El Paso Politics

Or ovaries. Whatever fits the situation. I've noticed something I find kinda disturbing lately and its the increase amount of elected officials that won't comment. Look if you're an elected official and under indictment then by all means protect yourself and keep your mouth shut. But if you're an elected official and you don't want to give comment on a vote, position, or an agenda item you freaking posted in the first place, there is something wrong with you and the community should be suspicious of them. In multiple media outlets, on multiple stories, several elected officials primarily at the city level have refused to give comment on stories. You're an elected official. You have a job to do. If you aren't willing to communicate with the public about a vote you took on their behalf, you have a problem. And I don't just mean the whole I-gotta-go-talk-to-my-mommy thing. I'm talking about not wanting to answer questions about issues before the city, c...

Othon Medina, member of the Paso Del Norte Tejano Democrats, is seeking the post as the state Tejano chairman this weekend at their convention. Media has served on a variety of local boards and commissions and has a lot of clout in the local chapter of the organization.  However, he has ruffled more than a few feathers statewide for his confrontational style and many find him difficult to deal with. He caused quite the scene at another convention. Perhaps his biggest obstacle is the fact that he's vying for the job of being chair of the largest Latino-based Democratic auxiliary but has been very critical (publicly) of the first Latino state chairman of the TDP, Chairman Hinojosa. One of Medina's rivals is a man named Joey Cardenas. He's a teacher in San Antonio. Voting is complicated for the Tejano chair. It's based on chapter strength and so the more people your chapter has the more weight their votes will carry. That explains why there has been such a big membership d...

Representative Svarzbein has been having a hard time getting is sea legs since being sworn in after he defeated Al Weisenberger in a run-off election earlier this year. He seems to be so worried about saying something wrong that all of his public statements are a lesson in someone who talks but never says anything. And when he is actually saying something, he appears to be a gaffe-machine. Case in point, yesterday. It was basically a bad day for Svarzbein. First there's an article in the paper about the budget and a tax increase. Svarzbein along with Ordaz and Limón voted against increasing the tax rate. Ordaz said she voted against it because the tax increase was higher than it needed to be. Svarzbein said this: I did a face palm when I read that in the paper. He didn't have much time to review the budget in detail? Wasn't he participating in the budget process since oh I don't know, June??? He basically said he hasn't had time to do the most important part of his ...

After the recent complications at council having to do with a range of issues the El Paso City Council has apparently decided to be responsive to the community. Perhaps because of a rash of complaints having to do with the lack of a public discussion about City Manager Tommy Gonzalez's raise, it looks like council decided to take transparency in government to the next level. Sources indicate city council ordered this display of Tommy Gonzalez's raise to be put on Piedras, again in the interest of being transparent. Now that is responsive government. Sources indicate the raise will be on display until it kicks in on September 1st and the city encourages people to take selfies with it. Well played city council, well played.

Sorry been busy and haven't been able to really sit down and put my thoughts down. I'll try to make this one short and sweet. No matter what strategic rhetoric is being put out there, the community is not happy with the city manager's raise. Members of council can stare in the morning for hours and tell themselves that the community supports it but they don't. Just check any social media comment section of basically any story that was run on the topic. But speaking of public sentiment, the people that spoke in favor of the city manager's raise yesterday were largely staged. There's nothing wrong with that, but lets not pretend it wasn't. The city council offices were getting bombarded with phone calls and emails against the raise and they wanted to give the media an impression that there was wide support for the raise. There isn't. Again, there's nothing wrong with that and Ordaz and Limón probably should've done the same thing. But hey, I give c...

I've got plenty to say about yesterday's city council meeting about how city council doubled-down on stupid and voted for the city manager raise. All you have to do is take a look at the comment section of any of the stories from media outlets about it on Facebook and you will see that the community is overwhelmingly upset about it, which makes yesterday's little staged event during public comment that much more obvious. Some of the people are getting creative about it too. Here's a screen shot I took of one of the comments: When the Straight Outta Compton meme is being used for politics, it means the meme has officially jumped the shark. (Note to self, change profile picture from Straight Otta Compton meme on Facebook) But I wanted to clarify something that Acosta said during the meeting that I think crystalizes what people don't like about council lately. Its the lack of accurate information. Either deliberately or through incompetence. Here's what I mean. Dur...

Sorry vatos and jainas, been a busy couple days at the office and haven't had much chance to blog.  But here's a quick one that made me laugh. It was unintentionally funny. Which makes it funnier. City Rep Svarzbein sent out a press release to the media yesterday and a couple of them sent it to me because they thought it was funny.  Electeds usually send out press releases about a lot of things, especially important events or issues facing the city. So in the midst of questions about transportation and mobility funding, a big pay raise for the city manager, privatizing an entire city department, projects that are over budget and behind... What does Rep Svarzbein send a press release about? What is the big issue of the day his office is tackling on behalf of the fine folks on the west side? The Archie Comic. Well the passing of the author. I bullshit you not. Gotta love the focus on what really matters, Jughead and Veronica! Good to know he never stops thinking about his comic....