11.9.2004
Friends, this week’s meeting
was short and relatively painless.
Because I simply can’t let you all off the hook that easily, though,
I’ve added some brief (relatively speaking, you know me!) political commentary
at the end of the column and I ask for your indulgence.
Details, details
There was very little of
interest on the consent agenda this week.
But in classic fashion, when it comes to the minutes, Vivian Rojas had
something she needed postponed…this time it was the minutes for 9/21, which
will have to wait for one week:
2. APPROVAL OF MINUTES: [Municipal Clerk, Richarda
Duffy Momsen, (915) 541-4127] Approval of Minutes for Regular City Council
Meeting of September 21, 2004 and November 2, 2004.
(Attachment) - Regular City
Council Meeting 09/21/04
(Attachment) - Regular City
Council Meeting 11/02/04
Approved
on the consent agenda were the other set of minutes (11/2/04).
The 90-Day Promise
One of the first items up on
the regular agenda was an item Alexandro Lozano posted about a stalled drainage
improvement project in his district (and I don’t believe this particular
drainage project involves any unwarranted water conveyance channels):
12A. Discussion and Action that the City Council
aggressively seeks to remedy the problem caused by the halting of the George
Orr Street and Drainage Improvement Project in District 3. City Council needs to direct staff, to
include City Manager, Deputy City Manager for Building and Planning Services,
Street Director, and City Attorney, to provide all pertinent information in
timeline-form and to cause to start up the project continuation within 10 days
until fully completed. The halting and
delay on this project has caused a great inconvenience, as well as safety
problems, to the residents, school children, and through-traffic in this area
and must be addressed by the appropriate and responsible City Departments
immediately. (District 3)
[Representative Jose Alexandro Lozano, (915) 541-4515]
Apparently, the original
contractor who was working on this City project picked up, left the work site
and declared bankruptcy. As a result,
the project has been sitting idle and Lozano said his constituents have been
waiting 120 days for work to continue on this project. He also complained that constituents have
been told over and over again that the project would be completed in 90 days
(based on my math, that could’ve only happened once, but hey, who’s
counting?).
Joyce Wilson said that in
the six weeks she’s been on the job, she has become “acutely aware” of the
project and the problems it was causing the neighborhood. Because the contractor filed for bankruptcy,
she explained, the situation had become a bit more complicated than if he had
just abandoned the project all together.
She said this project was now a priority for all the relevant
departments. She also said that the
surety bond, which is the insurance that protects the City in situations like
this, had been triggered right away.
She explained the process that occurs in rare cases such as this one,
and said that the process was in play.
“We’ll be bringing forward
next Tuesday…the contract with the surety company [and] the contract with the
alternative vendor…so we can get them on the site and get this project done as
soon as possible,” explained Wilson.
Lozano responded, “And you
have to understand that, you know, it’s been 120 days, that we agreed that, you
know, that this company left the job, and it’s four months ago, and where is
the project now as we stand?”
The project, responded
Wilson, is “on hold,” but she repeated that once the surety bond clears, the
project would be well underway and should be complete, she said, within 90
days.
Legal Schmegal
Clearly, the fact that the
City has to follow, you know, procedure, is something that irks Lozano. In classic Lozano fashion, he pointedly and
ridiculously asked, “If something happens like this in the future jobs, you
know, we cannot just hold until we deal with our legal issues.”
Wilson, who had the
beginnings of an incredulous smile on her face said, “Well, unfortunately…we
have to deal with the protocols of the surety bonds…that protect the City in
case the contractor defaults…we have to comply with the process…or we forego
the insurance. The reality is those are
the legal processes we follow in the context of our contracts.”
Sorry, Ms. Wilson, but for
the year and half before you came to work for this administration, Wardy,
Lozano, Cushing and Cobos have repeatedly demonstrated little regard for
details like “legal issues” and “protocols” or “processes.” With Wardy, Cushing and Cobos, it’s a
conscious flouting of the rules to help their cronies. With Lozano, poor schnook, it’s more an
inability to grasp that there are
rules.
Representative Cook asked
for a timeline (in writing) of everything that’s happened to date. No action was taken on the item and the City
Manager promised she’d provide Mr. Cook with the details he requested.
