(This post was edited on April 8, 2017 at 12:30ET [10:30EP to correct an error I made in regards to Alexsandra Annello, please read below for more information ) Some of you have let me know that you are upset with my lack of coverage of last Saturday’s El Paso municipal elections. The reason I… Read More The May 2017 Election – Nothing Changed
The upcoming May 2017 municipal elections include the same political characters and the same challengers mounting an unwinnable race. This is because at the core of El Paso remains an unpleasant truth about the electorate that few realize and no one knows how to fix. It is an electorate that votes themselves a paycheck while… Read More The Electorate of El Paso 2017
It seems that some readers of the blog are wondering if I am going to go back to writing about El Paso politics. My interest has always been about border politics, of which El Paso plays a major role. I started commenting about border politics because of the general notion that México is corrupt and… Read More El Paso Politics
As you very likely know, Emma Acosta is running for mayor. And typically El Paso, there is the stench of corruption in the upcoming election. Acosta has been posturing for the mayoralship ever since she became a city council representative. Acosta used to be the Solid Waste Department head for the City of El Paso until… Read More Emma Acosta Wants to be Mayor
As I posted yesterday, many readers are concerned about two specific topics. The first is that I have been blogging about Donald Trump. The second is that some readers feel like I have been ignoring the arena issue. Yesterday I addressed the Donald Trump controversy. Today, I’d like to address the proposed arena. Yes, I… Read More The El Paso Arena and Why Have Waited So Long to Write About It
Typical El Paso politicians, the discussion item posted by Emma Acosta asking to limit access to open records requests turned into a comedy of backtracking and cover your behind for a politician looking to run for the mayoralship soon. In a professional environment, Acosta’s item would never had made it onto the agenda. Even if… Read More The Politics of Corruption and Open Records Rhetoric
As you may or may not know, Emma Acosta has put an item on tomorrow’s city council agenda asking for discussion and action limiting the release of open records under the Texas Public Information Act to individuals that have been convicted or pleaded guilty to crimes involving moral turpitude. We all know that this measure… Read More Emma Acosta Utterly Wrong
The City released a copy of Tommy Gonzalez’ answers to the questions asked of him by the investigator looking into how Gonzalez and Larry Romero handled the financial advisor and other issues. In the case of the financial advisor debacle, there are two major issues that need to be addressed. The first is whether Larry… Read More Tommy Gonzalez Answers and the El Paso Times $20 million Bias
Riddle me this, the El Paso Times has reported numerous times that Larry Romero has resigned. The paper has even published the affirmative assertion that Larry Romero resigned “effective Sunday.” KVIA, for its part, initially stated that Larry Romero had resigned referencing the El Paso Times as its source. KVIA followed up its initial report… Read More Riddle Me This About the Supposed Resignation
As I wrote yesterday, if you are not looking closely you might be missing the ongoing cover up being perpetuated against you by some city officials. The most important scandal, the $22 million, is cleverly being hidden behind the “Luther Jonesing” of Larry Romero and of Tommy Gonzalez. “Luther Jonesing,” as I am using it… Read More The 2015 Cover Up
[This article was edited on December 3, 2015 at 08:37ET to correct typographical error in the amount of the loss] Thanks to KVIA’s reporting we now know that the city taxpayers have been saddled with a $22 million loss on the sales of the bonds to pay for the ballpark. Yes, I am aware that… Read More The $28 Million Question
As you likely know, an intent to recall Larry Romero was filed on Tuesday, October 20, 2015, at city hall. It really should not come as a surprise to anyone because of the questionable actions taken by Romero in recent days. Recalls are the final action that voters have to make their representatives pay attention… Read More The Case of the Two Larry’s
Tomorrow’s city council agenda has an interesting agenda item up for discussion. In item 18.1, Emma Acosta is asking to have a “discussion and action to initiate policy/ordinance that any Open Records Request (ORR) by a City Representative, all such request(s) must be paid for and that the use of staff time spent in hours… Read More Emma Acosta Wants City Representatives to Pay More for Open Records Requests
