Free bridge

July 25, 2013

This article in El Diario de El Paso  tells us that the city is considering transferring the administration of our international bridges to the Camino Real Regional Mobility Authority.

The article indicates that the city manager is going to recommend this change to city council.

Quoting the article:

“RMAs have the authority to study, evaluate, design, finance, acquire, construct, maintain and repair any transportation project,” …

This includes roads, highways, airports, border safety inspection stations, toll booths, public transport, initiatives to improve the quality of air, pedestrian and bicycle facilities and international bridges.

Bridge revenue is about $17 million per year.  In 2012 $10.5 million of that was transferred to the general fund.  In other words it was pure profit. City staff tells us that the profit number will grow to $11.2 million this year.

What now?

Will we see the profit disappear and our taxes go up  if the transfer occurs?  Is this a plan to pump more money into the downtown scheme?  I don’t know.

Maybe the money situation will not change and this is a prudent management decision.  Then again I have a bridge that you might like to buy.

We deserve better

Brutus

 

6 Comments | City government | Permalink
Posted by Brutus

Opaque city

July 24, 2013

The Center for Public Integrity published an article recently about public information requests in the state of Texas. You can read it here.

According to the article, in 2011 the city of El Paso government attempted to deny public information requests by appealing to the attorney general of Texas 63% of the time.

63%

That is horrible. The city sought permission to deny 63% of the requests made. Some of the appeals were appropriate, but we know first-hand how the city uses the process to hold up disclosure. The article did not provide numbers about how many times the attorney general agreed with El Paso.

My suspicion is that the city lost the majority of those cases. Texas makes most government documents available to the public. The exceptions relate primarily to personal privacy, not government inconvenience.

The city uses the tactic of appealing to the attorney general regularly. It knows that it will lose, but it is an effective way to stall — generally for about 90 days.

74%

That is the number that I hope that city staff and city council keep in their collective minds as time advances.

We deserve better

Brutus

2 Comments | City government, Open Government | Permalink
Posted by Brutus

Fighting a losing battle

July 23, 2013

The old city council sued the attorney general of Texas in an effort to avoid disclosing certain communications between city representatives, and between city representatives and city staff, that were sent or received on an individual’s personal electronic device.

The attorney general has ruled that those communications are subject to disclosure if they pertain to city business.

Our new city council has instructed the city attorney to bring the lawsuit  to closure.  They fell just short of telling the city attorney to drop the lawsuit.  It is certainly reasonable to believe that the litigation will be settled shortly and that the city will stop objecting to the release of the communications.

That leaves a question about what the former city council members will be compelled to do.  It is possible that one or more former city representatives will refuse to turn over the documents.

Regardless of who owns the communication device, Texas law says that elected officials are the official custodians of records in their offices. Section 201.003(2) of the Local Government Records Act defines “custodian” as the appointed or elected public officer who … is in charge of the office that creates or receives local government records.”  The city representative operates an office — the office of city representative.

The Texas Public Information Act then makes the chief administrative officer (in El Paso that is the city manager) also responsible for complying with the act.

The city representatives that are no longer on city council may think that they are off the hook.  One or more may initiate a lawsuit against the attorney general, but that is unlikely since they would have to use their own money.

The public can take civil action if the former city representatives  refuse to turn over the documents.  That may happen given that there are local activists that do not want to give up on this.  Or a member of the public could bring a complaint to the local district attorney or county attorney with the hope that one of those two elected officials would pursue the issue on behalf of the public (using public money).  The prosecutor would then have 31 days to either decide to pursue the issue or drop it.  That would be an interesting dynamic given our recent 74% vote.  These prosecutors have been noticeably reluctant to take action against government officials in the past but may fear the wrath of the voters in this case.

A civil case would be complicated by the fact that the city representatives are no longer in office.  They may get away with not turning over their side of the communications.  However any communication with a sitting city representative or a city staff member would still have to be disclosed by the city itself.

There are also criminal penalties for violating the law, including penalties for destroying information.

Putting the legal arguments aside, refusing to comply could get expensive for the former city representatives.  My guess is that they may start by ignoring the requests.  Someone will have to file a civil or criminal complaint or file a civil lawsuit.  At that point I would imagine that the former city representatives will give up and turn over some of the emails.  They will face considerable risk if they forget to turn over other emails and those emails are disclosed by a third party.

We would all be better served if the documents were released without any of this drama.  These documents may lead to ugly disclosures but I don’t see how or why anyone would prevent this.

We deserve better

Brutus

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

Speak up!

July 22, 2013

Brutus has written two recent articles where he provided links for readers to contact the mayor and city representatives.

It seems to me that this is a very good idea.

We seem to have been polarized with two approaches:

  • Stay out of city issues because no matter what we do city council, the mayor, and city staff will ignore our input.  Even worse they have proven that they will fight to countermand our desires.
  • Raise petitions under the city charter to force an election on an issue

Maybe a position in the middle can be productive in some of these matters.

Why not take a few minutes to let city council and the mayor know what your thoughts are without backing them up against a wall (even if it is of their own creation)?  Let them know what you think.  The city web site allows you to send a message without identifying yourself or leaving your email address.

We have added a new button at the top of our home page, “Contact the city” that will provide you with linkages to the mayor and each of the city council representatives.

Send in your thoughts.  Encourage others to do the same.  Who knows, it might help.  If it doesn’t then we will have to do better than 74% next time.

Eternal vigilance is the price of liberty

Cato

10 Comments | City government, Uncategorized | Permalink
Posted by Cato

Stop the bailout

July 21, 2013

This week’s city council agenda includes an executive session item to consider the former mayor’s claim against the city for more than  $700,000 in legal fees that he claims to have incurred. 

He was the subject of a recall election that he chose to fight through the legal system instead of the ballot box.  He won. Now he claims that city council got bad advice from his own city attorney’s office.  His claim is that they caused him to accumulate more than $2.5 million in legal bills fighting the election.

On what?

The amount is absurd.  Even if somehow this is a legitimate bill he clearly did not do his job managing his lawyers. The 2013  city budget for the El Paso city legal office is  $3.1 million dollars for personal services (that amount does not include the money for the cases that they lose).  There are 39 positions in the budget.  How can this have cost $2.5  million?  Why didn’t he fire the city attorney?

Principles

My recollection is that the former mayor has said that he took on the fight as a matter of principle.  It seems to me that his position is that he is entitled to use taxpayer money to fight against letting the people vote on a matter.  I have a hard time defending that argument.

Is he special?

Let’s for the moment say that he is precisely right.  The city attorneys gave him bad (incomplete) advice.  He actually did need to run up a $2.5 million dollar legal bill.

Does that mean that the taxpayers are entitled to financial relief when city staff wastes our money?

Or is he really special?

Now the former mayor tells us that wants to run for election to the office of Texas Land Commissioner.  He wants to be the first El Pasoan elected to state-wide office.  As a democrat.  Is this campaign really just a ruse to raise campaign money?  Will he now argue that his prior legal expenses are legitimate campaign expenses?

Let council hear from you

The city has a web site that allows you to send comments to the mayor and city representatives without leaving your name or email address.  http://home.elpasotexas.gov/city-representatives/district-1/contact-district-1.php will get you to the district 1 representative.  Change the two “district-1’s” to your district number  to contact your representative.  You can write to the mayor at http://home.elpasotexas.gov/mayor/feedback.php.

Take a moment to let them know what you think about this.

We deserve better

Brutus

2 Comments | City government | Permalink
Posted by Brutus

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