The Power of a Name?
During the revisions to the
agenda, Alexandro Lozano asked to postpone the following item for 3 weeks. City Inspector Tom Maguire asked to be
allowed to present his case before Council ruled on the postponement, so I was
very curious about the item:
15B. Public hearing to determine if the property
located at 7204 ½ North Loop Drive, in the City of El Paso (legal description
on file with the City Clerk) is a fire and safety hazard, and a nuisance and
whether the same should be repaired or demolished. First investigated June
16th, 2004. The owner of this property,
Jose M. Escobar, 7221 North Loop Drive, has been notified of the violations at
this property. Delinquent taxes in the
amount of $0. (District 3) (Attachment) [Building Permits
& Inspections, Tom Maguire, (915) 541-4588]
Maguire gave his
presentation and said that he had spoken with the owner, Jose Escobar, who
agreed to accept the department’s recommendations calling for
condemnation. Maguire showed
photographs of a very sad building in a very advanced state of disrepair.
Lozano indicated that he,
too, had spoken with the owner, who he said wants to sell the property and its
15 adjacent lots. A generous Lozano
announced that he wanted to give Mr. Escobar a few weeks to get that done. I guess the entire summer wasn’t enough to
get that sale done (remember, as the agenda item states, this was first
investigated back in June) or get the property fixed or torn down.
Folks, I’ve been watching
Council meetings for a long time, and Council almost always follows Maguire’s
recommendations, especially on these condemnations. There are health and safety reasons that compel them to do
so. However, there are some times where
there are, shall we say, special cases.
There’s rarely any public explanation for the special treatment, but
this time I have to admit that I wondered if the property owner’s last name had
something to do with it and if that property owner happens to be related to a
guy whose first name is David. Maybe not,
but your old buddy Sid has become mighty suspicious of late.
Lozano made a motion to
postpone the item for three weeks, and it was quickly seconded by Cushing.
The
only opponents to the postponement were Austin and John Cook.
Tax Incentives for an Existing Company
(if you will)?
Folks, I was pretty confused
by the following item:
16. PUBLIC
HEARING - ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT: An
Ordinance authorizing the City of El Paso to participate in the Texas
Enterprise Zone Program under the Texas Enterprise Zone Act, Chapter 2303, Texas Government Code;
Providing Tax Incentives; supporting Application of Western Refining Company,
L.P. to the Office of the Governor Economic Development & Tourism through
the Economic Development Bank for designation as a qualified business and
double jumbo project under the Act; Designating a Liaison for overseeing
enterprise projects and communicating with interested parties. (District 3) (Attachment) [Economic
Development, David G. Dobson, (915) 541-4680]
When I saw that an existing
company would be receiving benefits in a specially created tax credit zone, I
decided to read the back-up (the attachment). In that back-up, one of the first
items was a memo from Economic Development Director David Dobson to City
Council, and here’s what Dobson wrote:
“The
Economic Development Department has been approached by Western Refining, LLC to
assist them in applying for a designation as an Enterprise Zone. Normally, these designations are for
companies that are relocating to a city, but there is an exception for the
designation if it involved ‘an expansion, renovation, or new
construction.’ Western Refining, LLC is
proposing to invest $151 million to upgrade its low sulfur gasoline line to an
Ultra Low Gas line. This renovation
will also allow Western Refining, LLC to retain all 330 of its present
employees.”
While I think it’s great
that Western Refining will be investing a sizable amount of money to upgrade
its facilities, they are not a new company and they are not creating any new
jobs. So why on earth are we asking the
State to create an enterprise zone for this?
Being located in an
enterprise zone is a good thing. It
means you are investing in an area that needs it; but as the backup states,
it’s something that is traditionally used to lure new business and new jobs to
an area. In exchange, these new
businesses qualify for fee waivers, tax credits and local sales tax refunds.
As a result of this
designation, Western Refining, an already existing business, will qualify for
these perks. Keep in mind, folks –
again -- these are incentives that are usually used to lure businesses to our community, not to reward existing companies.
Correct me if I’m wrong, but
wasn’t this the mayor whose big agenda item was economic development? Didn’t this guy promise to create jobs?
