Unsettling

August 19, 2013

This week’s city council agenda has two items on it that continue the saga.

What’s to settle?

The lawsuit against the Texas Attorney General will be discussed in executive session.  Word is that the parties are in settlement discussions.

I don’t see what there is to settle.  The law says the documents must be turned over.  The Texas Attorney General says the documents must be turned over.  The state legislature passed a new law this year furthering the requirement that the documents must be turned over.

The original request was made September 5, 2012, almost one year ago.  The law requires them to turn the documents over within ten days of the request.

The Texas Local Government Records Act should be looked at here also but evidently our local prosecutor feels that he should spend his time prosecuting  private citizens and leave other government officials alone.  I guess that might be like honor among thieves.

Change it later

The ordinance I wrote about in Another faulty ordinance is on the agenda.  They still have not fixed the language and we still have not seen the proposed budget resolution that it is based on.

Oh well, they will change  it later.  Illegally in my opinion.  Read Cover up if you are interested in how.

We deserve better

Brutus

1 Comment | City government, Open Government, State Government | Permalink
Posted by Brutus

Not acting like a sheep

August 18, 2013

One of the visitors to the round table the other day told us how he took some extra time and solved a problem.

It seems that a person from his dentist’s office called to cancel his appointment.  The next time the dentist could see this person was six weeks out.

Our patient explained that since the appointment was cancelled for the convenience of the office, it would be appropriate to have an appointment scheduled earlier.  The clerk refused.

The patient asked that the dentist be put on the phone.  That actually happened.  When the dentist learned what the situation was a more timely appointment was made.

There was a retired physician at the table.  He remarked that he used to call his office posing as a patient.  Much to his surprise he found out that he did not see patients after 3PM on Wednesdays.  He also learned that according to his office he would be out of town on days where he knew he would be in town.

The point here is that sometimes staff manipulates the bosses even in private business, just like what happens at the city.

In the case of a private business a timely call to the boss might straighten out an unacceptable situation.  I can’t make any promises with our local governments.

Eternal vigilance is the cost of liberty.

Cato

1 Comment | City government, County Government, El Paso Independent School District | Permalink
Posted by Cato

Public hearing but not seeing

August 18, 2013

Item 11A on this week’s city council agenda proposes a public hearing and discussion and action to approve the city manager’s proposed budget resolution for 2014.

The backup material does not include the budget resolution.

How can the purposes of a public hearing be fulfilled if the document to be considered is not made available to the public?

I also note that the form used to submit the item for the agenda is not signed.  Neither is the form used to submit the ratification of the property tax increase, nor the form associated with the tax increase ordinance.

Bad sign

Have things gotten so bad down at city hall that the department heads will not sign documents?  Is this a way for them to claim that they were not involved?

We deserve better

Brutus.

Leave a Comment » | City government, Open Government | Permalink
Posted by Brutus

Don’t call me

August 17, 2013

If you take a look at the city web site you can eventually find a phone number for city council and city management staff.

There are also links that take you to pages that let you send your anonymous comments.  This blog has a “Contact the city” button at the top of the page that will give you a list of links.

You might find it interesting that the most junior member of the team, the chief financial officer, does not provide a phone number.  Evidently she does not want to talk to us citizens.

This is the same chief financial officer who has made those horrible financial presentations about the ball park and the move of city hall in front of city council.  She said that the move of city hall would cost $33 million.  We are now over $70 million just using numbers that the city has made public.  When this open records mess is resolved we will undoubtedly see the number rise.  Remember the $50 million dollar ball park.  The public number is now over $62 million.  I plan to post an article soon that will show how even that number is in fact low.  Then as the project progresses we will learn about the money that the city is spending from other funds to build things around the ball park.

Maybe this makes clear why she does not list a phone number.

We deserve better

Brutus

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

What’s going on?

August 16, 2013

We are now well into 3 months of the “new” City Council and Mayor. All we get, week after week are delays in the release of the Emails and Rep correspondence the rightly belongs to us and by law should have been released months…. years ago. The City attorney whose salary we pay comes up with new harebrained Ideas to delay their release in the meantime, the outside counsel she hired is charging up by the minute to delay the material that should be released by law and belongs to us. Am I getting this right?

Are she and the council hiding something? They play around with the tellin us that they want to clarify the law with ordinances without penalties….on and on. Give me a break.

If only we had a real newspaper. Where is the Buffalo News? The only place you can get information about their shenanigans is the blogs, this and the ones listed above (more blogs). Not only do they give citizens information but they  publish the critiques and and discuss sources. Please take a look and learn.  Find out what’s going on (in the city)

Stop the foolishness and release the material. If there is nothing to hide, let’s see it. After which they can play there little game of creating an ordinance with no teeth which in truth cannot be more exclusive than Texas State law. With the way they are fighting the “foia”, they may have to hire their own attorneys.

We need a real newspaper!

7 Comments | Uncategorized | Permalink
Posted by M.T. Cicero

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