Unnecessary roughness

June 8, 2014

Lost in the controversy over whether city council violated the Texas open meetings law when they held an emergency meeting to discuss the Lincoln Center situation is what else the city might have done instead of suing Texas.

Unfortunately our city resorts to lawsuits when issues could be handled without going to court.  To add insult to taxpayer injury they typically use out of town law firms.

Phone call

In this case a simple phone call might have sufficed.  The mayor (or the acting city manager) could have called the retired general in charge of TxDOT and explained our situation.  We could have asked TxDOT to stand down for 30 or 60 days while the city figured out if they would buy the building.

TxDOT did stand down after they were served with the restraining order.

Did we have to declare war before trying to come to a peaceful resolution?

We deserve better

Brutus

1 Comment | City government, State Government | Permalink
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Avoiding input from the community

June 7, 2014

As some would expect, the EPISD board is scheduling critical meetings during school days.

The net effect?  Teachers and private citizens  have a very difficult time attending.

These parliamentary tricks are discouraging.

We deserve better

Brutus

2 Comments | El Paso Independent School District | Permalink
Posted by Brutus

Pirates as well as hypocrites?

June 6, 2014

Thanks go to the folks over at Mock El Paso Times for pointing out the situation with yet another city lawsuit.

According to this article in El Diario two software vendors have taken the highly unusual step of suing a municipal government in federal court.  The city being sued?  El Paso.  The department?  Financial Services, the one headed by our chief financial officer.

Alleged piracy

From what I can tell from the google translation of the El Diario article the firms are claiming piracy and violation of trade secrets.

Not entered into lightly

Companies rarely sue their clients.  If nothing else it can be harmful to their reputation.  Suing a city is even more rare given that most cities try to deal honestly with people when they are forced to.

Federal litigation is expensive and risky.  Going to the courthouse (especially where the city has the advantage of being the representative of the citizens) is a last resort.  These guys must really be irritated.

Hire El Paso First

The city’s web site tells us to “Hire El Paso First”.

What have they done here?  They hired a Dallas based firm to represent us.  I guess the El Paso law firms know where they stand.

We deserve better

Brutus

 

 

4 Comments | City government | Permalink
Posted by Brutus

Not thinking

June 5, 2014

Our El Paso Times published this article June 1, 2014.  The Times explained in the article that they had received “handwritten notes from several city representatives and others that were taken during the May 8 interviews with the four finalists, as well as during the City Council executive session that followed.

Knuckleheads

Executive session discussions are supposed to be private.  Notes taken by participants during executive session are subject to disclosure under our open records law.  Not destroying personal notes before leaving the meeting makes them subject to public disclosure.

I suppose that if I wanted to leak what had happened in the meeting then keeping written notes would be a good technique to use.

The Times article was accompanied by this graphic:

citymanagerexecutivesession

You should be able to click on the graphic to enlarge it.

Doodle

The doodling at the bottom of the page is illuminating.  It appears that the city representative was scribbling her initials like some daydreaming teenager.

This brings up the possibility that we may see a scientific phenomenon soon–a person who disappears through total self-absorption.

We deserve better

Brutus

 

5 Comments | City government, El Paso Times | Permalink
Posted by Brutus

If wishes were horses …

June 4, 2014

I got a chuckle the other day when speaking with someone about the prospects for our Lincoln Center.

In general he was commenting about the number of people who think that something should be saved, but with someone else’s money.

Paraphrasing what he said:

I think we should have saved the Asarco stack, built a pool for the alligators at the base, put the star at the top, and run the street cars up and down the side of the stack.  Then we could move the Lincoln Center to the location and use it as a gift shop.

We deserve better

Brutus

 

9 Comments | Uncategorized | Permalink
Posted by Brutus

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