Proposed charter amendments

April 4, 2013

I can see from the articles that Brutus is working on that he intends to publish at least one article on each of the proposed charter amendments that we will have a chance to vote on in May.

One of the many problems with the proposed amendments is that some of them appear to violate both the Texas constitution and state law.

Our constitution

Article 11, section 5 of the Texas constitution reads:

The adoption or amendment of charters is subject to such limitations as may be prescribed by the Legislature, and no charter or any ordinance passed under said charter shall contain any provision inconsistent with the Constitution of the State, or of the general laws enacted by the Legislature of this State.

For the staff over at the city let me explain that no amendment is valid if it violates either the state constitution or a state law.

State law

Title 2, Subtitle A, Chapter 9, Section 9.004 (d) of the Local Government Code (that’s a law for the folks over at the city) says:

An amendment may not contain more than one subject.

Of course the ballot language approved by city council violates this law many times.

In the city’s own words

Using the explanations found on the city’s web site we see:

Proposition One

  • Move the City general elections from May in odd numbered years to November in even numbered years (beginning in 2018)
  • Amend the candidate petition to conform to State law – the greater of 25 qualified voters or .5% of the total vote
  • Special elections to be held on next uniform election date or next election conducted County Elections Administrator
  • Increase council districts to 10 when population reaches 1 million

My count is that the proposed amendment covers four subjects.

Proposition Two

  • Allow for the cancelation [sic] of up to seven regular City Council meetings per year but not more than two in a row
  • City Attorney appointed by entire City Council solely on the basis of legal experience and qualifications
  • Appointments to the City’s boards and commissions by entire City Council
  • Allow ordinances and the City Code be made available by any contemporary means such as the internet
  • Allow the Council to authorize leases of public property and temporary uses of streets and rights- of-way by resolution in lieu of ordinance
  • Clarify the Mayor is allowed to make appointments to boards and commissions

I count six here.

Proposition Four

  • Increase annual salary of the District Representatives to the H.U.D. median income for a family of 4 for El Paso County (beginning in 2015)
  • Increase annual salary of the Mayor to 150% of the amount of District Representatives (beginning in 2015)
  • Clarify the prohibition against Mayor and Council holding another public office or public employment and conforms with State law (not more prohibitive)

The mayor’s salary and the council member’s salaries are separate subjects to me.

OK, you get the idea.  Some of the other propositions have the same problem.  I have no doubt that the city staff will argue that the ballot wording only asks one question for each proposition.  Actually proposition one does not ask a question, Brutus explained that in Strike two.  The city will have to argue that “Shall we change the law to allow the use of currently illegal drugs, outlaw automobiles, discontinue public schools, and give all state employees a pay raise” is only a single question.  We know better and so do they.

The legislature

The legislature wants us to be able to vote on issues separately.  For example you may agree that city elections should be moved to November, but not agree that we should have 10 city representatives.  We are supposed to be able to vote on these issues separately.

This could cause a real mess in the courts if someone decides to challenge an amendment that passes.

As an aside, I note that the city believes that the amendments will pass.  Their web page says “CITY CHARTER to be amended”.  Maybe they plan to ignore our votes as they have in the past and just order that the charter be amended.

Brutus looks like he is going to do a pretty good job addressing each proposition.

Please study them and then vote in May.

Eternal vigilance is the price of liberty

Cato

8 Comments | City government, State Government | Permalink
Posted by Cato

Cheater

April 3, 2013

I ran across this letter on the internet.

In it the mayor appoints the city’s chief financial officer as the “citizen appointee” to the El Paso Fire and Police Pension Fund board.

What caught my attention is that the mayor evidently has a statutory responsibility to appoint a “citizen” to the board.

I have not read whatever law or ordinance requires the mayor to appoint a “citizen” here.  In all probability it contemplates a person from the community with no ties to the fire or police departments or to the city.  Otherwise why use the term “citizen”?  Every city employee is a citizen of somewhere.

Citizen?

The appointee is the chief financial officer of the city!  She also has served as the chief administrator of the El Paso county government.  The Texas Education Agency has appointed her to the oversight board that might end up controlling the El Paso Independent School District.

Her idea of conflict of interest and mine seem to be worlds apart.

She is a citizen in the sense that she is an inhabitant of a city.

She is not a citizen in the sense that must be meant here — not tied to the government or the employees.

Cheating

The mayor clearly chose to use lack of specific language to appoint someone whose vote can be controlled by the city.  He may not have violated a law, but he certainly cheated it’s intent in my opinion.

This kind of rule bending is typical of what is wrong with our local governments.  Our paid officials should be the guardians of both the letter and the spirit of the rules.

We deserve better

Brutus

Leave a Comment » | City government, County Government, El Paso Independent School District, State Government | Permalink
Posted by Brutus

For whom the bill tolls

April 3, 2013

Thanks to an alert reader, I finally have an objective comparison of El Paso’s property tax rates compared to other U.S. cities.

