EPISD at it again

March 12, 2019

In EPISD reinventing the wheel we mentioned an agenda item that would have allowed the district to spend more than a half million dollars to have a company write a software program that would be an “all-in-one enrollment solution”.  The money was to be for the first year of the effort.

Evidently Mr. Dan Wever noticed the item and contacted some board members who pulled the item off of the agenda.

The Times wrote EPISD audit finds ‘indicators of vendor favoritism’ related to bond contract in January of 2018.

Now we see an agenda item for a project that was not bid but that someone wanted to give to a vendor whose name was not even published.

We deserve better

Brutus

13 Comments | El Paso Independent School District | Permalink
Posted by Brutus

Texas open meetings

March 11, 2019

The Times published an editorial the other day that I agreed with.

The Texas Court of Criminal Appeals evidently invalidated the portion of the Texas Open Meetings Act that specified criminal penalties for members of government boards that arrange meetings with less than a quorum in order to avoid the requirement to make the meeting open to the public.

The Times editorial told us that our Texas Governor has written a letter to state board appointees and state agency chiefs telling them to “continue to follow the spirit” of the Texas Open Meetings Act without regard to the appeals court ruling.

Unfortunately our local governments are now free to meet in private and discuss public business as long as they do not have a quorum present.

We hope that our Texas legislature will take action soon to shore up the Open Meetings Act.

We deserve better

Brutus

4 Comments | City government, County Government, El Paso Independent School District, Open Government, State Government | Permalink
Posted by Brutus

A simple solution?

March 10, 2019

I heard an idea that I liked the other evening.

The smart phone manufactures should change their phones so that if it is moving faster than a set speed (5 miles per hour?) the keyboard should be disabled.

How many lives would that save?

We deserve better

Brutus

4 Comments | Uncategorized | Permalink
Posted by Brutus

Open forum

March 9, 2019

It’s Saturday so let us know what you are thinking about.

We deserve better

Brutus

12 Comments | Uncategorized | Permalink
Posted by Brutus

Welcome to El Paso

March 8, 2019

It seems that Las Palmas hospital and the residents of the Rim road area have come to a settlement.

The city issued building permits that allowed Las Palmas to build a $67 million dollar facility.

After the facility was built the city refused to issue certificates of occupancy because of a parking capacity problem.

The permits should not have been issued but they were.

Many prominent residents of the Rim road area objected to allowing the building to be opened without additional parking being provided.

The hospital was stuck with a brand new expensive building that it could not open.

The paragraph below comes from a document proposing a settlement between the hospital and the neighborhood association.

Word on the street is that Las Palmas had to cough up some part of the $653,500 in order to get the residents to drop their objections.

At that point parking capacity was evidently no longer a problem.

The issue sailed through city council without mention of the financial settlement.  If granting a parking variance made sense it should have been granted without city council helping the neighborhood association to extract the extra money.

The way I see it city council helped the neighborhood to extort the money from Las Palmas.  Shame on them.

Word will get around.  Companies thinking about coming to El Paso will wonder what the city will do to them.

We deserve better

Brutus

9 Comments | City government | Permalink
Posted by Brutus

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