Something getting better

March 7, 2014

The Times reported yesterday  that the Ysleta Independent School District board has voted to:

“… provide all back up materials for board meetings available to the public on the district’s website.”

Hopefully this material will be posted along with the board agenda so that members of the public can be better informed before board meetings.

Both this blog and the Times have made this request.  Thankfully the board listened.

The El Paso Community College and the county hospital boards do not post the backup material.  I hope that others will join in asking them to do so.

The city has done a pretty good job of posting most of the material.  Once in a while we see agenda items with missing, skimpy, or misleading material.  Unfortunately the city has chosen to remove the ability to electronically search city council agendas before 2014.  We sent a copy of a blog article about this to the mayor’s email address but have not gotten them to change this policy.

A reader of this blog sent in this comment that has been helpful:

woodyco says:
February 19, 2014 at 12:45 PM  (Edit)

You can always use the city’s google search to look em up

just go to the city site, go to the google search

add the following:
+”AGENDA FOR REGULAR COUNCIL MEETING”
then a search term afterwards
Or you can use +”Special City Council Meeting”

if you don’t want the pdf’s, just add -pdf.

example:
+”AGENDA FOR REGULAR COUNCIL MEETING” alcohol -.pdf

He’s an example of their agenda’s that is “not searchable”

http://imgur.com/AAnfRiK

Let’s do what we can to get our local government agencies to be more transparent.

We deserve better

Brutus

3 Comments | City government, County Government, El Paso Independent School District | Permalink
Posted by Brutus

They gored the wrong ox

March 6, 2014

The El Paso Times wrote a good apology/retraction/clarification the other day.  You can read it here.

As part of a regular series of articles last week they published a biblical verse that was offensive to many.

In the retraction they wrote:

The verse was presented without the context or comment needed for better understanding.

They did the same thing here that they frequently do when they simply act as a media outlet and publish whatever press release that their allies want as though the press release was a news article written by a real reporter.

Will we ever see the Times apologizing to us for the way they publish articles without writing about the multiple sides of an issue?

Muckraker

1 Comment | El Paso Times | Permalink
Posted by Muckraker

New and de-proved

March 5, 2014

It’s hard to tell the same lie twice.

Item 9.1 on the regular city council agenda of February 25, 2014 is an example.

Our city’s chief financial officer made a presentation supporting the expenditure of $45 million to build a rental car parking facility at the airport.  The facility is to be funded by a customer facility charge of $3.50 per day on each customer renting a motor vehicle from an airport rental company.  They started collecting this charge in February of 2012.

Remember that the chief financial officer has been projecting a 3% increase in hotel occupancy taxes.  More shortfalls explained that the actual numbers are down by 3.1% this year, leaving a shortfall of 6.1%.

New and de-proved

The airport presentation projects a 1% increase in vehicle rentals each year.

Look at column H in the chart from her presentation:

airportcfc

Remember that many of the people that rent motel rooms arrive in rented cars.  Look for this to affect the financing of the ball park.

We deserve better

Brutus

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

Save the EPISD central office

March 4, 2014

The recent disclosure of a mistakenly sent email from an EPISD employee to, of all things, a news outlet has pointed out that the district is now actively planning the replacement of it’s central office.

Their current central office is on land leased from the city.  The city has notified the school district that the lease will not be renewed past 2019.

Prior postings indicated that EPISD staff was aware of the lease issue but that they were still exploring options with the city.

Why not?

The city does not have to kick the school district out.  We should all ask our mayor and city representatives to extend the land lease and save the tax payers the expense of building a new complex.  You may use this link to contact them.

District officials are telling us that a new building will cost us about $40 million.  I suspect that the number could be made smaller if the central office was more efficient.  If the city’s chief financial officer came up with the number it will probably cost two or three times more than the estimate.

Before any of my readers write in telling me that there are hard working and effective workers at the central office, let me first say that I agree.  We are lucky to have the services of many of those people.  On the other hand we have a significant portion of the central office staff that do not measure up.  Getting rid of them would reduce costs and improve performance.

We deserve better

Brutus

1 Comment | City government, El Paso Independent School District | Permalink
Posted by Brutus

Wireless and truth less

March 3, 2014

Consent agenda item 4.2 on the March 4, 2014 city council agenda is about network wiring for the new ball park.

The posting indicates  “This is a Venue Project purchase exempt from the competitive bidding laws”.  Nice, huh?

The backup material indicates that  the project was bid out,  however, through the construction manager at risk process.  Three bids were received.  What is unusual here is that the bid tabulation sheet showing who bid what is not shown.  Nice, huh?

Some may feel that the omission is not important.  It is to me if city staff is not telling the truth.

The backup material for item 4.4 on the same agenda recommends spending over $300,000 with the same company for  a wireless access system for the ball park.  City staff wrote that the project was also bid through the construction manager at risk process.

Not true

I follow much of the city’s bidding.  This project was not bid through the construction manager at risk process.  Further, I don’t see where the city issued a formal bid request.

We deserve better

Brutus

7 Comments | Ball park, City government, Purchasing | Permalink
Posted by Brutus

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