El Paso Politics

There's a great scene at the end of the movie Tombstone where Wyatt is talking to his old friend Doc Holiday on his deathbed. Holiday had just been visited by a Catholic priest, presumably giving him his last rights. Doc Holiday who had led a less than godly life utters a famous line, "It appears my hypocrisy knows no bounds." I wonder how many times a day Max Grossman must do the same thing, or if he even cares how much of a complete hypocrite he has become. Grossman participated in the closed-door meeting that very likely violated the Texas Open Meetings Act (ironically abbreviated TOMA), and yet had the AUDACITY to cry foul on social media about former Mayor John Cook! NOW Grossman cares about gross violations of Texas law? Where was his concern for gross violation of Texas law when he was participating in a meeting that was not open to the public, held in secret, and there was a conscious effort to try to side-step TOMA? Again to quote 90's hip hop artists Onyx, ...

Way to go Chicano activists, you just screwed over the very people you were trying to protect. And that is what you get when you get for allowing yourselves to be used by Max Grossman so he can save what he really cares about, buildings - not people. Walk with me, I'll explain. Grossman got a lot of miles by lying to people about a little ol' lady that was being kicked out of her place because of the location of the proposed arena. He very frequently made it sound like the City of El Paso itself was kicking her out. What really happened was the landowner saw the potential to make money even though he was outside the proposed footprint. The City was already going to help residents within the footprint and the agenda item for the last meeting was all set to expand that assistance to residents outside the footprint. We already know that given the chance the landowners will try to make a profit when and where they can and the arena provides that opportunity. So council participates...

Shout to to KTSM who has been killing it for local television coverage lately. They've done a few really interesting packages lately and last night was no different. Republican Mayoral candidate David Saucedo bombed an interview with a reporter and the story surrounding his involvement with a local non-profit that is allegedly in financial ruin under his watch is probably going to mark the end of his viability for mayor. Which was always far-fetched to begin with considering his Rick Santorum-like voting record. Here's a link to the interview and trust me, you're going to want to watch it over and over because there is just so much awkward hilarity in the video. I haven't seen that much awkwardness in a video since the time City Rep Peter Svarzbein had to go because his mommy was calling him. Let me give you some back story before we go further so that you can fully appreciate the hypocrisy and TERRIBLE PR failure on this one. And let this be a lesson to mayoral candid...

My nation of haters love to call me a thug. I don't know if its the tattoos or the barrio thing or what, but its one of their favorite things to say about me. But you've NEVER heard of me trying to get gangsta with it over politics in a restaurant. So at Thanksgiving everyone advised that we should refrain from talking about the election to avoid a family fight. In El Paso, we apparently have to avoid talking about the arena at Christmas in order to avoid a family fight. (I'm still going to, and I'm going to piss off a lot social justice people. When I laid this out for you hopefully it will teach you a lesson about getting coopted by Grossman) Anywho, KTSM and the Times ran the stories on what happened with the altercation between the Mayor and former City Rep Ann Morgan Lily's husband. You've seen or read the story so I won't bore you with a retelling of the story but a few quick observations. #1 - Never touch another man's wife. That entitles the husb...

Seriously, what in the blue hell is going on with this city council and apparently, alum? This council has become the biggest joke of an elected body in the county - and this is a county that includes both Socorro and Vinton. And this is a council that is even worse than the one that had a member of council allegedly give a hummer in a Hummer! First things first. Jim Tolbert. That is the fastest political fall from grace I can think of this side of Willie Gandara. Straight-up nosedive, face-plant fall from grace. As if the Ruth's Chris Steakkouse Rachel Quintana-esque letter wasn't bad enough... What is frustrating about elected officials is when you find out they are idiots like the rest of us and do and say things they shouldn't. But here is the problem, God love the guy, but what Jim Tolbert did was wrong and completely indefensible. I don't know if it is the Trump-ification of American politics or what, but we have very quickly grown to expect very little out of our...

Republican Mayoral candidate David Saucedo was the President of the Board of Directors of the Boys & Girls Club of El Paso until early October of this year. The organization is now facing serious financial troubles and according to a recent news report, most of it came under Saucedo's watch. Click  this link  to watch the story. Word of problems in the organization surfaced yesterday swirling around the allegation that they weren't able to meet payroll. The situation was apparently so bad and out-of-control that the CFO was let go two weeks ago for financial reasons. Let that marinate for a second. Their financial situation was so bad, that they couldn't afford to pay the person in charge of their finances. As of Monday, the Executive Director Dr. Joseph Villescas was let go and in a statement from the organization the only explanation was that the Boys & Girls Club was "...going in a different direction..." Some would say that is a polite way of saying Vi...

According to an email from the City Attorney, an Ethics Complain has been filed against Mayor Leeser and City Reps Svarzbein, Tolbert, Limon, and Niland. The Ethics Complain was filed by Jud Burgess, the guy from the James No-Bond Facebook campaign. Interestingly that is a guy who is probably open to an Ethics Complain himself for not filing a campaign report properly on the amount of money he spent in his campaign against the EPISD Bond. (Gotta love El Paso politics) The complaint is relating to the closed-door meeting they had with Max Grossman and others regarding the proposed location of the downtown arena. The problem is that the Ethics Commission doesn't have authority of open meetings violations that I am aware of. I think its more of a law enforcement or DA issue and I'm betting it will get kicked out fairly quickly. Stay tuned for more details. (Media, feel free to use the screenshot, but make note of where you got it)