City council is scheduled to discuss agenda item number: 19.1 that was postponed last week. The item, “Clarification of ethics rules/ordinances, including clarification on Council’s ability to interact with employees without violating ethics rules” was posted by Michiel Noe. It was originally scheduled for last week’s meeting, immediately after Claudia Ordaz’ emails were made public… Read More City Council Has An Opportunity to Clear Up Issues Today
I have to hand it to Claudia Ordaz. She made a very politically savvy move that politically and personally benefits her. As you know, tomorrow, city council is set to revisit Tommy Gonzalez’s pay raise because Claudia Ordaz put it on the agenda. By putting the item on the agenda, Claudia Ordaz scores some significant… Read More Claudia Ordaz’ Revenge
You might notice that the title of my blog post today does not include “Hispanic,” “Mexican-American” or other designation because the naming of the proposed cultural center is still up in the air. City council, received the first report from the Cultural Center Subcommittee this morning. The presentation was delivered by the chair of the… Read More Cultural Center Update
Yesterday city council made it official; the city’s cultural center is officially an Hispanic Cultural Center. As you might remember, there has been some controversy on whether the 2012 Quality of Life cultural center was the Hispanic cultural center or the Heritage cultural center. The controversy arose because the ballot labelled the cultural center as… Read More The Hispanic Cultural Center
It is a funny thing that the more things change the more they stay the same. Today city council is going to embark on the city’s latest fiasco by appointing a city board to oversee the development of a Latino/Hispanic/Mexican-American/And God Knows What Other Name It’s Going To Get Cultural Center. The conversation is an… Read More The Hispanic Cultural Center Isn’t For Mexicans
Yesterday city council took no action on Ann Morgan Lilly’s request to have the city attorney evaluated by department heads. Ann Morgan Lilly moved to delete the item and it was deleted on a unanimous vote. Before the item was deleted city council members discussed the item. For the political junkies this whole fiasco was… Read More The City Attorney Debacle Meeting Results
As I analyzed the campaign contributions in the Claudia Ordaz race, I wondered how the makeup of the city council would change. As many of you know, I believe there is a public policy agenda being driven by a select group of individuals. I also believe that one of the byproducts of the public policy… Read More Influence Peddling of the Current City Council
It is no secret that I am highly critical of the Veronica Escobar led public policy agenda currently in place. Although Escobar is the “face” of the public policy agenda the reality is that the public policy was put in place by Ray Caballero on the behest of others. No doubt that Foster and Hunt… Read More The Oscar Leeser Political Faction
Yesterday I shared with you that I had filed an open records request asking for the list of attendees of the city’s ballpark luxury box that Lily Limon referenced during her monologue during tuesday’s city council meeting. I received a response from the city late Tuesday night. The city’s policy about the use of the… Read More Misuse of the City’s Ballpark Luxury Box
As some of you might know, tomorrow city council is expected to have a discussion about the use of the city’s baseball luxury box. The item “Discussion and action to review the policies related to the use of the baseball luxury box, with discussion to include list of past attendees and schedule of departments using… Read More Emma Acosta and Lily Limon
Probably in what will go down in history as the shortest city council meeting in history the future of the Lincoln Center is now just a technicality of waiting for the demolition crews to arrive. As much as the advocates of the center wish it not to be so, the fact remains that they were… Read More Lincoln Center Another Step Closer to Destruction
In reviewing the recently released emails I came across an exchange between John Cook and Joyce Wilson where the notion that the process needed to be rushed was questioned by both. I discussed that in yesterday’s post. Today, I focus on an exchange between Emma Acosta and Dan Barrett. This exchange provides an insight on… Read More Where Are Steve Ortega’s Emails and Why Answer Tough Questions Verbally?
As is typical with the local El Paso media, today’s reporting about the ongoing release of emails is incomplete and haphazard leaving the community with incomplete or erroneous information. As I am out of town I rely on the media’s online presence in order to remain informed of the ongoing political shenanigans in El Paso.… Read More Typically the News Media Gets it Wrong Again
