As you all know by now, the City of El Paso Ethics Commission issued two letters of reprimand to Tommy Gonzalez, the city manager. Both letters were issued on June 3, 2016, two days after the ethics commission held a hearing into the allegations made by Jim Tolbert against Gonzalez. There has been some comment… Read More The Tommy Gonzalez Letters of Reprimand
Last month, on April 8, to be exact, I shared with you the results of my open records request looking into who had lied about the Cathedral High School traffic calming devices. As you might remember, Larry Romero wrote in his response to Ross Fischer’s question about the devices that he had sent Cortney Niland… Read More Did Niland Order the Cathedral High School Calming Devices?
Something politically important happened yesterday at city hall but if you read the El Paso Times you won’t know about it. That is because Bob Moore selectively targets certain politicos, like Larry Romero and certain officials like Tommy Gonzalez, but protects others like Claudia Ordaz. It doesn’t matter what you believe about the Jose Landeros… Read More The Story the El Paso Times Refuses to Report
Yesterday, the City’s Ethics Review Commission met to discuss the Tommy Gonzalez and Larry Romero pending ethics complaints and other complaints that were dismissed by the city attorney. As you likely know by now, the commission and Larry Romero agreed to a finding that Romero violated various ethics rules by having an alleyway on Polk… Read More Barbara Carrasco Files Claudia Ordaz Appeal
As you likely know, Larry Romero submitted his answers to the Ross Fisher questions via facsimile on March 15, 2016. The thing that stands out the most about Romero’s answers is the obvious unwillingness to be specific with his answers. I would argue that his lack of specificity allows him some “wiggle room” in case… Read More The Larry Romero Responses to Ross Fisher
The deception to cover up the $20+ million because of the delay of the bonds continues. In the latest installment, city council spent over four hours in executive session discussing Tommy Gonzalez. As with all cover ups, this latest deception is hidden behind the argument of “personnel matters.” However, as usual, not all is what… Read More The Tommy Gonzalez Deception
(This is the last part of a 5-part series) From the onset, the ballpark process was designed to keep secrets. This was on purpose. The less information we had to work with, the easier it was to label any discord as nothing more than the rantings of the crazies. Without verifiable information it was easy… Read More Peeling the Onion – The Politics of Corruption
(This is part 4 of a 5-part series) Infamously and very smugly, Joyce Wilson referred to those that opposed the ballpark as “crazies.” Every corruption needs an individual to work through the bureaucracy in order for the corruption to succeed. Joyce Wilson was the instrumental tool that navigated the destruction of city hall, the building… Read More Peeling the Onion – The Joyce Wilson Saga
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 you know by now, Larry Romero apparently resigned last Friday. The El Paso Times reported the resignation via Oscar Leeser’s office. According to the newspaper, the resignation is effective last Sunday, February 7, 2016. KFOX and KTSM quoted unnamed sources at the city as the source of the resignation. KVIA was unable to confirm… Read More Ethics Commission Must Continue Investigation Into Larry Romero
As I expected, as soon as Claudia Ordaz got over the shock of the ethics complaint, she went into immediate damage control mode. As an experienced politico who has lived off of taxpayer monies almost from the moment she became an adult, she fully understands that it’s not about the facts but rather the public… Read More Claudia Ordaz Activated Her Public Relations Machine
There has been some recent commentary on the blogosphere in regards to the financial services contract debacle at the city. The commentary centers on the fact that Tommy Gonzalez stopped the process before the contract with First Southwest was cancelled. The notion is that no crime was committed because Gonzalez canceled the process before anyone… Read More The Financial Services Debacle is Actionable
As most of you know, late last year, the El Paso city council contracted Ross Fischer to report on the various issues surrounding the aborted attempt to replace the financial advisors for the city. You also likely know that city council discussed Tommy Gonzalez in executive session yesterday. With all of the controversies surrounding Larry… Read More Outside Investigator Ross Fischer Looking Into Joyce Wilson
As you may have noticed recently, I haven’t been writing much about local El Paso politics. In regards to county issues, the children’s hospital continues to be burden upon the taxpayers. That will not change in the near future and therefore there is nothing more I can add to that dialog. Veronica Escobar and cohorts… Read More City Meetings Every Other Week is a Corruption Tool
When Poisoned Pawns was finalized and Bob Jones and other public officials went to jail, some of the city’s officials proclaimed that corruption had ended in El Paso. But did corruption really end? Let’s look back at 2015 and see what corruption looks like in a corrupt city. January 1. The University Medical Center of… Read More The 25 El Paso Corruption Scandals Of 2015
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
“I am going to Luther Jones you.” That is a comment I frequently hear. It is in reference to the notion that Luther Jones was targeted by certain individuals in the community in order to remove an obstacle to their public agenda. I have previously written about how certain individuals are targeted for scrutiny while… Read More 2015 Cover Up: Luther Jonesing Tommy Gonzalez
It should not be a surprise to anyone that El Paso is facing various scandals at the same time, although they are hard to discern because, typically, the news media uses sensational headlines to grab your attention, thus distracting you from the details. Larry Romero is the de ‘jour flavor but in reality there is… Read More El Paso Scandals 2015
On Monday, KVIA posted an eleven-minute interview with Larry Romero. I believe that this interview is the first time Romero has answered news media questions about the latest controversy surrounding him. The latest controversy is where he failed to disclose his previous business relationship with Estrada Hinojosa while pushing city officials to replace First Southwest… Read More The Larry Romero Affair
I realize that yesterday I wrote about the incompetence of the El Paso Times and that today I am congratulating them for doing what they should be doing – investigating Larry Romero. First let me address the dichotomy of complaining about the El Paso Times’ lack of journalistic ethics and the following day, I am… Read More How Long Before the FBI Investigates Larry Romero?
