News flash

May 15, 2014

The El Paso city council agenda for May 20, 2014 is out.

Item 1 on the regular agenda proposes the signing of a contract with a new city manager.  Some details are:

  • New manager is Tomas Gonzalez
  • Five year contract
  • If terminated without “good cause” he gets one year of salary
  • $238,959.82 per year
  • Eligible for 5% increase if he “exceeds standards”
  • $500 a month for automobile expenses.  He pays for all of the car’s expenses.
  • $2,500 per month for six months for temporary housing allowance

Seems pretty reasonable to me.

Interim manager

Item 2 on the regular agenda would make Sean McGlynn interim city manager from May 21, 2014 to June 23, 2014, the day Mr. Gonzalez assumes his duties.

The queen is dead

Long live the king.

Brutus

21 Comments | City government | Permalink
Posted by Brutus

Texas waking up to problems with buy boards

May 15, 2014

Our local governments (particularly the city) have unfortunately been buying from buy boards instead of using competitive bidding.

Many of the buy board evaluations are little more than “beauty contests”.  Competitive pricing is frequently a minor component in the evaluation criterion if at all.  Some contracts are awarded because a seller offers X% discount off a manufacturer’s list price.  The fact that another manufacturer may have a lower list price is not part of the consideration.

While buying through a buy board allows an institution to “pick their favorite vendor”, the purchase seldom produces the best economic result.

Market conditions change and issuing a real bid for a product or a request for proposals for a service often can provide better economic and performance results than buying from a buy board.

The problem with bidding is that local governments have to do their jobs and that is too often an inconvenience to them.

Here in El Paso much of the remodeling of the various city hall buildings was done through buy board purchases and was not bid.  Schools in Houston benefited to the tune of 4% of the money that we spent since that was the fee that the buy board charged the vendor for the privilege of being listed on the board.  This happened because the city did not want to take the time to develop specifications and take the projects out to bid.  They were in a hurry to get out of the old city hall.

Turning around?

Now it seems that the Texas legislature is becoming aware of some of the problems with buy boards.  This  article talks about some of them, including the fact that vendors were allowed to write their own bid specifications.

For those readers that are new to this blog you can enter “buy board” in the search window on the right side of this page to see some of the articles that have been written about in the past.

They tell a story of waste, mismanagement, favoritism, and just plain unfairness.

We deserve better

Brutus

 

2 Comments | City government, County Government, Purchasing, State Government | Permalink
Posted by Brutus

Arguing against the citizens

May 14, 2014

According to the El Paso Times our city council has met and decided to offer the job of city manager to the fellow from Irving.

It seems like he will fit right in over there since, as the Times has written,  he may have had “ethical lapses”.

The Times does a great job of pointing out that city council met in executive session to discuss the candidates.  They then came back into regular session and  adjourned without action.

At a press conference later in the day the city announced that it had directed their search firm to negotiate with the candidate.

Council cannot vote in executive session.  Evidently they did.

Enabler

Our city attorney has once again abandoned her responsibility to the citizens and is condoning what council has done.  The Times wrote:

City Attorney Sylvia Borunda Firth argued that negotiations can begin behind closed doors as part of the deliberation process and are not considered a final action. If negotiations are successful in this case, she said, the proposed contract will be up for council vote. The public vote to accept or reject the agreement would be the final action, she said.

High road

Our city attorney seems to consider the citizens to be her opponent.  She watches council violate their own rules as well as state rules regularly without stepping in.  Her trivializing of mistakes as “Scrivener” errors seems to me to be intellectually dishonest.

As far as open records are concerned, we all know her record.

Our elected officials can get away with many types of legal violations as long as they believe that their attorney has said that what they are doing is legal even if it is not.

I hope that when we change city attorneys we will get one who helps council to do the right thing.

We deserve better

Brutus

 

 

7 Comments | City government, Open Government, State Government | Permalink
Posted by Brutus

Some are more equal than others

May 13, 2014

Reality Checker brought up a good point about EPISD offering a $2,000 incentive to teachers who announce their retirement early.  He/she compared the incentive to the $1,500 car allowance that our not qualified superintendent gets paid every month.

Are we that ugly? was an earlier post that explained what the superintendent is getting paid while he shows up late to meetings.  I don’t think he is late because of his studying to get his superintendent’s certificate.  The word I get is that he has fallen behind on those milestones too.

Comparing the allowances that he gets to the $2,000 incentive per teacher we can see:

  • $1,500 per month for a car allowance
  • $1,200 per month for home office costs
  • $2,500 per month for incidental benefits, whatever those are.
  • $35,000 for moving expenses
  • $3,500 per month for housing while he is trying to find a suitable house
  • $1,666 per month that the district pays into a special annuity for his retirement–it looks like this is in addition to his normal retirement.
  • Costs associated with getting certified as a superintendent if he ever gets around to it.
  • Priceless–the district will pay for his spouse to travel with him when he is out of town on district business.

Seventy eight retirees

The fixed allowances add up to over $13,000 dollars per month which works out annually to what they are willing to pay seventy eight souls to announce their retirement.  These figures do not include anything for his sorely needed education or for his wife to travel with him.

His contract also requires the district to pay for his personal protection.

We deserve better

Brutus

 

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

Second round of rail crossing closures

May 12, 2014

They’re back.

Item 15.1 on the regular agenda of the May 13, 2014 city council meeting proposes the closing of yet another rail crossing in the five points area.  This time they are after Maple street.

The April 23, 2013 city council meeting had a long and contentious discussion about the closing of several other crossings.  The closures were made necessary in order for the ball park to be built.  Our city administrators failed to tell us that we did not own all of the land under our old city hall.  The railroad extracted the street closures as part of the deal to sell the city the sliver of land.

Train wreck explained parts of the issue.

Public outreach

At the 2013 meeting several people including the then superintendent of schools for the Ysleta district complained that they had not been informed about the closings.  The public asked for more time.

Some city council members as well as members of city staff maintained the position that the city had done a remarkable job of reaching out to the public.  Another city council member pointed out the truth.  The city had conducted meetings about “quiet zones” for the railroad.  Quiet zones can be created without closing rail crossings.  The city failed to tell the members of the public that the kind of quiet zone they were talking about would close streets.

Once the die was cast some city council members repeatedly asked city staff for assurances that there would be plenty of public notice if further closings were going to be contemplated.  City staff made the appropriate promises and assurances.

Surprise, surprise!

Just one year later the city and the railroad are back at the table.  They want to close Maple street.  Have the public safety agencies, the schools, the citizens, the property owners been warned?  I have not heard a word.

A change in management at the city may be the only way that we can change their secretive method of operation.  City staff frequently lies to the citizens and city council.  People need to go.  We do not need a continuation of the current administration.

We deserve better

Brutus

6 Comments | Ball park, City government | Permalink
Posted by Brutus

« Previous Entries
Next Entries »