The Minnesota Taxpayers Association publishes its 50 State Property Tax Study yearly.  One section of it lists the top (most expensive) 50 property tax rates for homestead property by city.

For a home valued on the tax rolls at $150,000, El Paso was the sixth most expensive city amongst the nation’s 50 largest cities for the 2009 tax year.  Our effective tax rate was computed at 2.252% of the property value.  The average of the 50 cities was 1.325%.  Our tax rate that year indexed right at 170% of that average. (I’m guessing that we might soon be at double the average.)

“Stop,” you say!  Many of those cities are in states where they have income taxes, which we do not have.  Well, let’s take a look at Florida, which also does not have a state income tax.  Miami, Florida  was at 1.454% vs our 2.252% during that same period, making our rate approximately 55% higher than the other sun city.  Las Vegas was at 1.132%, a rate which is almost less than half our rate — and Nevada, too, doesn’t have a state income tax.

“Not fair” you say.  “Compare El Paso to other Texas cities”.  OK.  Austin was 10th in 2011 at 2.061%, and at least Austin residents can see visible, tangible results both in services, quality of life, economic growth, etc.

How many times have we been told that something will only cost us $84 (or some other amount) a year on the average house?  Well, all of those “onlys” have certainly added up.  Our tax rate will continue to escalate as long as our city representatives and managers are allowed to continue on the current course of mismanagement.

In fact, for 2011 our “progressive” city management has managed to make us the 5th most expensive of the 50 major cities with a 2.357% tax rate compared to the average of 1.358%.

How about for businesses?

Texas does have a franchise tax on businesses, so El Paso should be closer to the national norm.  Many feel that the franchise tax is more onerous than an income tax since it taxes gross income instead of profit.

In 2011, El Paso was the 7th most expensive city  for industrial property taxes.  We came in at 2.562% with the 50 largest city average being 1.503.  That puts our tax rate at 170% of the average.

The effective tax rates for both residential and commercial/industrial property are among the first things companies look at when considering whether to expand or relocate their business.  El Paso is not attractive.  We punish our taxpayers.  No wonder we have a hard time attracting jobs.

Perhaps one reason we have so much ambivalence among residents and voters is that we have a relatively lower rate of home ownership.  Maybe a large part of the population is apathetic about decisions that raise taxes because they will get the benefit, but not the bill.  After all, approximately 25% of El Pasoans live below the poverty level as compared to 17% for Texas as a whole.  I’m thinking that I have some more homework to do.

We deserve better

Brutus

Leave a Comment » | City government, County Government, El Paso Independent School District | Permalink
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Something is rotten in the state of Denmark

April 2, 2013

In Bridge for sale I wrote about the $3 million dollars that city council will spend for four televisions.  They are calling it a digital wall.

Copenhagen has one.

Well, it appears that our city staff feels the need to visit the one in Copenhagen.

Word on the street is that five of our city staff (engineers and IT people) will make a personal  sacrifice and travel to Copenhagen to learn about this technological marvel.

“Boondoggle” is defined in the online Oxford dictionary as “work or activity that is wasteful or pointless but gives the appearance of having value”.

This does not even reach the low standard for the term boondoggle.

It appears that what we have here is a “junket”, defined in the same dictionary as “an extravagant trip or celebration, in particular one enjoyed by a government official at public expense”.

Questions are not necessary.  We all know what is going on.

Maybe someone can stop it.

Who could have known that Shakespeare would be an expert on El Paso city government?

We deserve better

Brutus

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

Scheming Institutionalized

April 2, 2013

It now seems that more than one school district in the area was involved in manipulating student grade levels to avoid state and federal sanctions.  Other local districts are conducting investigations to see if they too were involved.

At the high school level the technique seems to have been to reduce the number of children from the 10th grade whose English language skills were deemed to have been substandard.  Evidently some students were placed in the 9th grade for a while and then promoted to the 11th grade.  According to news reports some were sent away (taken out of school).

It appears that the testing occurred in the 10th grade.  I guess that we don’t have enough money to check to see that all of our grade levels are performing to standard.

Without for a minute trying to defend the people who manipulated the system, some questions come to mind:

How should a school be evaluated when a foreign language student enrolls in the school without having attended the first through the 9th grades in the school district?  Has the student had time to learn English?

Are there special tests for students arriving from foreign countries?

Should grade level placement of the student be decided by the administrators based upon the individual student’s capabilities?

At what point does self preservation (keeping your job by doing what your boss asks you to do even when you disagree) kick in?

On the other hand, the situation shows us how government employees (not just educators) get together to learn strategies from each other that help to subvert the intent of the rules.  The El Paso Independent School District not releasing the draft report of the cheating audit was probably the result of an administrator or lawyer learning from some other agency how to avoid releasing the document by calling it a “draft”.

I have to wonder how many other schools around the country have been involved in similar efforts to “bend the rules”.

Too often I get the feeling that it is government employees versus the “crazies”.

Eternal vigilance is the cost of liberty.

Cato

1 Comment | City government, County Government, El Paso Independent School District, Federal Government, Open Government, State Government | Permalink
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