elpasospeak

Real economic development

January 21, 2014

There was a story circulating around El Paso last week that I was happy hear.

Paraphrasing:

A site selection group was in town to evaluate locations for a new operation that would employee more than 200 people.

The group went to dinner and was discussing the day’s activities in the restaurant.

They were interrupted by a man who approached their table. Again paraphrasing, he said:

Please excuse the interruption and the fact that I overheard part of your conversation. My name is Oscar Leeser and I am the mayor of El Paso and also a car salesman. I heard that you are thinking of moving a business to El Paso and I would like to know what I can do to help you do that.

The group was pleasantly surprised and impressed.

Drum roll

We deserve better and we got it this time.

Thank you Mayor Leeser!

Brutus

3 Comments | City government | Permalink
Posted by Brutus

No record

January 20, 2014

Our county hospital, currently called University Medical Center, seems to be rather secretive with it’s proceedings.

Looking on their web site at the November 12, 2013 minutes of the board of managers meeting, you can see the first item after the call to order was:

Item #5 was pulled from the agenda.

That was followed with “Consent Agenda”, ACTION, Motion to approve the consent agenda was made by …

What did they do?

Normally minutes include the language used on the agenda to introduce the item followed by any actions taken.

What was item 5? What items were on the consent agenda that they approved?

At this tax payer owned hospital the minutes do not tell us about the agenda item.

Thinking that I could find out by looking at the old agenda, I learned that they do not post the old agendas on their web site.

They should

Texas law requires their minutes to “state the subject of each deliberation”. Saying that the consent agenda was considered does not get us there.

The public has the right to know what happens at these meetings.

We deserve better

Brutus

3 Comments | County Government | Permalink
Posted by Brutus

If you don’t like the rules, change them, don’t ignore them

January 19, 2014

I would like to see our national government respect the tenth amendment:

The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people.

The tenth amendment was passed to clear up the issues relating to the so-called “general welfare”, “commerce”, and “necessary and proper ” clauses. If the power is not enumerated in the constitution the national government does not have it.

Does the constitution need to be changed? I believe so. It was written over 200 years ago and our environment has changed.

Bring forward the proposed amendments, but until then quit ignoring the constitution.

We deserve better

Brutus

4 Comments | Federal Government | Permalink
Posted by Brutus

Double your pleasure

January 18, 2014

These slides from the city web site show us the cost of selling bonds instead of saving up our money and paying cash:

So far we have sold two types of bonds to finance the ball park. We sold 30 year taxable bonds totaling $15,660,000 and 25 year tax exempt bonds totaling $45,125,000.

That comes to $60,785,000.

What will it cost us by the time we have paid them off? The number comes to $137,286,965.10.

That means that we will actually pay more than 2.25 times what we financed.

Why can’t our governments develop a pay as we go strategy? We would get at least twice as much for our money.

We deserve better

Brutus

4 Comments | Ball park, City government, County Government, El Paso Independent School District, Federal Government, State Government | Permalink
Posted by Brutus

Contractor friendly?

January 17, 2014

Item 3.3 on the city council’s January 14, 2014 consent agenda asks for an additional $178,000 for an affordable housing development project.

Council awarded the contract in November of 2012. They now think that they will be ready to bid the project in the first quarter of 2014. The original amount was $812,000.

Why is more money needed?

According to the backup material:

“Delays in City plan approval have resulted in additional time and costs for the Architect and Engineer.”

I guess city staff was busy with other matters.

We deserve better

Brutus

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

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