Margo & The Leeser of Two Evils

I have failed my readers. 

I am normally on top of local government and the important issues facing our community - but I haven't been watching the the actual City Council meetings while the issues surrounding the pandemic have been debated. 

But I have since rectified that situation and have been watching the meetings and boy am I glad I started watching them - because they are eye-opening! 

There are several members of council, all allies of the Mayor, that are facilitating Mayor Margo's quest to do absolutely nothing of substance to deal with the pandemic currently facing our community. 

The city representatives you elected that are doing NOTHING to protect us - and doing everything they can to block any efforts to actually protect us are District 4 City Rep Sam Morgan of the Northeast (SIDEBAR: Morgan insists on being called "Doctor" now that he has his Phd. Fair enough, Dr. Do-Nothing it is.), District 5 City Rep Isabel Salcido of the Far Eastside (she insists on trying to call it the upper eastside, I guess because she either thinks its better than the rest of the eastside or she just really likes NYC), District 6 City Rep Claudia Rodriguez (Trump supporter extraordinaire that had booked tickets to what she thought was going to be Trump's second inauguration - womp, womp.) and District 8 City Representative Cissy Lizarraga. 

What do they pretty much all have in common with Mayor Margo?

They are all business owners. 

And so is Oscar Leeser, Margo's opponent. Leeser has pushed forward no policy platform on the virus. He's stayed suspiciously quiet, posting nothing of note during the spike of the pandemic other than a Halloween post. 

So here's the state of our current mayoral choices. The old rich white westside businessman who is currently mayor and doing nothing to protect El Pasoans, or the old rich white westside businessman who is the former mayor who offers no ideas and rather than talk about ideas related to the pandemic (the single most important issue in this campaign), posts Happy Halloween during the spike. 

Our choices for mayor are literally The Leeser of Two Evils. 

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Let me tell you why watching the meetings was eye opening. First, there's no nice way to put it so I'll just rip off the bandaid - Mayor Margo is a grade-A JERK in this meetings. He's short, condescending, arrogant, and combative. On that leadership marker alone he fails. 

He wastes so much time being condescending in this weird borderline obsessive Tupac - Biggie type beef he has going to Mayor Pro-Tem Peter Svarzbein. And you know for an ex football player, business leader, alpha male type of guy, he sure is really sensitive about just about everything Svarzbein says. Seriously, its REALLY obvious he has an issue with Svarzbein. 

And he says a lot of stuff that really comes off anti-Semitic. First, he used the term "gestapo" toward Svarzbein - the only member of council that is Jewish - but then followed up yesterday with this really weird attack about how Svarzbein comes from a "unique environment" which he further dug his whole deeper by saying that was "unfortunate". I don't know what he meant by a "unique environment" but given that previous "gestapo" comment, it sure sounded to me more like Svarzbein, you're a Jew. 

And now, lets get to Margo's team that basically make every vote relating to doing anything that is in the neighborhood of helping protect El Pasoans a 4-4 vote so that he can break the tie vote. 

I don't think he - or they for that matter - have figured out that every single time they do that, those are just negative mailers waiting to happen. 

But more importantly, its bad for El Paso. City Reps Lizarraga, Rodriguez, and Salcido put an item on the agenda to attempt to remove Svarzbein as the Mayor Pro-Tem because they didn't like what he was saying about the City's lack of action in terms of filling its most basic requirement of protecting the community.

Well that item was defeated because none of those geniuses set the item for discussion and action. If there is no "action" part, then there is no need for a vote. If there is no need for a vote - then your agenda item is pointless. 

But Lizarraga and the rest of her allies on council spent well over an hour wasting precious time on that agenda item. They weren't talking about how we can get more PPE to health care workers. They weren't talking about an resolution calling for hospitals to pay frontline healthcare workers hazard pay. They weren't talking about being transparent about clusters so that El Pasoans can make their own choices to keep themselves safe, or anything else to protect El Pasoans or dealing with the pandemic that has El Paso splashed across headlines across the country. 

No - their energy and focus is on Svarzbein being an inconvenience for them because he wants council to actually get off their collective asses and do something about the pandemic. That is political malpractice on their part. 

