Showtime!

February 13, 2013

Great drama!

Last  week’s (Monday, February 11, 2013) city council agenda has item 13A that is a proposed ordinance.  It is the result of a citizen petition that seeks to stop the building of the ball park and the tearing down of city hall unless approved by the voters.  The ordinance would:

  • Repeal the provisions that allowed the city manager “to establish construction guidelines to erect a baseball stadium …”
  • Forbid the mayor or any other person or entity to prepare for the demolition of city hall
  • Only allow the demolition of city hall after an affirmative vote in the May 2013 city election

Don’t hold your breath.  The city has already entered into a $40 million dollar contract to build the new stadium.  It has allocated another $10 million dollars (and contracted for most of it) for engineers, designers, and for other services.

While neither the petition nor the proposed ordinance address the acquisitions of property and the construction services that the city is using to setup new facilities as a replacement for city hall we should be aware that they have already contracted for over $66 million (while they told us it would cost $33 million).

Dissolving these contracts will cost money, regardless of the will of the people.

I predict that we will hear a lot of discussion about how we cannot go back.  “The die is cast” will be the theme.

I believe that the petition was submitted and certified in early September, 2012.  Council took actions to approve the ball park and the tearing down of city hall weeks afterwards.  Council deliberately held off bringing this ordinance forward until they had committed the money.

I don’t know how city council will handle this.  I do anticipate that the ones standing for election might find a way to be absent during the vote so that they can later claim that they were not part of this sham.

If they do manage to pass part of it they will do so already planning to have city hall torn down before the May election, thus subverting the petition.

Once again for the record I favor the idea of the ball park and thank the organizers that bought the team.  Tearing down city hall is another matter.  It has proven to be very expensive.

We deserve better

Brutus

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Better

February 12, 2013

According to the  El Paso Times  the companies that are building our new ball park are going to hold a business outreach event next Wednesday (February 13, 2013) from  7:30 to 9 AM at  2401 East Missouri.  Evidently tradesmen that would like an opportunity to bid on some of the work are encouraged to attend.

To me the Times does  a pretty good job of  announcing events.  My observation is that they only go skin deep and fail to let us know what the real story is.  Often they  carry the water for some group and do not reveal the true story.

This event is good though.  The ball park is being built by commercial firms.  The will not be using buy boards to circumvent responsible purchasing.  Sub contractors will be given opportunities to demonstrate their capabilities and compete based upon price.  Price.  At the end of the day if there are two offers from firms that do good work  the decision will be made primarily based upon price — not the personal favorite of city staff.

I suspect that this method of construction and buying was significantly influenced by the the people who own the team.  I thank them.

We should not see a $677,000 chiller or a $543,000 foam roof  or a $94,000 cieling for the same city hall that they want to tear down.  These jobs were done through bid boards.

The contractor has an incentive to save our money — 30% of the savings.  My only problem with that will be if they lower the specifications and deliver an inferior product to us.  The city engineer has temporarily abandoned his post and is now the city’s lead person on this project.  Council has given him the sole authority to change the specifications.  That is not good.

We deserve better — and it appears that we will get it this time — not great, but better

Brutus

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Shovel ready

February 11, 2013

I previously wrote about the preliminary scheduling the city is planning relative to the bonds we just approved.  What committee?  We didn’t promise to listen! focused primarily on the absence of the citizen (until they changed committee eligibility rules after the election) Bond Overview Advisory Committee.

There is a lot more to be upset about.  The document proposes how the city will spend the money in the first (next) three years of administering the funds.

No money will be spent for the new Children’s Museum.  Not a cent toward even planning one!

No money will be spent to replace the Chelsea pool that the city had to close last year.

Maybe the term “Quality of Life” does actually refer to the city staff and not to the public.

What they are spending money on by the bucket full is projects that are to be located downtown (adjunctive to the ball park) and legions of consultants.

We are being told that “shovel ready” projects are being given priority.  For once we are being told the truth.

We all know what they are shoveling.

We deserve better

Brutus

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Give them an inch and they take a yard

February 10, 2013

Next week’s (Tuesday, February 12, 2013) city council agenda has an example of how the city uses multiple sequential actions to trick us.

Item 11 requests permission to award contracts totaling $570,000 for services relating to the new phone system that the system is installing.

The backup material makes the sequence of events clear:

  • October 12, 2010 council approves the purchase of a fancy phone system for the 10th floor of city hall.  The system was not bid.  It was purchased through a state sanctioned bid board. City staff chose their favorite brand.   Citizens spoke against the system as being much more expensive than competitive units.  We were assured that the system was only for the use of the mayor and city council.
  • January 10, 2012 council approves purchase orders for upgrades to the network hardware and software.  These upgrades were necessary for the expansion of the phone system.
  • February 28, 2012 council approves the purchase of more of the same phone system for the police and fire departments
  • October 30, 2012 council buys more of the same phone system for other city departments

This started with city staff picking the system that they wanted.  Competition was not allowed.  As time went by more units were purchased in the name of compatibility with the existing system.

Competitive systems that are as good (if not better) could have been used that would have cost us less than half of what the city is spending.

We deserve better

Brutus

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EPISD agendas redux

February 9, 2013

Today I get to write about something that is getting better

It appears that since my earlier post EPISD Agendas the district has come a long way with their agendas.

Looking at their site today, I see that they now post the background material that I gather the board gets to see before they vote.  This is an improvement.

One item that I looked at was a contract.  The contract was not included but some detail was included.

The ability to search is now included, although the document that I searched for and found was titled “publicquickview.html”.  That makes me think that they are still editing what the public gets to see.

I also have the strong sense that these materials and agendas are posted after the meetings.

I’ll watch this more closely, but out of fairness wanted to update my earlier article.

It does appear that they are getting better.

Even still,

We deserve better

Brutus

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