Update:
8.16.2005
Greetings, friends!
I’ve been watching the budget wrap-ups and Council meetings and simply
had to report in this week. (Plus, the
long-overdue monsoon rains have driven me from my fishing hole, indoors to my
computer.) What else is an out-of-work
fisher. . .person to do but focus on City Council?
Super-Sized Salaries
Folks,
you frequently heard me complain about the amount of money being paid to
attorneys when Lisa Elizondo drove the City Attorney's office into the ground.
I complained because folks were earning more at the City Attorney's
office than they were in the private sector and in other government legal
departments. That is wrong, plain and simple. I also disagreed with the practice because it set the Attorney’s
Office apart from other departments that had professional staff. While I know we need good, solid lawyers in
the City Attorney’s Office, we need this in other areas of government as
well. But you won’t see, for example,
City engineers or planners (who are not department heads) making over $100,000
per year, so I saw it as patently unfair.
I also disagreed with the practice because government lawyers don’t have
to put in the same amount of time as private sector lawyers (they don’t have to
turn in billable hours, for example).
Unfortunately,
I think I see the pattern continuing under Charlie McNabb, and I’d be a
hypocrite if I didn’t mention it. We first saw this when McNabb brought
back Laura Gordon at $150,000 (and yes, while he makes the decisions about his
own staff…really…$150,000 a year?!?).
This week it was the following appointment that was approved with no
discussion:
4. Appointment of John Batoon
as Assistant City Attorney effective August 16, 2005. [City Attorney, Charlie
McNabb, (915) 541-4550] (Attachment )
Mr.
Batoon will be earning $100,000. This, too, struck me. Now, I don’t know what Mr. Batoon’s
experience is and what his value to the City is, and since there was no
discussion and no resume provided as backup, the general public doesn’t know,
either. It would have been nice; maybe
Mr. Batoon is worth $100 K. Maybe he
has a certain expertise that we need to pay for. Maybe that position can’t be filled at a lower salary. I don’t know…and we can’t know because no
one bothered to include something as fundamental as his resume or an
explanation. Pity.
Next
week, Mr. McNabb will be hiring another former City Attorney, Cindy Crosby, at
$83,000, a much more reasonable salary.
I’m sure McNabb is hiring these folks to replace two exiting Assistant
City Attorneys (Lisa Hayes and Michelle Little Locke, both of who were hired by
Elizondo and who are rumored to be starting a new law firm with Elizondo.)
Now,
my friends, I trust McNabb is trying to do the right thing – he’s an honest,
hard-working, ethical professional. And
I also believe in paying people a fair and competitive salary. But we ain’t competing with the private
sector…we simply cannot. And at the
very least, if we’re going to spend this much money – in a starting salary – there should be a public explanation.
Railroading
Good Plans?
The other issue that concerned me was the following:
11D.
Discussion and action on assigning Staff to analyze rail issues (legislation
and funding), to make recommendations to Council on best options for El Paso
and the region, and to actively engage in tri-state and bi-national
conversations about the future of rail in the region.
[Representative Susie Byrd , (915) 541-4416]
Susie
Byrd explained that she had been told that staff had not been engaged in this
issue (because Wardy had removed them from discussions), and she felt that this
administration should indeed be involved.
Mayor
Cook said that the MPO (the Metropolitan Planning Organization) is looking at
the issue and the MPO has regional people, including City staff and a couple of
City Representatives on its board. Lisa Turner was the only member of the
public to comment and asked, "Why does New Mexico want our rail
yards?" and said that the City should fight to keep the rail yards in El
Paso.
I
happen to support moving certain rail yards out of the way (the downtown yards
come to mind), but I agree with Turner to a degree. If we’re going to move forward on this (and I hope we do), I
don’t want to lose everything to New Mexico, and I want to be sure our Council
and City staff is fully engaged on this.
Cook
urged that no action be taken, so no action was taken. I wish action had been taken, especially
because a couple of folks have emailed me to let me know that Robert Cushing
has been meeting with County Commissioner Barbara Perez and City Representative
Eddie Holguin (both of whom are members of the MPO) on this very issue.
You
know how I feel about Robert Cushing, that
spittle-ejecting//woman-beating/dog-disembowling monster and card-carrying
member of the Crony Crew (led by Luther Jones). Now, why Cushing still cares about rail relocation is beyond me,
but I know how this guy operates, and something needs to be in it for him in
order to get involved (think cashola).
