elpasospeak

Designer schools

September 12, 2013

The August 20, 2013 board meeting of the El Paso Independent School District (EPISD) contemplated hiring an archetict for a new elementary school. The minutes have not been published yet but I assume the contract was approved.

The school is to have 36 classrooms, will be about 85,000 square feet and is planned to cost about $12.4 million dollars. The school is being called E-17 pending the naming process.

The architect is to design the school and (I presume) oversee the construction. The fee will be $835,974.

Why?

The school district has over 50 elementary schools in operation now. Why does this new school have to have a unique design?

We have built new elementary schools recently. Why can’t we come up with a design every 10 years or so (depending on how often requirements and standards change) and use that design for each new school?

We would probably not save the full fee. The construction management portion typically costs about 25% from what I have been able to find out.

Funding

If you are curious about where the money is going to come from, the documents indicate that the money will come out of the 2007 bond election.

Unfortunately we will probably finance the architectural fees thus doubling or tripling the cost to us.

We have trouble enough getting money to the classrooms where it belongs as it is.

We deserve better

Brutus

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

Pacific Coast League sites

September 11, 2013

Let’s revisit the issue of where the ball park is being built.

We have been told that the Pacific Coast League (PCL) insisted that the ball park be downtown. I personally doubt the truth of that.

I don’t recall Mountainstar or any of it’s principals saying that it must be downtown. If someone has evidence to the contrary I would like to see it.

We know that certain city officials insisted that downtown was the only place the ball park could be built.

Inconvenient fact

It appears that seven PCL stadiums have been built in the 21st century. Looking at the ones opened in the last ten years we have:

Werner Park opened in 2011 and is less than three miles west of Papillion Nebraska. Unless Nebraska has their downtowns in corn fields the PCL obviously did not require this park to be downtown. It seats about 9,000 and cost $36 million. I can’t find anything about them tearing down anything to build the park or spending 17 million dollars because they mismanaged the financing.

Aces Ballpark opened in 2009 and is in downtown Reno. It cost $50 million and seats 9,100.

Isotopes Park is in Albuquerque and opened in 2003. The citizens got to vote. Their choice was to build a brand new park downtown or rebuild an old stadium. They chose to rebuild the old stadium for $25 million. Once again the PCL did not insist that the facility be downtown. Their seating capacity is about 13,000.

Our 50 million dollar ball park now will cost at least $61 million. The park needs to be financed. It could have been financed for $17 million less if our city financial people had done better. That puts us at $78 million and counting.

Let’s see–$36 million for Werner, $50 million for Aces, $25 million for Isotopes, and at least $78 million for our mismanaged mess.

We deserve better

Brutus

12 Comments | City government | Permalink
Posted by Brutus

Dark age

September 10, 2013

Where are we on the ballpark?

Has anyone seen the final designs? Are the construction bids in yet?

What are we getting and how much will be be paying for it?

Isn’t council supposed to be getting regular status reports? The minutes of the May 28, 2013 show council passing a resolution that required council to be given bi-monthly (every other) updates.

Motion duly made by Representative Niland, seconded by Representative Byrd, that the Ordinance be ADOPTED, authorizing the debt only for the amount originally authorized with bi-monthly updates to the Mayor and Council until Ball Park completion plus real time expenditure report and project management status from Jordan/Hunt. Whereupon the Mayor ordered that a vote be taken on the passage and adoption of the Ordinance which when so done resulted as follows…

Are they getting the updates and just not showing us?

These are simple questions that we should not even have to ask.

We deserve better

Brutus

3 Comments | Ball park, Uncategorized | Permalink
Posted by Brutus

Quiet progress

September 9, 2013

Item 18 on next Tuesday’s city council agenda is a good one.

Train wreck dealt with the real estate issues the city had with tearing down city hall and building the ball park. The fact is that the city committed to the actions without owning all of the land that city hall sat on. The city had to make some deals with the railroad.

The railroad gave the city an option to buy a parking lot next to the new city hall on the condition that the city agree to close eight more railroad crossings. City council approved the deal. The citizens be damned. Well maybe not dammed but dammed, as in blocked from flowing through.

Now the city has decided that in light of the fact that the citizens don’t want the closures and that the closures would cause public safety and traffic problems maybe exercising the option would not be a good idea.

It might also be that we have new members on city council who remember the 74% drubbing that the voters administered in the last election.

The city will be notifying the railroad that it will not exercise it’s option. Why now? It looks to me like someone is cleaning up the messes.

We might also be seeing the quiet hand of our new mayor here. I hope so.

We deserve better

Brutus

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Posted by Brutus

Oh! Now you want us to do it the right way

September 8, 2013

Item 10A on the city council agenda this coming Tuesday asks for permission to buy $250,000 worth of medical supplies for the fire department through a buy board. The backup material indicates the supplies will be adequate for one year and that the vendor, Moore Medical “has a long history of conducting business with the city of El Paso”. That probably is code for we really like doing business with these guys and don’t want to use someone else.

This is another buy board contract where the city is probably not getting the best price it can.

Who says?

The fire department does. The backup material states:

“A solicitation is being prepared by purchasing to advertise to qualified vendors. The solicitation, and subsequent award will allow the EPFD the ability to maintain an estimated (3) year continuity of medical supplies”.

This looks like:

The fire department is buying through a buy board because someone messed up and they do not have time to issue a proper bid before they run out of supplies or they use the buy board so they can pick their favorite vendor.

They want to buy through a buy board even though they plan to issue a bid later.

Why issue a bid later? Someone thinks it is the right thing to do. Our new mayor might actually be right in the middle of this. We will probably get better prices.

Better policy

Direct bidding is almost always a better financial option than buying through a buy board. Yes the purchasing department will have to do more work and the departments will have to work harder to play favorites.

Buying through buy boards was the norm during the past administration. The city can and should purchase through the buy boards if after taking competitive bids the buy board is a better option.

We deserve better

Brutus

3 Comments | City government, Purchasing | Permalink
Posted by Brutus

elpasospeak

Designer schools