It’s Saturday!
Tell us what’s on your mind.
We deserve better
Brutus
Sleight of hand
August 2, 2019City council voted to set the preliminary tax rate increase at 4.6 cents per hundred dollars of valuation on Monday, July 29, 2019. That would raise the rate to 88 cents per hundred dollars.
Monday? Aren’t city council meetings normally held on Tuesdays?
Could it be that council move the tax increase issue to a special meeting so that the public would have a harder time attending?
Or were they just trying to be nice and not bother us with trivial issues like how much tax we pay?
You should decide for yourself.
The next day the city published a tax increase notice in the Times informing us that they instead plan to raise the rate to 90.73 cents per hundred, the maximum allowed without triggering an opportunity for us to call a rollback election.
Why?
Evidently just in case they feel they actually decide to go for more.
We deserve better
Brutus
1 Comment | 
El Paso Times | 
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Posted by Brutus
Do they have an editor anymore?
August 1, 2019The editorial in the Saturday, July 27, 2019 Times was reprinted from the Daily Camera (Boulder, Colorado).
The Camera’s title was “An administration of temp workers” and spoke about the turnover in the current administration.
The Times reprinted it with a modified title, “An presidential administration of temp workers”.
Do they even bother to read what they print”
I suspect that somewhere around the fourth grade most of us learned that the correct article would have been “A” instead of “An”.
We deserve better
Brutus
2 Comments | El Paso Times | Permalink
Posted by Brutus
Spending disconnect
July 31, 2019The proposed 2020 city budget tells us what they think about our chances for economic growth next year.
The adopted 2019 city budget included $2,140,000 for commercial building permits. This year they are projecting the collection of $2,000,000. In other words they expect commercial construction to slow down.
On the residential building front they are lowering their expectations from $2,250,000 last year to $2,125,622 this year.
They anticipate increasing spending by 6% anyway.
We deserve better
Brutus
7 Comments | City government | Permalink
Posted by Brutus
Just another citizen
July 30, 2019This is another letter to the editor of the Times:
After reviewing the projected costs for the $1 billion bond which the city is putting in the hands of the voters, I sat dumbfounded and wanting a better explanation from our city leaders regarding the $90.6 million they are requesting for the Police Headquarters. How in the world is it going to cost $90.6 million to renovate that old building on Raynor Street? The new WestStar tower is costing Weststar/Hunt $85 million and they are getting an 18-story state of the art facility. Seems like they could build a brand-new building with a parking lot in Downtown for that cost. As taxpayers, this should concern us all.
Larry Chaparro
East El Paso
Well how about it?
Even if they plan to build a new building instead of remodeling the one in Five Points how do they justify the $90.6 million that they are asking for?
Wouldn’t they have to hire a whole bunch more policemen to sit around in offices to justify an 18 story building?
We deserve better
Brutus
21 Comments | City government | Permalink
Posted by Brutus
elpasospeak 
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