Yes, folks, he did indeed
make that promise. On the night he won
the election, he proclaimed “We're going to bring new investors in to build our
tax base and bring in jobs."
(http://www.borderlandnews.com/May2003elex/stories/20030504-109071.shtml)
I don’t believe that giving
special incentives to existing companies qualifies as “build[ing] a tax base”
or “bring[ing] in jobs.”
Wardy’s Economic Development
Plan…drumroll, please…finally unveiled!*
*17 months into a 24-month term, but
hey, who’s counting?
Well, I guess Wardy’s
definition of “economic development” and mine are very different. One could deduce from Dobson’s memo—where he
writes that the designation will “allow” Western Refining to retain its
employees—that there’s an implied threat that if Western Refining doesn’t get
the designation, it will lay off employees.
Maybe that isn’t the case, but what an interesting choice of language
that was. If it is the case, then Wardy
has established a very bad precedent. I
wonder which El Paso company will be next to extract special breaks from the
City by threatening to lay off employees or leave El Paso. In short, Mr. Mayor, your economic
development strategy is, if you will, a joke.
Once the item was read into
the record, David Dobson said he wanted to add yet another potential incentive
to the existing list of possible incentives (see “exhibit A” in the
attachment). That added incentive would
be a low interest revolving loan.
Wardy (who clearly has
little or no involvement in his own Economic Development Department) asked
Dobson why this was being added. Dobson
replied, “Apparently, there has been some issue about scoring at the state
level, and by doing this we would ensure that this project would get 25 maximum
points.”
Cushing asked Dobson to
explain what the incentives listed in appendix B are, and Dobson said that there
was a requirement under state law for “unique” incentives to be used in these
zones. “In this particular case, these
are the unique, if you will, incentives that are provided,” he said.
Dobson said that having the
list of incentives doesn’t necessarily mean the City will definitely use
them. I would contend that it doesn’t
mean the City will not use them
either.
And, folks, maybe the City
has done this for existing businesses in the past and I just haven’t kept up
with the zone designations long enough.
I still think these kinds of things should be focused on business and
job creation. And my general contention
with this issue remains: this Mayor’s
major platform issue (when he was a candidate) was building the tax base and
creating jobs. He has yet to fulfill
that promise.
The
item, if you will, passed unanimously.
Ride Tony Ride or Convertibles for
Councilors!
Anthony Cobos made quite the
fuss about the following item once it came up:
17B. An Ordinance granting a Special Privilege to the
Sun Bowl Association authorizing the encroachment of forty-two temporary street
displays on city fixtures and utility poles on portions of Montana Avenue
between Copia Street and Campbell Street designated as the Official Sun Bowl
Parade Route and to place the Parade Logo onto the roadway on Montana Avenue
between Ange Street and Virginia Street.
SP-04024, Fee: $2,010.00
(District 8) (Attachment) [Planning
Research and Development, Esther Guerrero, (915) 541-4720]
This item is a license
allowing the Sun Bowl Association to place its displays along the parade
route. “Why are we charging for such a
part of our culture?” asked Cobos. Hey,
like the next guy, I think the Sun Bowl is a great thing…but part of our
culture? I guess it must be right up
there with local cuisine and language or, for Cobos, et. al., favoritism and
bid-rigging.
City
staff instructed him that this fee is “normal processing.”
Cobos asked if the fee could
be waived and Matt Watson, Assistant City Attorney, said the fee was required
under City ordinance.
Different options for
eliminating the fee were discussed, but in the end, the City had to approve the
item (the parade, don’t forget, is in two weeks). Council, however, instructed staff to evaluate ways to get rid of
the fee.
Before the discussion ended,
Cobos asked Bernie Olivas, the executive director of the Sun Bowl Association,
the question that was burning in his mind…the true reason he wanted to discuss
this item:
“Mr.
Olivas, you’re gonna have convertibles ready for the Councilors?”
