The Tuesday, June 24, 2014 city council agenda starts with MAYOR’S PROCLAMATIONS as you can see below:
I suspect that the proclamation is meant to honor the independence of our country, not a group of independents.
If however the city is honoring those who consider themselves politically independent, I applaud the mayor.
Otherwise maybe we should give Scrivener an award for diligence.
We deserve better
Brutus
2 Comments | 
City government | 
Permalink
Posted by Brutus
The Tuesday June 17, 2014 city council agenda contemplates the issuance of $73 million more in certificates of obligation under item 6.1 on the regular agenda.
The item is attributed to our chief financial officer, the one that earlier in the meeting has an item to gloat about how transparent the city’s financial department has been.
From the backup material we learn that the certificates of obligation are for the city “to fund and reimburse itself for ongoing capital projects”.
Evidently the city has been using operating money to pay for “capital” projects.
Our award winning financial department has not chosen to tell us how much money they have already spent and on what. Yes they do provide a list of projects (like Country Club Road Construction) but they do not tell us which ones they have already spent money on. Some say that this item is on the agenda to pay for the work that they did to replace city hall.
Why is that important? Well evidently we already had enough money to pay for the projects. Why should we go into debt now and pay even more?
They might respond that they “borrowed” the money from an operating fund (like police or fire or parks) and now they feel guilty and want to give the money back.
They might respond that they really just want to raise cash for some other kind of spending that they think we need, whether we agree or not.
Either way, a transparent document would have told us what we have already paid for and what remains.
We deserve better
Brutus
4 Comments | City government | Permalink
Posted by Brutus
The 2014 Children at Risk school rankings for Texas are out.
Their methodology is open to criticism, but at least it is consistent throughout the state. You can read it here.
They ranked 2063 middle schools with 2063 being the lowest performer and 1 being the highest according to their system. A rank below 1032 (1-1031) places a middle school in the top half of the state.
Their results for our El Paso county schools are:
2014-ElPasoTexas-Middle-School-Rankings (1)
Congratulations to those involved with the schools that ranked well.
As for the others,
We deserve better
Brutus
1 Comment | Uncategorized | Permalink
Posted by Brutus
The 2014 Children at Risk school rankings for Texas are out.
Their methodology is open to criticism, but at least it is consistent throughout the state. You can read it here.
They ranked 1193 high schools with 1193 being the lowest performer and 1 being the highest according to their system. A rank below 597 (1-596) places a high school in the top half of the state.
Their results for our El Paso county schools are:
Congratulations to those involved with our “A”, “B”, and “C” schools.
As for the rest,
We deserve better
Brutus
8 Comments | El Paso Independent School District | Permalink
Posted by Brutus
Another parliamentary trick that we see being used locally is strategic absence.
We are seeing more and more instances where members of city council miss meetings where their votes would be telling.
We deserve better
Brutus
1 Comment | City government | Permalink
Posted by Brutus
elpasospeak 
You must be logged in to post a comment.