We do unto others

March 18, 2013

Don’t do unto us!

At last week’s (March 12, 2013) city council meeting the TxDOT district engineer gave a presentation about TxDOT’s plans for far east Montana street.

They plan to widen the street from four lanes to six starting about 1/2 mile east of Yarbrough all the way out to Loop 375.  The south side will have bicycle lanes, sidewalks and landscaping.  The north side (think airport) will be where the majority of the new lanes come from and will not have these features.

The engineer explained that about 50,000 cars use the area each day now and that they expect that number to rise to about 200,000 a day within 5 years.  Now is the time to widen the road.

Two city representatives immediately objected.  It seems that TxDOT has not kept council informed and that building a highway is not appropriate in a “highly residential area”.  The El Paso Times attributed this quote to one of the representatives:  “I think the problem is we’re getting a lot of these plans piecemeal from TxDOT instead of seeing the whole picture.  …  It can be frustrating”.

No kidding!  That is what council and city staff have been doing to the voters on this entire city hall, ballpark issue.  We still don’t know the scope of what they are doing to us.

In this case though, TxDOT is going to pay for the improvements.  This is money that we are getting back from the state, not new money that we must pay through our city taxes.

Residential?

Not hardly.  The north (airport) side of Montana in that area is essentially desolate.  There are a few government buildings on that side, with relatively few private establishments.  I know of no housing there.  The south side is largely vacant.  What has been built is primarily retail and light industrial with a sprinkling of junk yards.  There are a few apartments and condominiums on the south side, but housing development has not really occurred there.  This is not a “highly residential area”.

Beyond that, TxDOT has promised to build a sound wall if the majority of the residents want one.

Why are the city representatives in an uproar?  We certainly need to have roads that can handle additional capacity.  Montana is not a residential street.  It is a main thoroughfare in that part of town.  Can it be that our two city representatives don’t want someone springing a plan on them without their input?

Maybe now they may have a bit of understanding about how we feel.

Then again maybe they think that as city representatives they should be treated with more deference than us “crazies”.

Or maybe money is involved.

We deserve better

Brutus

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

Reporting and preaching should not go together

March 17, 2013

The following is my opinion:

The El Paso Times published a front-page article today (March 17, 2013) about the first person convicted in one of the public corruption scandals that the Times has chosen to cover.

The guy pleaded guilty to doing some rotten things.  It appears that he did not go to prison.  It looks like he became a stool-pigeon and the general government may have let him off the hook.

I am glad the Times chose to cover the issue.  The article was informative.  It was news.  It was also pious, judgmental, and condescending.

The article was biased throughout.

As an example, they wrote “His surroundings demonstrated that he’d come down in the world since he’d left El Paso.  His office is in a small, humble building next to a vacant grain elevator and across from the Bexar County Detention Center.  The area is dotted with bail-bonds businesses, taco stands, TV and refrigerator-repair shops and “No Trespassing” signs — not exactly the milieu of a big-city power broker.

I guess businesses might be ok but the Times thinks bail bondsmen are pretty low.

I guess restaurants are ok but taco stands are pretty low.

I guess some repair shops are ok but TV and refrigerator ones are pretty low.

I guess the Times thinks that anyone who has a job working for the government is pretty important.  That might explain some obvious things that they are overlooking.

I would appreciate it if the Times would stick to the facts and let the readers draw their own conclusions.

The Times has an editorial page for this kind of commentary.

Eternal vigilance is the price of liberty.

Cato

3 Comments | County Government, El Paso Times, Federal Government | Permalink
Posted by Cato

Something special

March 17, 2013

Something is going on that I have not figured out.

I hope that you can help.

The March 19, 2013 city council agenda shows items 5B, 5C, 5D, 5E, 5F, and 5G.  They  all propose changes to existing ordinances as they apply to special events.

  • 5B would waive certain fees
  • 5C would exempt certain vendors from license requirements
  • 5D would exempt special events from noise ordinances
  • 5E would exempt special events from parking meter fees
  • 5F deals with sound amplification
  • 5G would “eliminate certain costs and fees”

The backup material does not provide a clue why all these changes are desirable.

Does this have something to do with the ball park?

Or is the Mayor planning to play his guitar in front of thousands of fans to raise money for his legal defense?

Does city council plan to bring back public executions of the “crazies”?

Something is wrong and they want to fix it behind our backs.

We deserve better

Brutus

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

It’s a bird, it’s a plane

March 16, 2013

Don’t go downtown this Sunday morning (March 17, 2013).

Remember that old city hall that we need to tear down soon to make way for the ball park?

As I wrote in $63.9 million and climbing one of the problems with tearing it down is that the public safety radio antennas are on top of the building and the complex electronics that serve them are in the building.

One might think that it would be good to move the system in stages so that our public safety responders would not be without their radio system.  As it turned out the city thought that was impractical because of the haste involved in the move.  The city engineer said “The intent is to have it up and running before we tear this building down, which means the current system will still be in the building when we implode it”.

The city agreed to pay $20 million to buy a new system through a sole source contract.

Then in Council Deceit we learned that the city found a new roof-top for only $40,800 a year to start.  The deal was for 10 years. That is at least $408,000 for roof space that we already had.  The $543,000 that we spent to replace the old roof in 2011 evidently was wasted.

Why avoid downtown?

The new building does not have a backup generator that can be used for this project.  We need to put one in.

It appears that the backup generator is so big that they will need a helicopter to get it to the top of the 22 story building.  By the way, we already had a generator in the old city hall.

Certainly you say, it must be safe to do this.  These guys must know what they are doing.

Then why is the city closing down six streets?

We deserve better

Brutus

5 Comments | City government | Permalink
Posted by Brutus

Four day week

March 15, 2013

Once the city has moved out of city hall, I wonder if they will go back to the five day work week for administrators.

You might recall that the city manager wanted to save money by going to a four day week, thus saving the cost of heating and cooling that white elephant that we built in the late 1970’s.

City departments are now spread to the winds.  The city web site gives us this information.

Now that the departments are no longer centralized is the utility saving argument still the one that will be used?

Or has this actually been about delaying requests for public information.  The city has ten business days to respond.  Not opening the offices on Friday gives them one extra day per week by their interpretation.

Maybe not being open on Fridays works to their advantage keeping the public from contacting city council.  City council agendas are published late Thursday afternoon.  Try to reach your city representative on Friday to discuss a concern you might have.  A well raised concern might cause a city representative to look into a matter.  As it is now, if you contact them on Monday there is little time left for a city representative to perform an inquiry.

Then we have the quality of life issue.  Remember the lives that term refers to are the ones of city management.  Several articles have been posted about that subject on this blog.  If you have not read them enter “quality of life” in search box on the right side of this page.

Eternal vigilance is the price of liberty.

Cato

1 Comment | City government, Open Government | Permalink
Posted by Cato

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