Olivas promised he
would. Once the “convertibles for
Councilors” issue had been satisfactorily resolved, I breathed a huge sigh of
relief. I mean, what would the Sun Bowl
parade be without Joe “Get me dignitary protection because I’m so important and
because I don’t want to deal with the little people” Wardy and without Anthony
“Mustang Tony” Cobos sitting in a convertible, smiling those stupid, fake,
empty grins and waving to their subjects?
I mean really! It’s part of our culture!
The item passed unanimously.
Competition is a Beautiful Thing!
The following item was
approved unanimously:
17C. An Ordinance vacating a portion of an easement
retained by Ordinance 8312 which vacated Williams Street between Blocks 53
& 54, Cotton Addition, City of El Paso, El Paso County, Texas. (District 8)
(Attachment) [Planning,
Research & Development, Rudy Valdez, (915) 541-4635]
This item allows El Diario, a well-respected Juárez
newspaper, to complete their multi-million dollar investment in two buildings
on Texas Street. In case you haven’t
heard, El Diario will be getting its
El Paso paper off the ground sometime next year. And in case you haven’t driven by the property, it’s
impressive. It’s on Texas Street, a
little bit east of Cotton, and it’s clear that these folks are serious about
starting an El Paso edition of their paper.
I can’t wait! After all, we need a little competition in
this town. The El Paso Times has – time and time again – let the Wardy
administration (and its allies) completely off the hook. They have failed to report on the rampant
cronyism and have failed to dig into issues that affect (or should I say infect) our government and our
community. More on this at the end of
the column.
By the way, as a side note
check out this interesting story about Diario’s
lawsuit against the Dallas Morning
News: http://www.dfw.com/mld/startelegram/news/state/10138709.htm?1c
Salaries, Questions and Martin, Oh My!
Martin Rubalcaba pulled the
following item off the consent agenda because he had some questions:
4I. That the Classification and Compensation Plan,
shall be amended, as recommended by the Civil Service Commission. The class of PARKING METER SERVICE WORKER is
hereby revised as specified in the duties and responsibilities attached hereto.
The Code will remain 3721. The Grade
shall be GS 15. (Attachment) [Human Resources,
Terry A. Bond, (915) 541-4509]
Mr. Rubalcaba’s questions
had to do with the discrepancies in salaries for folks in this department and
about his concerns with how City staff is shifted around. “Why,” he asked the Mayor and Council, would
the City not, in fact, “be paying all of these hours at a better rate for doing
the exact same job.”
He told the Mayor and
Council that he had met with Terry Bond, the Director of Human Resources. “Wages have become a big thing in this City,
it even affects the Mayor and City Council, and as we saw last week,” he said,
referring to the hiring of the new Assistant City Manager, “wages were
questioned on the highest rate, which most City employees never see the highest
rate; we always start at the lowest rate and yet last week there was a position
that started at the…”
Mr. Rubalcaba was not
allowed to finish because at that moment, an irritated Joe Wardy interrupted
him and asked, “What’s your point?”
Rubalcaba said he wanted to
know why these discrepancies happen and why City employees (unlike Wardy’s
hand-picked yes men and women) aren’t being adequately compensated.
Wardy
said he should talk to Terry Bond or Joyce Wilson, not him.
A relentless Rubalcaba
responded politely, “It always seems like when we start talking about
employees’ salaries, Mayor, you don’t want to talk about it.”
He
was absolutely right.
Wardy angrily said, “We have
6,200 employees in the City. I don’t
think it’s prudent at City Council meetings to discuss individual compensation
levels. I am very concerned about the
level of compensation of City employees from the highest paid to the lowest
paid. It’s just that in the interest of
staying on the agenda and the items we are gonna discuss here, I’m sure Ms.
Bond would explain to you our concepts for compensation in the City. This isn’t the place to do it today.”
No, Joe, it’s never the
place, it’s never the time, and it’s never the right agenda item.
And regarding Wardy’s
“concepts for compensation in the City,” I’d say that if you’re with the Wardy
team (e.g. Lisa Elizondo, Jabba/Jim Martinez, Terry Cullen-Garney and others)
then you’ll be generously compensated.
In fact, all sorts of rules will be bent in order to accommodate
you. If you’re not with the team (e.g.
everyone else, especially civil service employees), then sorry, maybe you
should look for a part-time night job.
