The chief of staff for the mayor was kind enough to respond to my question.
She attached this presentation (specialelection237154) to the city council by the city attorney. She also directed me to the video of the council meeting.
I appreciate her response but still do not see what allows the city to schedule the special election more than 120 days from the city representative’s announcement.
We deserve better
Brutus
3 Comments | 
City government, State Government | 
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Posted by Brutus
I submitted this question to the mayor on Wednesday, December 11 using the city’s mechanism on their web site.
Would you please have someone point me to the law that allows the special election to be held as late as July?
The Texas Constitution at Article 11, section 11b seems to require that the election be held within 120 days of when the representative made his announcement.
Thank you.
As of now I have not heard from anyone.
I’ll share their response with the readers if I get one.
We deserve better
Brutus
4 Comments | City government | Permalink
Posted by Brutus
The other day, a letter to the editor opined about the closing of the VNA. In the early 1970’s, the VNA was started by the hard work of Bette Gladstone. The organization had its birth with one doctor, one nurse, one aide, one physical therapist and one nun. The nurse was Carolyn Brown RN, the nun was Sister Louise, the PT was Pierre LaMatre. The place was the basement of Hotel Dieu. Next to the Boiler Room. The board was an unruly group of 20 who wanted answers. The Physician who was the Medical director also served a Chairman of the Board.
Luck would have it after one year, a patient of the Physician and Board Chairman died and left their house on Virginia Street to the VNA. A new home. Strangely enough, all the patient referred were those of the Directors and Dr.Gladstone. Later the other docs in town started to refer. Business flourished. From the beginning we were non profit organization Not “no Profit”. Over tbe years 30 new competitors entered the market.
The original Medical director after many years was asked to serve on the Medical advisory board. What a change. Over the years we continued to be “not for profit” and “no profit”. Hard to work a business that the staff feels its a charitable organization.
Let’s bring in a a man who knows how to save a losers. Wardy? He found a sick business whose competition are Cherry-picking clients leaving the remainder for the “not for profit” or “no profit”. The inevitable occurred. Collapse.
Watching the evolution of the VNA over the years, the end was a given. Unless subsidized, these non-profits can’t compete, Wardy or not.
I watched this happen since I was there, as the First Medical Director, Chairman of the Board in the the beginning and on the Advisory Board at the end.
5 Comments | Uncategorized | Permalink
Posted by M.T. Cicero
Today’s city council agenda has an item on it that gives a local business the use of an 86 foot long by 16 foot wide (1,376 square feet) section of the road in front of 303 North Oregon.
The property will be used to facilitate valet parking between the hours of 11 AM one day and 2 AM the next day.
The city will be paid $1,000 per year.
As a comparison, Sprint (the communications company) signed an agreement with the city allowing Sprint to bury 1,428 linear feet of fiber optic cable under city roads. The surface streets remained open to traffic.
The fee? $3,500 per year.
We deserve better
Brutus
7 Comments | City government | Permalink
Posted by Brutus
The December 17, 2013 city council agenda has an item on it to approve a 614 thousand dollar contract for planning for what is now known as “Multipurpose Cultural & Performing Arts Facility, Cultural Center, and Children’s Museum”.
Sit back and watch told us how the city wants to combine the three separate projects into one project. Tuesday’s agenda item lets us know that the Hispanic Cultural Center project is now a plain old Cultural Center.
The backup material says:
“This contract provides for hiring an urban planning firm to facilitate a community-wide, bilingual dialogue and gather input on these projects. The firm will engage the community in an extensive public input process, develop business plans for the facilities, identify programming options, evaluate appropriate venue sizes and amenities, evaluate and recommend siting options that provide connectivity and serve as a catalyst for revitalization and economic growth in the community.”
An out of town firm is being hired. They will spend about half of their contract with “sub consultants” here in El Paso.
The term “extensive public input process” means that someone will spend 131 hours conducting public forums, workshops, presentations and interviews. There will be a maximum of four meetings to facilitate “extensive public input”. The complete engagement will consume 1183 hours.
I think this means they can pick any place they want as long as it is part of the downtown complex.
I doubt that this contemplates revitalizing northeast El Paso and I suspect that most of this blog’s readers would interpret this to mean downtown.
It seems that someone anticipates that there may be some trouble with the final report. The consultant’s proposal includes this language:
“Crisis management is not included in this scope of services and if required will be an additional service”.
We deserve better
Brutus
9 Comments | Ball park, City government | Permalink
Posted by Brutus
elpasospeak 
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