Extra pillars?

October 24, 2013

One of the stated purposes for our city’s multiple deals with the railroads these last few years was to help the trains go through El Paso faster.  The city paid a high price for land that it needed to build the new ball park.  Railroad crossings around town were closed as part of the bargain.

Freeway closed

This Friday, to use the words of a tweet from an El Paso Times reporter, a train “derailed off tracks”.  One of the cars struck a pillar supporting Interstate 10 as it crosses over Cotton Street.

The train was evidently travelling at less than 10 miles per hour when the incident occurred.  The Times published this picture:

Cottonbridge

According to the Times, “TxDOT officials said a structural engineer from Austin visited the site early Saturday morning to inspect the Cotton Bridge columns and that the closure of I-10 West was just a safety measure.”

Well I guess looking at the picture that is a safety measure, otherwise we wasted money building the pillar in the first place.

How much faster

So now the question is how much faster would the city like the trains to go?

We deserve better

Brutus


New Texas

October 23, 2013

Out Texas State Senator wrote a column for the El Paso Times this Sunday.  Taking from the column:

“Looking forward we should strengthen dual-language programs because literacy in multiple languages correlates with increased opportunity.  We should expand early childhood programs and college preparation courses.  As we know, education is the key to the New Texas.”

New Texas?

What is he talking about?  Another state (like New Hampshire)?  A changed state?  I wonder if the rest of Texas  is aware of his plans.

Speaking of plans, what are his plans?  How does he propose to have a “New Texas”?

Much of his guest column spoke of transparency in government.

Spell it out for us Senator, and don’t make us  learn a new language like “political speak” or “double talk”.

Where were you?

The Senator’s column spoke of bribery, mail fraud, and conspiracy in our school districts.  Why is it that he never took action as a prosecutor on these cases when he was our county attorney for 17 years?

The Texas Code of Criminal Procedure defines the duties of county attorneys as:

Art. 2.02. [26] [32] [33] DUTIES OF COUNTY ATTORNEYS. The county attorney shall attend the terms of court in his county below the grade of district court, and shall represent the State in all criminal cases under examination or prosecution in said county; and in the absence of the district attorney he shall represent the State alone and, when requested, shall aid the district attorney in the prosecution of any case in behalf of the State in the district court. He shall represent the State in cases he has prosecuted which are appealed.

Eternal vigilance is the cost of liberty

Cato


Playing with the numbers

October 22, 2013

This week’s El Paso city council agenda has several purchasing contracts on it.

I notice that city staff is not using the term “low bidder” much anymore.  Instead they use the term “best value” which can lead to all sorts of subjective interpretation.

An agenda item that caught my attention was number 8B on the agenda.  The city wants to purchase brake lines and services for their fleet.  You can see the backup material for the agenda here.

There were three bidders.  The city’s evaluation method resulted in a score of 38.41 (out of a potential 100) for the highest priced bidder, 68.38 for the bidder with the second lowest price, and 79.67 for the lowest price bidder.  The evaluation considered cost, reputation and quality, operational information, employee benefits and past performance.

Best value

City staff is not recommending the bidder with the highest evaluation score and that also had the lowest prices, but suggests giving the award to the 2nd place bidder.

If staff gave the firm the highest subjective rating and the firm had the lowest price, how can they not be the “best value”?

the city complains of not getting a price list.

Is this sloppy paperwork from city staff, or is this more favoritism?

Poor form

Then item 9B proposes the award of a $70,757.60 contract for construction services.  The low bidder offered a price of $44,408.83 but staff recommends that they be declared “non-responsive for not filling bid proposal form correctly”.

There is probably more to this story but the city’s stated reason seems problematic given the number of things Scrivener has made mistakes on in the city attorney’s office.

No bid

Item 9C shows more playing with words.  The backup material for council says “This is a low bid, unit price contract”.