That was exactly John Cook’s point last week when he opposed hiring CFO
Bill Chapman’s replacement at a higher-than-usual salary with a
higher-than-others grade.
Once Mr. Rubalcaba had been
adequately bullied from the pulpit (and yes, folks, that undercover cop was
again hovering right behind him, ready to pounce on Wardy’s signal), the item
was approved unanimously.
More Outsourcing of Legal Work?
After a very lengthy
executive session (one that lasted about an hour and a half), here’s how these
two interesting items were voted on:
18A. Asarco v. TCEQ, In the 261st
District Court, Travis County, Texas; Cause No. GN401709 (551.071) [City
Attorney's Office, James A. Martinez, (915) 541-4550
18B. ASARCO Incorporated Air Quality
Permit No. 20345; TCEQ, Docket No. 2004-0049-AIR (551.071) [City Attorney's Office, James A. Martinez,
(915) 541-4550]
Cobos, reading
an absolutely confusing motion dictated by Jabba/Jimbo himself, clearly
couldn’t understand how the motion should have read. He asked for help and Martinez had to read Council’s motion for
Council, and it was “That the City Attorney be authorized to negotiate and sign
a retention agreement with outside counsel for representation of the City of El
Paso in the case styled as ASARCO Inc. Air Quality Permit [item 18B]; further
moved that the City’s outside counsel be authorized to appear in the foregoing
cause and seek the results sought by City Council and as directed by City
Council.”
The motion passed unanimously.
Wait a
minute. Hold the phone! I thought we were paying through the nose
for Jimbo’s jumbo salary so that he could handle all our litigation. Wasn’t this Lisa Elizondo’s rationale for
paying Jimbo (now an Assistant City Attorney) more than we are paying his boss
– the City Attorney. Why on earth are
we paying the self-proclaimed “superstar” litigator such a huge salary if not
to be in charge of the trial work? Now
we have to farm out the trial work again? Wonder what our tab is now. Sheesh!
(Maybe it’s just me…maybe my dictionary has a different definition for
“superstar” and “economic development.
Right. Note to self: purchase better dictionary.)
Signs, Signs, Everywhere There’s Signs
As I mentioned at the
beginning of my column, my friends, this week’s meeting was thankfully very
short and remarkably uneventful.
Because of this and because the Times
released a series of interesting and telling polls this week, I’d like to
extend my column beyond the usual discussion of City business.
The first poll I’d like to
discuss was about the media, and whether or not there is a bias: http://www.borderlandnews.com/stories/borderland/20041112-193503.shtml.
In
that poll, 63% of folks believe that local media try to report without bias.
Hmmm. I found that number remarkably high. Remember the Channel 7/Miriam Garcia/Joe
Wardy connection and conflict of interest that Anthony Martinez uncovered when
he ran Newspaper Tree (http://www.newspapertree.com/newsletter.ssd?section=feature&c=2c5fac17515343c4
and http://www.newspapertree.com/newsletter.ssd?section=feature&c=37d4dd3872b24898)?
And let’s not forget all the
issues covered by your friend Sid and Anthony Martinez of NPT that the Times either failed to cover with any
depth or failed to cover at all:
And that’s just the tip of
the iceberg, folks, because there are just too many stories to mention. Maybe I’ll do an end-of-the-year wrap-up so
we can get a true assessment of the harm caused by our only local daily’s
apparent lack of interest in reporting stories unfavorable to Wardy & Co.
and their all too keen interest in making an utter mediocrity seem like a
savior.
So what does that poll tell
us? It tells us that because folks
don’t know about what the Times isn’t
reporting, they think everything’s okay in Wardyland (and in LisaWorld, the
rich yet delightfully tacky suburb just outside Wardyland). What you don’t know won’t hurt them, and
then they can gleefully pat themselves on the back and talk about how trusted
they all are.
The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse
Another
very interesting poll was about taxes and elected officials.
In the Times article, 64% of El Pasoans believe that their officials
participate in cronyism and corruption.
That’s interesting…imagine those numbers if folks knew everything you
and I know! (Imagine what those numbers
would be if we had real investigative reporters in El Paso. That’s a thought that should make Wardy
& Co. shudder.)
