Spend your own money to defend your principles

July 13, 2014

According to the Times, the Ysleta Independent School District board has spent more than $30,000 in legal fees trying to fight a law that requires them to make certain financial disclosures.

If I recall correctly the law only applies to school board members in the El Paso area.  Evidently our legislature thought that the law would help clear up corruption problems in our local school districts.

Amazingly it does not seem to apply to our un-elected board of managers at EPISD.

Principles

We don’t know what the board’s motivation is for fighting this law.

From my perspective the board members should have chosen to fight this law with their own money if they object to it.  They could resign if they find it to be a law that they do not want to obey.  They could hire their own lawyers if they think that it is a law that should be changed.

Spending this money that could have been spent educating children seems selfish to me.

I also wonder what the nature of the legal services was that made the bill add up to so much.

Now we see both city council and a school board spending our money to deny  us information that we are legally entitled to.

We deserve better

Brutus

 

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Reading

July 12, 2014

I’ve had the pleasure of speaking with some young college age people recently.

Admittedly these people are focused on science, mathematics and engineering.

All are products of our local school districts.

None of them have ever read a book.  I’m not quibbling about the differences between e-books and paper ones.  No books.

They all use electronic means to look up specific facts.

One even told me he “sees no value in history”.

What has happened to the curriculum at our schools?  Are we spending so much time on tests that we are leaving people behind?  And where were their parents on this?

We deserve better

Brutus

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Thank you Dr. Noe!

July 11, 2014

The upcoming July 15, 2014 regular agenda for the El Paso City Council has an item on it that gives us some hope.

City representative Dr. Michiel R. Noe has placed item 12.1 on the agenda.  It reads:

Discussion of recent contract changes that were completed prior to the departure of former City Manager Joyce Wilson.

Discussion shall include the following:

The possibility of limiting / regulating the City Manager’s ability to alter or influence the alteration of contracts within a particular time window of the CM leaving.

A summary of the contract changes made and the financial impact that the changes caused.

A timeline of when it happened and who was involved including HR.

Are there any additional contracts that were changes, and what those changes were?

Thank you, Dr. Noe!

We have a chance to learn what has been going on.

Were the former city manager’s actions limited to the one deputy city manager or were other employment contracts altered?  Were contracts with vendors or suppliers changed at the last minute?

This is better

Brutus

 

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Last minute promotion?

July 10, 2014

We learned recently that the chief financial officer of the city has tendered her resignation.  She evidently has a job in the private sector.  Hopefully it does not include formulating budgets.

We did not learn where she is going.  There are not a lot of local possibilities in the private sector if she is not going to take a pay cut.  Then again she may not know what the private sector is or where it is for that matter.

Included in the news was mention of the fact that she is now a deputy city manager.  The Times reported that she was made a deputy city manager in September of 2013.  That is hard to believe given the facts that the city’s web site shows her job title as chief financial officer and also her well known behavior as a publicity hound.

The new city manager’s budget proposal for next year has an organization chart in it.  She is shown as the chief financial officer, not a deputy city manager.

What’s going on?

Is the Times right?  I don’t recall seeing a  public announcement from the city in September of 2013 indicating she was promoted to deputy city manager.  For that matter I don’t recall seeing an article in the Times to that effect either.

Is she a deputy city manager?  If so when did that happen?  Was it in the final days of the last city manager?

Is she eligible for a city pension at the ripe old age of 46?  Will she be eligible later?  Does she have a contract that designates her as deputy city manager?

One can’t help but wonder what her severance package will look like.

I suspect that an open records request will be made by someone.

We deserve better

Brutus

 

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Like sand through an hourglass

July 9, 2014

Those of us who are old enough to have lived through a change of command in an organization know that when the old boss leaves things come out in the open.

We are seeing signs of this over at the city with the situation relating to the firing of one of the deputy city managers.  The most probable scenario in my judgment is that the deputy city manager and the city manager got crossways and the city manager decided to fire her.  Yes, I have read the news reports where the former city manager has said that she “helped” the deputy city manager.  Maybe they were in cohoots all along.

Speculating further it looks like the deputy city manager threatened to squeal about past events and the city came up with a solution designed to shut her up.  Unfortunately that solution will cost us money through the city pension system for the rest of the former deputy city manager’s life.

Stories about how the city manager used fear to control what city employees said in public have been circulating for years.

Now the city manager is gone and I suspect that we will be hearing things from some of the employees that will make our hair curl.

The new city manager has little to gain from covering up the prior city manager’s past deeds.  In fact cleaning up the mess at the city and replacing the old team would help build confidence in the city manager form of government.  Proponents will be able to argue that having a city manager is a good thing–you just need a good city manager.

In fact one of our regular readers commented that the QOL that we need most is Quality of Leadership.

The story is going to get messier.  Expect to hear things about some council members and senior city staff that will make J. R. Ewing look like a monk.  Whether the outside financial influences will be able to stay out of the stories remains to be seen.

Don’t expect to see our district attorney get involved.  Short of a nuclear event over at the Times we probably will not see them help here either.

Our best hope is to find ways to shine light on what has happened.

We deserve better

Brutus

 

 

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