Phoney

March 9, 2013

Quality of life

Information technology people evidently can have plenty of it.

A job opening listed on the city web site is for a “senior VoIP telecom administrator”.  The job pays up to $115,644 per year in salary.  Benefits are extra.

Remember that new phone system that they wanted just for the tenth floor (mayor and council and city manager)?  You know, the one that they have been adding on to for many other city departments in the interest of simplicity and compatibility.  That’s the one that they have been adding to through buy boards so that none of the competitors have a chance.  Give them an inch and they take a yard was about this.

Well now it seems that the new system takes some really expensive people to make it work.

Good grief, this is more than an assistant fire chief or police commander makes.

If the system requires this level of support why did we buy it when the competitive market offers much simpler solutions?

Could it be the quality of some salesman’s life?

We deserve better

Brutus

Leave a Comment » | City government, Purchasing | Permalink
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One down, more to come

March 8, 2013

The ill conceived ordinance that would have put the city in conflict with the Texas Public Information Act was taken off the table at this week’s city council meeting (3/5/2013).

The public and the newspapers did a good job on this one by paying attention to what council was up to and making our voices heard.

The item was originally placed on the February 26, 2013 agenda.  The city representative from district 2 (soon to be termed out of office) made the motion to accept the proposed ordinance at its’ first reading.  Council then decided to retire into executive session to get legal advice.  When council came out of executive session the motion was passed unanimously without any discussion.

Then the public got involved.

The ordinance was on the March 5 agenda for the mandatory second reading.  This time the same city representative asked that the item be removed from the agenda and re-written.  The representative made comments about how the proposed ordinance did not accomplish what council was trying to do and how poorly worded it was.  The city attorney offered to bring the author (from an out of town law firm) to the podium to try to explain what was written.  The representative declined indicating that the wording was not salvageable.   Council voted unanimously to delete the item from the agenda.  The activist city attorney then asked if it would be acceptable to bring the issue back as a resolution instead of as an ordinance.  Our city representative said yes.

What happened here?

Council loved the proposed ordinance before the public got involved.  If they voted for the ordinance without reading it then we have one set of problems.  I believe they knew what it said and were hoping to run it through council before we were aware.

Once the public got involved council ran from it like it was a Public Information Request.

Where was the city attorney on this?  Why are we paying an out of town law firm to generate such junk?

This kind of thing goes on every week at city council.

Thankfully we got what we deserve this time.

That is until they try to sneak something through next time.  It will probably be in the form of a resolution.  Resolutions do not need public hearings so they can do this as part of a consent agenda.

We deserve better

Brutus

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Shoes dropping

March 7, 2013

The March 5, 2013 city council meeting had an update from the project engineer for the El Paso ball park.

Let me list a few of the items that caught my attention (in the order they were presented):

  • They have already picked the concession firm — out of town company of course — locals need not apply
  • The roof will be shiny copper — they should ask the nuns over at Loretto what happened when they built a chapel that was shiny copper
  • El Paso Electric will have to move their 69,000 volt power lines to run on massive steel poles above Missouri Street — hopefully attractive power poles
  • El Paso Water Utilities will handle the work and pay to redo the water and sewer lines in the area — thankfully that does not add to the cost of the ball park — it simply adds to the cost of our utility bills
  • We need to buy airspace over the railway for people to walk into the ball park
  • It turns out that we do not own all of the city hall site — the Union Pacific railroad owns part of the land and we kind of need to get the deed
  • We evidently were clairvoyant last fall and paid the railroad to conduct various studies (vibration, noise, etc.) that will be needed — once again not part of the project cost, but part of our tax bill
  • We are trying to buy the parking lot that we just leased from the railroad
  • The railroad wants to buy or trade some city land to move the tracks near the Union Station so that the trains can run through town at 40 miles per hour
  • The project manager hopes to have agreements with the railroad ready for city council some time in April. With the scheduled implosion date for city hall in early April it looks like the city is telling the railroad to charge whatever they want since we will be desperate for their cooperation. It would not look good if we could not get the ball park built after tearing down city hall just because we don’t have enoughk land to build the park.
  • The railroad wants to close 10 rail crossings through town. Staff has not been specific about which ones. I doubt that citizen input will have much to do with this since the city desperately needs railroad help to build the ball park
  • One half of Durango street will be closed
  • Santa Fe street will be made smaller
  • Missouri street will have to be changed to one-way going west
  • Total crowd capacity will be near 10,000 counting the multiple types of seating
  • The project manager is confident that traffic will not be a problem. One of the city representatives pointed out that an event he attended at the Plaza Theater with about 2,000 other people turned into a traffic “nightmare”. The city representative cautioned that simultaneous events at the Plaza Theater, the Civic Center, and the ball park would multiply the problems.
  • We are not to worry because the city paid for a traffic study last year in preparation for this project — once again the taxpayers paid for the study, not the hotel occupancy tax that we were told would pay for the project