Who is paying and why are the questions…once I figure that out (or learn
more) I’ll let you know. Until then,
suffice it to say that Barbara Perez and Eddie Holguin may be LUI (to use Lisa
Turner’s brilliant phrase)—legislating under the influence—of your favorite
ex-Council member and mine, Mr. Spit (not to be confused with Mr.
Split—Alexandro Lozano).
Budget Wrap Up
Once
the City Council meeting was adjourned, Council began a second meeting: Its budget wrap-up.
The
first issue to be taken up was a discussion of the most recent budget changes
recommended by Council. David Almonte
from Financial Services explained that the changes included:
Almonte
also gave a rundown of the important budget-related dates:
August 17:
Notice of the adoption of the budget was published
August 19:
Public notice to adopt the tax rate was posted
August
23: Public hearing for the ordinance on
the tax levy
August 26:
Posting for the adopted budget
August
29: Special City Council meeting to
adopt the budget by resolution August 30:
Adoption of the tax levy and the tax rate
Joyce
Wilson explained that the budget resolution and the tax rate ordinance cannot
be adopted at the same meeting, which is why the special meeting is scheduled
for Monday the 29th at 4:00.
Then it was time for some discussion.
Break it
Down
Eddie
Holguin wanted to know if citizens’ tax bills could be kept the same as last
year’s and both Joyce Wilson and Charlie McNabb had to explain to him that the
City has no control over individual, comprehensive tax bills. In fact, McNabb had to break it down in the
simplest way possible: The City sets
its tax rate on property. The Central
Appraisal District sets the valuations of the property. If property owners’ appraisals went up,
they’d pay more this year in total taxes; if property owners’ appraisals went
down, they’d pay less.
“Sure,”
replied Holguin, “and my concern is because people can’t, people normally can’t
tell what’s going on, you know, and they don’t know anything about the tax rate
or not, and the point that I’ve been trying to make is that all people see is
an increase, I mean they’re not going to know that the rate was kept the same,
they’re just going to know that they’re paying more taxes.”
Charlie
McNabb interjected, “Actually, people do know what the rate is because the
bills show that, and it shows last year’s rate.”
What
a perfect moment. I loved it. I gotta tell you, Eddie Holguin’s rhetoric
about “hidden” taxes has gotten old. No
one, Mr. Holguin, is trying to hide the ball here—except you. McNabb was correct in pointing out to him
that if folks want to know what this year’s rate is, they need only look at
their tax notice. Susie Byrd made the
same point when she told Mr. Holguin at a previous meeting that “Nobody’s
hiding anything; this is a public meeting.”
Holguin,
who finally seemed to get it, said the public would pay more “because of the
valuations of their homes.”
Yes,
you got it mister. And is the City of
El Paso the Central Appraisal District?
No. How else can we make it
clear for you, Mr. Holguin?
Beto
O’Rourke reminded Holguin that the City would be keeping the Maintenance and
Operations (M&O) tax rate the same, and added “It’s gonna be 50.8 cents
which is gonna be lower than last year’s, but because property values went up
we come out even. What we are
increasing is the debt portion...and I think it’s our job to remind our
constituents that was debt that voters agreed to take on in 2000 and 2004. So, I think we can honestly go back to our
constituents and say on the M&O portion, on operations, we kept your taxes
even, and in fact we reduced the rate to keep it effectively even. We are asking you to pay a little bit more
on your debt service side, but you know, remember, you approved that and if you
want these libraries, zoos and parks, um, you gotta pay for them.”
He’s
absolutely correct. The increase O’Rourke was referring to comes out to about
2.3%, which isn’t much when one considers all the projects underway to improve
our community.
Even
Alexandro Lozano agreed and thanked staff for helping stabilize the
budget. Joyce Wilson also reminded
everyone that only 22% of El Pasoans’ tax payments go to the City. The rest—the vast majority—goes to the other
taxing entities: The school districts
(the single biggest portion of the tax bill), the County, Thomason, El Paso
Community College, etc.
There
was a discussion (begun by Representative Byrd) on under-valued commercial
property, and Byrd mentioned that when the larger commercial property owners
aren’t appropriately paying into the tax base, the burden is shifted to other
property owners (like you and me). This
discussion included downtown property, which many (including me) believe is
seriously under-valued.
If I Only
Use Half My Brain, Can I Deduct 50% Off My Income Taxes?