Baloney!  The bid package told bidders “The project will be awarded to two bidders:  the lowest base bid and the 2nd lowest base bid”.

The bid package then went on to tell bidders “The estimated base expenditure for each contract is $100,000 per year for two years for a total amount of $200,000 per contract”.

The city evaluated two bids.  One was for $322,580 and the other was for $473,700.

City staff proposes giving each firm a contract.  I guess it will be up to staff to decide which firm gets what portion of the business.

On a positive note

City staff has placed other purchases on the agenda that actually would award the business to the lowest price, competent bidder.  That’s a start.

We deserve better.


Lazy, incompetent, or dishonest?

October 21, 2013

The airport has item 7 on the consent agenda at city council  this week.

The item proposes to award a sole-source contract for about $100,000 a year for three years to a company that will maintain software and equipment at the airport parking lot.

The backup material states “Mitchell Adding Machine DBA Mitchell Time and Parking is the sole source provider for Armano McGann software and revenue control equipment used to operate the Airport Parking Lot”.

State law allows sole-source purchases to be be done without bidding.

The truth

It took about 30 seconds to go to the Armano McGann web site and find this page  which shows dozens of dealers and distributors.

Amano

Does staff know the truth?  Are they deliberately facilitating a lie?

We deserve better

Brutus


Sequestration

October 20, 2013

How has sequestration affected the various federal agencies?

Federal News Radio provides the following information on it’s web site based on information available on August 22, 2013:

Agriculture Department.  “Officials at the Agriculture Department now say the agency does not expect furloughs of USDA employees this year”

Commerce Department.  “After initially planning for furloughs at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, Commerce announced Friday, May 31, that furloughs at the agency would be cancelled.”

Customs and Border Protection.  “The agency said it is now “reevaluating” the need for furloughs and the the planned elimination of administratively uncontrollable overtime, or AUO.”

Defense Department.  “The Department of Defense cut the number of furlough days for its civilian employees from 11 days to six. For most of those DoD employees, their final day took place the first week of August.”

Education Department.  “Education Department employees won’t deal with furloughs this year, according to a staff memo from Education Secretary Arne Duncan obtained by Education Week.”

Environmental Protection Agency.  “Over two phases of furloughs, EPA employees were forced to take a total of 47 hours off. ”

Equal Employment Opportunity Commission.  ” During Phase I of furloughs (April 22 to July 2) all 2,194 EEOC employees took five required furlough days. However, EEOC canceled round two of furloughs, which would have meant three more unpaid days off for feds at the agency.”

Federal Aviation Administration.  “Congress approved a bill April 26 that allows the agency to use funding originally slated for airport improvement to avert the furlough of air traffic controllers.”

FBI.  “On April 24, Attorney General Eric Holder announced that Justice would not need to furlough employees during the current fiscal year. He said the department was able to avoid furloughs thanks to money it received from recently enacted legislation combined with a hiring freeze and cuts to contracting and other costs.”

General Accounting Office.  “Under sequestration, GAO would be forced to forego its hiring plans for a third year in a row.

Government Printing Office.  “GPO plans to implement freezes in a number of areas: hiring, overtime, bonuses, training, travel and nonessential maintenance. Employee furloughs would be a last resort …”

Housing and Urban Development.  “On Aug. 9, the Department of Housing and Urban Developmentcanceled its final two furlough days on Aug. 16 and 30.”

Interior Department.  “After taking three furlough days, the National Park Service announced May 24 that it was canceling the remaining furlough days for U.S. Park Police employees.”

Justice Department.  ” On April 24, Attorney General Eric Holder announced that Justice would not need to furlough employees during the current fiscal year. ”

NASA.  “NASA does not plan to resort furloughs in the short term, a NASA spokesman told Federal News Radio. To comply with the budget cuts, NASA has reduced travel and conference attendance and has reviewed spending on education and public-outreach activities.”

You get the idea.

Go to the website to see other government agencies.

We deserve better

Brutus