Many of you are aware that the El Paso Times and KVIA reported on the higher than expected costs the City has paid for the ballpark. According to Maria Garcia’s report on KVIA on November 17, 2015, the city lost $22 million it expected to add to the City’s general fund. This information is more… Read More Did You Notice the Pattern?
I am sure some of you are wondering where I’m going with the last two posts I posted about the global internet network and foreign corrupt practices laws I wrote about recently. One of the things I realized a while back ago is that nothing happens in a vacuum. There are many things, dots, if… Read More Nothing Happens in a Vacuum
When the city of El Paso voted to convert themselves into a city manager type of government, removing the administrative duties from the city council and giving it to a city manager, the proponents celebrated that El Paso was on the verge of moving away from corrupt practices into a city governed by professionals. The… Read More The Failure of the City Manager Form of Government in El Paso
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
All of you who have been following the San Jacinto Park debacle have been made to believe that the contractor on the project is at fault for the delays in the opening of the park. The city has been creating this notion going so far as to state that the contractor is being assessed a… Read More City Negligent on San Jacinto
[This post was edited on October 6, 2015 at 08:46ET to correct errors in John Romero’s name.] There is a saying that makes me laugh every time I hear it because when I finally understood it, I thought I was an English guru. I just thought it for a moment, so calm down grammar police.… Read More If It Stinks It Cannot Be Good
By know you have either had an opportunity to review the text messages or have heard enough about them to get a general feel for their content. Besides the fact that an elected official, Claudia Ordaz, is being coached by a County employee on city public policy, there are many more issues that the community… Read More Here Is What You Need To Know About the Ordaz Texts
As you likely know by now, Ali Razavi aka MaxPowers released some text messages from Claudia Ordaz’ telephone. Yesterday I showed you how Claudia Ordaz used text messages to drive the MPO issue at the city council meeting on July 14, 2015. Today, I am sharing more of the text messages with you. In an… Read More The Claudia Ordaz Text Messages
This is going to be one of those long posts that some of you hate. I can’t help it because there is so much to discuss about Tommy Gonzalez’ pay raise fiasco. Despair not, I’m breaking it up into two sections, I will devote the next seven short paragraphs to the fact that El Paso… Read More El Paso Proves Again How Ass Backwards It Really Is
The more controversial the public agenda item the more the useful idiots expose their agendas in their attempts to control the public perception. The Tommy Gonzalez pay raise issue is one of those controversies that has two useful idiots tripping all over themselves trying very hard to garner attention from the politicians in hopes of… Read More Blogging for Dollars
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
For those of you that still do not believe that El Paso is a scratch my back and I’ll scratch yours kind of town I’m going to offer you another example as proof. As most of you remember, Leila Melendez was Joyce Wilson’s Chief of Staff at the city when Wilson was the city manager.… Read More Scratch My Back and I Will Scratch Yours
As you likely know, Tommy Gonzalez, the city’s City Manager, was awarded a $61,040 pay raise by city council on Tuesday. To write that the community is indignant is an understatement. Universally the distaste in the pay raise is based on how the city council handled the measure, as if that’s a surprise to anyone,… Read More The City Manager Pay Increase
As you know there is some controversy about Tommy Gonzalez’ pay raise. As I was preparing for tomorrow’s blog post by doing some last minute research when I came across a website with Tommy Gonzalez’ picture on it that obviously does not belong there. Upon landing on it my first reaction was, as Landon is… Read More Things That Make You Go What Da!
For some time now I have been hearing rumors that Tommy Gonzalez’ family, especially his wife, are very unhappy in El Paso and want to leave the city. I haven’t mentioned this until now, although it came from multiple sources, because at this point it is nothing more than rumors. However, I found it interesting… Read More Is Tommy Gonzalez’ Wife Happy in El Paso?
Those of you that have been following the American with Disabilities Act (ADA) issues at the City of El Paso knows that the city has been embroiled in ongoing issues between ADA advocates and the city. Several months ago, the city’s ADA advocates had documented several city ADA failures at the weekly public city representatives… Read More ADA Coordinator Abruptly Leaves City
I have been following with amusement the raging online debate about the historical grant issue on social media and other online sites. I also read the El Paso Inc.’s write up by David Crowder, published on Sunday, about the dysfunction at city hall. Add to those two items the ongoing public debate about the San… Read More It is a Lack of Trust
I have written numerous times how there permeates a culture of corruption within El Paso. Most of you are familiar with the numerous government officials that plead guilty or were convicted under the Poisoned Pawns operation by the FBI. I have also tried to explain that corruption is not simply exchanging money for favoritism. Corruption… Read More The Culture of Corruption: Dana Pittard
For years now, I have been writing about how governmental entities, in El Paso, hide their malfeasance using various legal technicalities and public relations disinformation campaigns to keep you from knowing what is really happening. Because government officials actively hide their malfeasance, it is impossible to prove it conclusively. That is until now, thanks to… Read More The City Primer on a Cover Up