When
Eddie Holguin asked if the downtown property owners are only being taxed on the
property that’s being used, McNabb replied, “Well, you don’t pay per room” (I
chuckled inwardly as McNabb, clearly trying to maintain his patience, made this
point). He then explained to Holguin
how the valuation process works. When
Holguin asked, “Is that fair?” McNabb replied, “It’s the market value, what the
law requires the Appraisal District to do is to determine the market value of
the building. A building that you
cannot rent for whatever reason has a lower market value than a building that
you can show an income stream from that is higher because it’s fully rented.”
At
this point, I asked myself, what’s next, will Eddie ask if he only uses half
his house can he get a tax break? And,
by God, sure enough, Holguin asked, “Do the rules apply to the regular
homeowners, to where if they can only afford to live in two rooms of their
house that they still need to pay taxes on the entire house?”
Really. He
asked that.
Now,
of course, even Eddie Holguin isn’t so stupid as to not know the answer to this
ridiculous question. He’s just
continuing to play the role of the champion of the simple, over-taxed
single-family home owner struggling to make ends meet while those rich, greedy
commercial property owners are getting all the breaks and while his evil peers
on Council want to “tax and spend” us to death.
McNabb
answered Holguin’s absurd question, and said, no, a house isn’t taxed on how
many rooms are used, but noted that the same market value issue that applies to
commercial property owners applies to the owner of a rental home.
Holguin
pretended that he still didn’t get it (or maybe he wasn’t pretending…that’s a
thought), and McNabb had to continue to explain the appraisal rules to
him. It was a painful exercise. Again, I’m assuming here that Holguin really
did get it (otherwise he would be one of the stupidest people ever to sit on
City Council—right up there, or should I say down there, with Luis Sariñana). The point is, Eddie, different rules apply
to commercial property because one way you make money from commercial property
(and from rental residential property) is by renting it. If you buy a residential home to live in,
then it’s not a business enterprise, is it?
Different rules apply.
Finally, Eddie Holguin stopped talking.
Representative
O’Rourke suggested that some commercial property owners “take advantage” of the
appeals process that allows them to get a reduction on their property because
of their inability to rent it out, something that I know for a fact is
happening with the downtown property owners.
Even Presi Ortega said that there are property owners who do not want to
“attract any type of income to their property in order to keep those appraisals
down.” He’s absolutely right. O’Rourke said he’d like to see the City have
a role in that appeals process, and I think that’s a great idea.
Ray
Gilbert was the first person to address Council, and once he spoke, I became
confused. Two weeks ago, Gilbert was
congratulating Council on their budget and even suggested that they didn’t beef
it up as much as they should have. At
this meeting, though, he was calling this the “largest tax increase in
history.” In that increase, he was
including increased electric bills, the increase in garbage collection fees,
the “Plaza Hotel” (he meant Theatre, of course), and called it an “$11 million”
tax increase.
How About
Truth In Ankle-biting?
Now,
folks, you all know how I feel about Gilbert.
He loves throwing Molotov cocktails.
Case in point: During his time
at the podium he stated that the City Council was having the El Paso Electric
Company (as part of the new franchise agreement) increase their charitable
contributions, and that this would be coming from El Paso taxpayers. He knows that’s not true. He was at the meeting where the Electric
Company specifically responded to a question about their charitable giving when
they said—clearly and emphatically—that their giving comes from profits and NOT
from the ratepayer.
But
Gilbert, who loves to pontificate about the need for truth in taxation, has
never been one to let the truth get in the way of what he’s trying to do: Maintain his position as a local
hero/community watchdog. I’m all for
watchdogs…heck, I’m a watchdog (Ruff!)…but the truth (not innuendo or
misinformation) should always be what we dogs pursue. Because Gilbert doesn’t pursue that truth, he has precious little
credibility with me. This dog just
won’t hunt.
At
one point he said, “Let’s not kid the people, let’s be truthful with
them.” Yes, indeed. Let’s.
Gilbert
also claimed that “My problem with the debt levy and with the financial
advisors and the financial people who allowed certain debts to have tremendous
principal payments when they should’ve been stretched out …If we wouldn’t have
had these errors or what I would call the fact that management did not
properly, and this is in the past because these weren’t today, did not properly
supervise our financial advisors and bond counsel, you wouldn’t have this
increase today, you would actually have a decrease.”
Now,
how much truth there is to that statement, I don’t know. But again, because Gilbert has so little
credibility, I can’t believe that there wasn’t some logical, legal explanation
for what the bond counsel did.