Here’s what Wardy told the Times in response to that number:
"’Some people still
think of the old-fashioned political cronyism as being alive, and it's really
not,’ the mayor said. ‘I think there's very little of it anymore.’” (http://www.borderlandnews.com/stories/borderland/20041107-191376.shtml)
I now not only have an irony
meter for Wardy & Co., but I decided to invest in a mendacity meter. And believe me, when I read these Wardy
pronouncements, the needle was so far in the red zone that the crystal cracked!
While it’s clear that Wardy
admits there’s still a little of it around, with all due respect to the mayor
(that’s a vanishingly small value, by the way) I’d beg to differ. Cronyism and corruption are not only alive
and well, but under the Wardy administration, they’re thriving! And they’ve never been so open about so much
of it. Maybe when Wardy says “there’s
very little” cronyism, he means the hidden cronyism.
I’ve been writing about this
Mayor and Council for over a year and most of you have been reading my columns
during that entire time. You know and I
know that this is probably the most corrupt administration we’ve had in the
last decade.
The folks really running the
show and pulling the strings are Luther Jones, Martie Jobe (remember, not only
does she fund and help control Wardy, but she also recently defended him when
he was slapped with an ethics violation), Bobby Bowling and David Escobar.
Whom
do they own?
They own Joe Wardy, Anthony
Cobos, Robert Cushing, and Alexandro Lozano, the guys I affectionately call The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse.
These guys will bend over
backwards to accommodate their patrónes: That means obliterating fair competition
and, in general, doing anything (even if it means ignoring Civil Service rules,
the municipal code, the municipal charter, State law, and possibly federal law
to boot) to ensure that they get what they want. They combine ignorance, incompetence, self-interest,
self-dealing, and a general contempt for ethics and the law.
If these people run for
re-election, the community should rise up and say “Ya basta!” Truly, my friends, isn’t
enough…well…enough? The City and our
tax dollars are not there for their personal power trips and the private gain
of their puppeteers. We need to reclaim
our government and we cannot and should not rest until they are ousted and
replaced with ethical and responsible individuals whose primary concern is with
El Paso as a whole rather than a few fat cats.
The Ousting Factor
Speaking of ridding
ourselves of the cronyism, the other story related to this was about Wardy and
his poll numbers:
http://www.borderlandnews.com/stories/borderland/20041110-192415.shtml
While his approval rating is
still healthy, it is slowly but surely eroding. Unfortunately, this somewhat healthy approval rating is a
byproduct of the fact that most folks don’t know what the heck is going
on. One guy in the article credited
Wardy for our “2nd safest City” designation (something Wardy had
absolutely nothing to do with) and another person said she liked him because
he’s “down to earth.”
How
sad is it that this is the ruler he’s measured by?
There is plenty of good news
in this poll, though, and in what those two random El Pasoans have to say about
Wardy.
Now let’s examine what the El Paso Times editorial board had to say
about the polls regarding our elected officials:
“If citizens are unhappy with their government officials -- and that's
what's basically indicated here -- then they must change that by increasing
their own participation in government. The main way to do that, of course, is
to get out and vote when elections roll around. If you don't like the way
commissioners or City Council reps have used your tax money, vote them out. If
you don't like the leadership of the mayor or county judge, replace them.
And while doing that, it's important to replace them with people who will be responsive and responsible.” http://www.borderlandnews.com/stories/opinion/ourviews/20041109-192082.shtml
They’re absolutely
correct. But what about the newspaper’s
responsibility? I don’t see the Times saying anywhere in that editorial
that they have a responsibility to keep the public informed about all the
shenanigans going on in the Wardy administration. The public has a right to know about all of it, as unsavory as it
is, and the Times has failed
miserably in its responsibility to uncover it.
And what is our
responsibility as citizens in the absence of a hard-working media? We still have a duty to find out what’s
happening, to hold folks accountable, and once we are armed with information we
should inform the world. And when good
candidates run, we must help them. And
we need to say to the four horsemen and their cronies, in a voice that can’t be
ignored, “Ya basta!”
Until next week.
Comments or questions: shmaven@yahoo.com
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