The gift that keeps on giving

June 15, 2013

This article in El Diario de El Paso reveals another secret deal that the city has entered into as a part of the city hall destruction.

The city bought part of the Times building for $9.4 million this year.

Then why did the city sign a lease for $4,750 per month in an adjacent part of the Times building for the next eight years last February?  The lease has a sweetheart 3% increase every year, so by the time the lease is over the city will have paid more than half a million dollars.

Does the city need the space?  If so, why wasn’t it part of the purchase?

Devious

I don’t know if the city needs the space or not.  What I do know is that the lease was not about space.  It was about paying the Times back for parking space at the Union Plaza parking terminal.

The Times needed parking space as part of their move to another building.  The city had a parking garage.  The Times evidently did not want to pay for the 150 some-odd spaces they needed.

The city charged the Times for the parking spaces.  In a separate lease the city agreed to pay the same amount back to the Times for the half million dollar lease space.  The deals wash.

Give away

The net effect is that the Times is getting free parking for 8 years.

City council feigned lack of knowledge.  How can that be?  Many of the items that come before council ask to give the city manager authority to negotiate and sign whatever documents are necessary without bringing the deals back to city council.

The Times raised the integrity issue in the current mayoral race when it complained that one of the candidates pulled some of his advertising because he thought his campaign was not being treated fairly.

Hypocrites

Now we learn that the city is giving the Times free parking for 8 years.  I wonder if that has an effect on their coverage.

We deserve better

Brutus

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

Goose and gander

June 14, 2013

This November 12, 2008 article in the El Paso Times admonished our county commissioners to avoid making controversial decisions while in lame-duck status.

At the time some commissioners would be leaving office within 50 days.  The Times thought that controversial decisions should be left up to the new court.

This Tuesday city council will consider issuing $60.8 million in bonds instead of the $52.8 million that they approved for the  $50 million ball park a few weeks ago.

The new council will be sworn in June 23, 2013.  By my counting that means that this current bunch will have five days remaining in office when they vote on  this item.

It seems to me that the Times is being consistent here.  They give city council a free pass even when council’s actions are the most egregious.

It will be interesting to see what surfaces after the election and the exodus.

Muckraker

Leave a Comment » | City government, County Government, El Paso Times | Permalink
Posted by Muckraker

Now you don’t see it, now you do

June 14, 2013

As we know, the city is suing the attorney general of Texas claiming that personal emails involving the mayor and city council officials that pertain to city business should not be subject to disclosure to the public under state law.

The attorney general ruled that they are subject to disclosure after a citizen requested access to the documents.

Now the city is using our taxpayer money to fight the public’s right to see the documents.

The situation might change after the election tomorrow.  The mayor and at least two of the city representatives will not be re-elected to their posts because of term limits.  We will have a different city council and mayor.

I hope that the new council stops the lawsuit.

Then we should learn more about how city hall got torn down and the ball park deal was created.  I suspect that the lawsuit is not about principles, misguided as they might be.  Instead it appears that these people have something to hide.

We might know soon.

Eternal vigilance is the cost of liberty.

Cato

2 Comments | City government, Open Government, State Government | Permalink
Posted by Cato

Talk is cheap

June 13, 2013

Tuesday, June 11, 2013 the appointed board of managers of the El Paso Independent School District voted  unanimously to limit public access to address the board during their meetings.  I wrote about that in No comment allowed.

Watching the video of the meeting I learned that:

The proposal came from both the superintendent and the board of managers.  The superintendent has helped make it more difficult for the public to take exception with his actions.  The only path of appeal that I know of when someone disagrees with the superintendent is to bring the issue to the board of managers.  We previously had a superintendent that had the auditing function report to him and not the the board — look what that got us.  Now our interim superintendent has made it more difficult for the public to bring attention to his actions.

The new policy also forbids those few members of the public that get to speak at the board meeting from using the names of students and employees as well as the positions of the employees.  So if you want to speak about the superintendent you might refer to him as the person sitting three positions to the left of the the president of the board.

No show for show

The board member that is also the chief financial officer of the City of El Paso was absent during that vote.  According to the El Paso Times the chief financial officer was opposed to the agenda item.

Why was she late?  Was she too busy?  Did she want to avoid the issue?  Does she have time to do her job on this board?

If she was opposed to the issue, why didn’t she ask for reconsideration of the item?  If she really felt strongly about the issue why did she remain silent?

Posturing

Maybe her statement to the Times had a different motive.  Her boss at the city is considering moving to Florida.  The Times ran an article this year about how she might be a good candidate to become the next city manager.

Claiming to oppose shutting down public comment while not taking action to preserve it is just plain grandstanding in my opinion.

It looks like this board now ranks worse than the elected board of trustees as far as public access is concerned.

Eternal vigilance is the cost of liberty.

Cato

Leave a Comment » | City government, El Paso Independent School District, El Paso Times, Open Government, State Government | Permalink
Posted by Cato

No comment allowed

June 12, 2013

It seems that the board of managers that the TEA has imposed on the El Paso Independent School District thinks it does not need much public input.

Evidently citizens (known elsewhere as “crazies”) have been showing up at the board meetings to give their input.

The board wants to restrict that input, I guess because it is inconvenient to their schedules.

Among other things the board wants to move the section for public input to the end of the meetings.  That is a shameless attempt to make it less convenient for the public to speak.

They also want to limit speakers to three for an issue and three against the issue.  Wouldn’t you like to live in a world where things are that simple?

They also want to allow members of the public to only speak to the board every 60 days.

Is anything better?

The TEA supposedly appointed this board to provide accountability, transparency, trust and confidence to the public.

We now know for certain how some members of this group want to conduct business.

Business as usual

Only worse.  At least under the old regime the public had an opportunity to vent.  Yes the meetings were long.  The public obviously had a lot to vent about.  If these new people don’t want to spend the time necessary to conduct business in an open and fair manner, they should resign.  Could it be that these people are too busy with other things to do their job right?

Are we lucky or what?

Has the TEA appointed a group of people with the wisdom of Solomon?  Can it be that they know what to do and the public is really just an inconvenience?  Maybe if the board only met every 60 days we would be better off.

It’s the thought that counts

Even if pressure causes the board to backtrack on this issue, we still will know how they think.  This is a genuinely bad idea and should have never been brought up.  Whoever did bring it up clearly is on the wrong side of the issue.

Eternal vigilance is the cost of liberty.

Cato

2 Comments | El Paso Independent School District, Open Government, State Government | Permalink
Posted by Cato

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