Many of these points deserve separate articles. I think I will wait for the facts to surface on various ones before I visit them again.

Please vote in May.

We deserve better

Brutus

2 Comments | County Government | Permalink
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Selective reporting

March 6, 2013

A recent El Paso Times article talks about an area school district conducting a recent audit.  The audit evidently claims that the district broke state law when it overspent it’s budget.  The Times wrote:

“Tornillo administrators say that the additional $200,000 related to the buyout package were incurred from legal fees related to Vranish’s contract, the audit states.”

Legal fees of $200,000 to buyout a superintendent’s contract?  For what?

The Times article missed the opportunity to expose this issue.

Why is it that the Times reports events about the El Paso Independent School District and the local corruption cases with regularity and boring repetition but does not look beneath the surface on other issues?

We deserve better

Brutus

2 Comments | El Paso Independent School District, El Paso Times | Permalink
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Now that you’re watching

March 5, 2013

According to an El Paso Times article city council may be having second thoughts about their proposal to cripple the Texas Public Information Act.

Council voted unanimously to approve the ordinance on its first reading last week.  They are scheduled to consider it again today (Tuesday March 5, 2013).

The Times points out that a “barrage of criticism” might cause council to reconsider and “go back to the drawing board” with the ordinance.

Reconsidering is a good idea.  The legal mess that this ordinance would cause would cost us a lot of money.  Texas has a good law — it appears that the rest of the state can live with it.  Some members of our council want the right to conduct public business without the public having the right to see what they are up to.  Going back to the drawing board is a bad idea.  It would be another waste of our time and money.

The Times article suggests that some council members believe that the proposed ordinance is not well written.  It would appear that some of them have finally gotten around to reading it.

That brings up the point of this post.  According to an El Paso Inc. article this weekend the proposed ordinance was drawn up by the law firm that is representing the city against the Attorney General of Texas who had previously ruled that the city must turn over documents that were requested through the Public Information Act.  City council does not want to release the documents.

  • Why are we wasting our taxpayer money and time in a mean-spirited fight to deny the public access to its’ documents?
  • If certain city council members object to disclosure why don’t they fund the lawsuit themselves?  The Attorney General is on the side of the citizens.  Council is opposing us and is using our money to do it.
  • The outside law firm did a poor job drafting the ordinance.  Are they competent?  How much are they getting paid to sue Texas and try to keep us in the dark?  How much are they getting paid to write the proposed ordinance that has now been so thoroughly criticized?
  • Should they be fired?

Where was the City Attorney on this?  How did this even get on an agenda?  Was this reviewed?  Was council advised that the proposed ordinance is “a can of worms” to use the Mayor’s words?  Is council now pretending that this was not what they intended?

It is good that the Times has started to pay attention to what is going on at city hall.  If they want fresh front page articles to replace their constant reiteration of problems over at the El Paso Independent School District, all they have to do is read city council agendas and start thinking.  They won’t even have to make up problems.

We deserve better

Brutus

1 Comment | City government, El Paso Inc., El Paso Independent School District, El Paso Times, Open Government, State Government | Permalink
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