Its shameful and embarrassing that they are involved in Margo's political dick-measuring contest with Samaniego instead of doing something to protect the people that are counting on them. 

Oh, but you know what City Reps Morgan, Salcido, Rodriguez, and Lizarraga did vote on related to the pandemic - along with their pal the mayor....?

And I'm not making this up ....

They voted to keep titty bars open during the pandemic. 

Your favorite restaurant can't seat you inside, but hey - bust out some singles, pick up some cold ones and and you can make it rain on Diamond, Destiny, Desire, or Passion. 

Seriously, imagine THAT mailer in your mail box when they all run for re-election...

Don't get me wrong, your ol' pal LionStar is no prude by any stretch of the imagination...but seriously, keeping strip clubs open is a priority during the pandemic? I realize some folks are lonely during the cuarentena - but seriously, making sure Jaguars' parking lot is full just seems like a misplaced priority right now.

I know, some of you are reading this saying it can't possibly be true that council would prioritize the Dirty Bird staying open right now. First, if you don't know what the Dirty Bird is, you probably haven't been to too many strip clubs. If you do - you know its outside the city limits, but I'm using it as an example. Here's a news story that actually talks about the strip club issue going before El Paso City Council. 

Oh, and pay special attention to how Hall of Fame stupid my city rep - City Rep Claudia Rodriguez sounds saying there are moms supporting a family that need work. Sorry, but strip clubs are modern day slavery. The ladies are more likely supporting a drug habit than a family and they have a daily quota they have to meet of "rent" that goes to the establishment - which is why they always are trying to get lap dances because they make more money that way. But they can't, because of social distancing. 

Trust me, gentlemen don't patronize those establishments for the sake of social distancing. So the idea that the Pandemic Five made keeping open titty bars a priority is just a completely embarrassing commentary on our city leadership. 

You know who didn't vote to keep strip clubs open and who is trying to get measures in place to protect El Pasoans? The members of council I am usually most critical of. 

Okay, I've been critical of everyone on council. Fair point. But I care about policy more than personality so in this case - City Reps Annello, Hernandez, Svarzbein, and Rivera are acting like rational adults in a pandemic. 

And the mayor keeps breaking ties. 

Órale, rewind for a second!

Lets pull over real quick, put this Chevy in reverse and go back to that cluster data thing. City Manager Tommy Gonzalez touted this "heat map" when Rep Rivera asked about releasing cluster data. Gonzalez's defense was that the city has a heat map showing the general area of where cases are in El Paso. 

Dr. Do-Nothing jumped all over that and started rubbing it in that the NE has very few cases and the eastside is the part of the map that looks like its on fire. Tacky as fuck - especially for a guy in a run-off with plenty of baggage - but point taken. 

I took a picture of it - and as I said - the good doctor is indeed correct, the eastside certainly does look like a neighborhood north of LA that is on fire. 

I'm actually perplexed as to why no one in the business community has raised any hell about the so-called heat map. The heat map actually hurts businesses in their effort to cover for the bad actors. You see, without any context, I can't see a reason why any El Pasoan would want to patronize any establishment north of I-10 from what appears to be around Basset center all the way out to Zaragoza. The whole eastside looks completely unsafe.  Meanwhile you'd think other than Socorro and Horizon, the rest of the county looks like there won't be any planes dumping water on us to put out a fire. 

But the reality is that there is context to the "heat map" that is missing and its hurting business AND putting El Pasoans at risk. That map looks like there is nowhere safe on the eastside. The truth is, there are some businesses doing their best to protect their customers - enforcing social distancing, mask requirements, etc. And there are some businesses that really don't give a damn and are operating like we aren't in the middle of a pandemic. But because of the heat map - all the businesses on the eastside look like they are a total desmadre and are therefore potentially in danger of people saying, screw that - its not safe to be on the eastside, I'll go what I need to do on another side of town!

There are very few instances in an elected officials career that call for genuine, hard-decision leadership. Most of the time the city is dealing with trash collection, filling potholes, cleaning-up parks and other mundane activities. But when you are in the position to show leadership and be decisive - and you fail - people remember it. 

The death toll rose again today. Council didn't take any action to prevent the death toll from climbing in the last couple of weeks. 

But hey, strip clubs are open - amirite?