When
he was told he had run out of time, he complained about gag orders, not signing
up in time, and then continued with his complaints about the bond counsel.
By
the way, David Almonte, from Financial Services, disputed Gilbert’s
characterization of the facts.
After
one more speaker, Council adjourned the special City Council meeting and budget
wrap-up.
You Can Pay
Me Now or You Can Pay Me Later
Folks,
I don’t like tax increases any more than you do, but I know this one (on the
debt service side) is one we gave ourselves and voted for. And on the Maintenance and Operations side,
I’m with Lisa Turner. She has said
repeatedly that we need to fully fund our services. Representative Susie Byrd said the same thing during one
meeting. When we don’t do that, we
create problems for ourselves in the long run.
What
happened in 2001 was that Mayor Ray Caballero was forced to deal with severe
under-funding occurring over decades that had caused crumbling infrastructure,
declining services, and aging equipment—all because prior elected officials did
not want to increase taxes just a little bit.
The prior elected officials were, frankly, political cowards who were
only too happy to force future City Councils to raise taxes so that they
(Caballero’s predecessors) could get re-elected on a “See, I didn’t raise your
taxes” Eddie-Holguin-type of platform.
I,
for one, would rather have small, incremental tax increases than to be socked
with an enormous tax increase somewhere down the road. But then I’m funny that way.
Anyhow, I’ll keep watching and reporting back to you
on this budget until it’s over.
Today the
City, Tomorrow the County
As I’m sure you’ve
heard…those of us who said Cobos would run for County Judge were correct. He announced informally this week, and will
be announcing formally tomorrow (http://www.kvia.com/Global/story.asp?s=3723364
and http://www.elpasotimes.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=2005508120366). I have also heard that Barbara Perez is
planning on running as is current County Judge Dolores Briones.
In Precinct 2, Betti Flores
has announced she will run for re-election, as will former YISD trustee Robert
Lerma (http://www.elpasotimes.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=2005508130323).
I’ve gotta tell you, folks,
it’s been a delight to watch the solid block of progressive, ethical reps on
City Council. They are hard-working,
they are smart, they are considerate and thoughtful. Their decisions come from a desire to improve the community, and
it shows. And Mayor Cook has been a
good, fair parliamentarian and handles the meetings professionally and
courteously. It’s a change that makes
me proud of our City government.
Now it’s now time to turn
our attention to County Commissioner’s Court.
(Not that we can be complacent about the City—the wolves are always at
the door. It’s just that now we have a
little breathing room.) Folks, with the
very important annexation issues that are about to come up (among other
important issues), we need effective, progressive, ethical leadership at the
County level more than ever. Let’s not
forget what Anthony Cobos is: A Luther
Jones/David Escobar/Bobby Bowling puppet whose good ol’ boy cronyism and
mean-spirited, unethical approach to politics and governance reached hitherto
unknown depths while he sat on City Council.
He’s vowed to knock on thousands of doors, as John Cook did, in order to
beat Briones. And believe me, he’ll do
it. He desperately wants to be in
elective office again—al that power, all those contributions, all those
opportunities to fatten the coffers of his patrones—and his backers will do
everything in their power to get him there.
And Barbara Perez…well,
anyone who meets with Robert Cushing and does his bidding has cashed in her
credibility and needs to go. Period.
Betti Flores is herself a
little Luther gal. Remember this tidbit
from “Lunch with Luther” in the Paseño
Chronicles (from the old NewspaperTree?):
Scruggs plaintively
asked the Court if they were sure they felt "comfortable" ignoring
the legal opinion of County Attorney José Rodríguez in moving forward with the
sale of the land to Catalina. 2
A
week later on December 30, Luther Jones had cocktails with Commissioner Betti
Flores at the K Bar.
Jones
has become one of the most sought after lobbyists in El Paso, a city where
lobbying has yet to be institutionalized or regulated as in other large cities.
And if his current record of wins is any barometer, Jones is probably able to
command quite a large fee for his services. Seems he is cashing in on the old
Texas saying, "You have to dance with the one who brung you." And
he's planning to plant a whole new line up at the County in the March 9th
Democratic Primary to fill up his dance card.
Luther
Jones has a recipe that he has been fine tuning through various small races for
city council and county commissioner - one that he worked to near perfection in
the 2003 municipal election.
