution is an 8% increase in fees each year.  Does anyone think that these fees will go down once the bonds are paid for in twenty or forty years?

Because we blindly believed these people we will now pay for it as part of our water bills and the city will get a free ride.

Normally  I would say that we deserve better, but in this case we got what we asked for.

Brutus

Well I’ve ridden the Brio a few times now.

The experiences were pleasant and I intend to continue using the Brio when I need to go downtown.

I left the Coronado shopping center at about 7:15 in the morning the other day and arrived at the library, ball park stop 15 minutes later.

The bus was clean, the operator was friendly and there was plenty of space for me.

I was surprised by a few things.

Normal buses try to keep to a rigid schedule.  If a bus is supposed to be at a stop at 7:10 and it gets there early we will often see the bus idling and waiting so that it does not get ahead of schedule.  The Brio buses do not do that.  With another bus coming only 10 minutes later during peak times, the Brio does not need to slow down.  The driver passed empty stops and drove at full speed toward downtown.

The Brio bus will also move into the center lane on Mesa in order to pass a regular bus that is idling to keep on schedule.

I returned at about 3:30 that afternoon.  Traffic on Mesa was pretty heavy but the trip only took 20 minutes, not much slower than taking my own car.

The practicality of the money we have spent and the inconvenience we have endured during construction are a different matter — we will address that in another post.

We have spent the money and built the system.  I see no reason to boycott the Brio now that it is in operation.

Quite simply sometimes the Brio is a better alternative than driving.

Brutus