Luther Jones' Recipe for Building a Legislative Process Responsive
to His Clients
First,
add the necessary ingredients:
1. Ambitious, but not
particularly savvy or experienced candidate with a nice smile and/or a lovely
wife and willing to bust his/her butt knocking on thousands of doors;
2. Jobe's money and
influence;
3. A business community
hoping to benefit from some "business friendly" contract
opportunities if they drop a bit of cash in the bucket; and
4. An unambitious and
uniquely uncurious news corps.
Now
that we have the ingredients, follow these steps. (Remember timing and
consistency is everything.)
Step 1. Pre-heat the campaign by postering the community with a barrage
of campaign signs and smiling billboards many months before the typical
campaign season. (In most campaigns, material goes up about two months before
the election).
Step 2. Begin a systematic, but consistent, negative attack against the
opponent. Begin first with well placed rumors to influential social networks
and slowly build to a boil using precinct walkers, phone bankers, push polls,
and direct mail pieces. Repeat the attack again and again. Stay on message even
if proven wrong or challenged.
Step 3. Send out a folksy, unsophisticated direct mail piece written by
Jones introducing the candidate as a real El Pasoan anxious to serve and
willing to listen, highlighting and footnoting the dreadful record of the
candidate's opponent and closing with a sincere plea to support the candidate. 3
Step 4. Follow up the first direct mail piece with a full color newspaper
tabloid mailer chock full of smiling photos of the candidate, his wife and some
combination of schoolchildren, elected officials or close family members set
atop a venomous, disingenuous, and dishonest attack against the opponent. 4
Step 5. Best not to be too upfront about the cash inflow and outflow.
Look for creative ways to disguise or temporarily hide the amount of cash being
expended and the amount of money being taken in - and the names of those
backing the candidate. 5
In
this last municipal race, Jones backed and helped coordinate the message of the
campaigns for five candidates who won: Wardy, Rojas, Cushing, Cobos, and
Lozano.
What
links them to Jones is Jobe's money, the glaring similarity of their message
and the medium used to convey the message; and the fact that they all used the
editing services of Gail Mortimer, an old friend of Jones - who lived in
California during the municipal election, but recently moved out North.
A
mayor and four representatives makes for five votes - a majority on council.
Jones' access to and influence over these five votes has built him a reputation
of being able to guarantee political outcomes for clients at City Hall.
Jones
also seems to have considerable pull down at the County if his recent victory
representing Catalina Development Inc. is any indication.
As
mentioned earlier, Commissioner Betti Flores jump-started the special meeting
by making a motion to sell the land to Catalina. Her previous bid for city council
against City Council Representative Rose Rodriguez proved instructive to her in
her later career as a County Commissioner.
In
Flores' first run for political office, she spoke out against Jobe's quarry and
its impact on the health and property values of the surrounding neighborhoods -
even signing onto the neighborhood lawsuit against Jobe Concrete. 6
Flores hammered the point that Rodriguez was silent on the Jobe issue because
of her previous employment with Jones. Rodriguez had been a legal assistant in
Jones' law firm. Flores stumped again and again on the message. "I will be
there to represent the district. I'm not going to be bought and paid for. No
one is going to control me," she told the El Paso Times in 2001. 7
She
was soundly trounced in that election by Rose Rodriguez, an ambitious but not
particularly savvy city council representative willing to bust her butt
knocking on thousands of doors.
Being
an astute student of politics, Flores realized that her Jobe stance and her
campaign message - "no one is going to control me" - was standing in
the way of her political ambitions. She dropped out of the lawsuit and signed
up for Jobe's money, 8
Luther's expertise, and ran for Commissioner's Court the following year.
She won. And she came ready for the dance - she
frequently lunches with Luther.
http://newspapertree.com/view_article.sstg?c=a41cd46b2eee4ef0
I
certainly never forgot about any of this, my friends, and I hope you didn’t
either.
The upcoming County races
are almost as important as the recent City races were. The fact that the powers-that-be no longer
have the same kind of control over City Hall that they had before means they
will be re-doubling their efforts at the County and School Boards. We must be awake for all of this and clean
house at the County. We must recruit,
help, support and fight for good candidates at the County. Sleeping through the County election cycle
is not an option any more, and it is my hope that you will take action in this
election as you did in the municipal races.
I
will continue to watch from every angle I can.
Please do the same.
Until
the next update…
Comments or questions: shmaven@yahoo.com
My commentaries are posted
weekly at http://www.thestrelz.com/shm/shm.htm
Also, if any of my readers would
like to add their own comments or thoughts, they can do that at
http://strelzbacktalk.proboards19.com/index.cgi?board=shm