For many months now, long time readers have been telling me how much they miss my El Paso politics posts. I’ve posted before and told my friends that El Paso politics is just a big “yawn” for me. The truth of the matter is that nothing has changed in the 18 or so years since I started blogging. What is going on today already happened before.
Veronica Escobar is likely going to be El Paso’s newest House Representative. Beto O’Rourke is running for Senate and may pull off a win. Whether O’Rourke wins or not is immaterial because O’Rourke has a long-term strategy and has lots of money to support him. Many readers have heard the rumors of William Sanders, O’Rourke’s father-in-law, grooming Beto O’Rourke for a much higher office. Keep in mind that this is not as far-fetched as some might assume because Sanders has deep national connections and access to very deep pockets. Time will tell.
But in the meantime, El Paso is still mired in controversies. Dee Margo has admitted to using his personal email account to keep you, the public, uninformed about what the government is doing. The City, meanwhile, is looking at how to tax you even more through adding taxes through your utility bills. As an El Paso resident, you only have one place to go to get your utility services. They are owned (water service) by your city government, thus the City is going to charge you twice, for the water and add a tax to the water. Meanwhile, the electric utility, although not owned by the City, already pays, rather you pay, for it being allowed to be your electric provider. Now they are going to tax you on it, as well.
The underlining problem for the city that I’ve been harping on for about a decade now is that the city governments have embarked upon a public policy of taxing taxpayers for playgrounds for the rich under the guise that if you pay to build it, the revenues will come. They are not coming as evidenced by the city’s taxing entities looking to tax you out of your homes.
El Paso voters are still demanding to be heard on land use issues going so far as gathering signatures to hold a vote on land use, only to be rebuffed by the city government. El Paso residents are still under the threat of being evicted from their homes, because their homes happen to be in the way of “progress” or because of the high taxes.
El Paso corruption is still in full swing. Remember the gossip over Bob Jones and his tax fraud? The gossip was all over the place, but the local news media was giving him awards. Today’s Jones are the people the local news media puts on pedestals as “visionaries” for the city. Most are just rumors today, but a few are out in the open. Look at the case of Miratek, an El Paso government contractor. As far back as 2004, Jose Diaz, former CEO of Miratek was defrauding the federal government. In 2017, they were indicted but it wasn’t until June of this year that any news media in El Paso covered the fraud. The fraud cases were covered by news media in other towns, but the local news media, like with Bob Jones, didn’t publish a word until Jones became the poster boy for corruption. The El Paso Inc. coverage of the Miratek fraud wasn’t about the fraud, but rather how the company was “rebuilding” after the guilty plea of the owner.
Let that sink in for a moment, the El Paso Inc. wants you to see how the company is recovering after defrauding, you the taxpayers. Guess who the company hopes to get its money from now? That would be you, the taxpayers. Bob Jones defrauded you and the El Paso Times, and the City gave him awards. Keep a close eye on Miratek and see who does business with them.
As I like to post often, connect-the-dots and you’ll see its not all good for El Paso taxpayers.
Connect the dots with Miratek. Connect the dots with Miguel Fernandez and Transtelco. Connect the dots on, well you get the point.
The sad bottom line is that all of this happened before, and I blogged about it extensively.
I could repost my blogs and just change the names and the relevent facts would remain the same.
For me, it is just boring.
However, I hear you. I’ll write a few posts because El Paso remains the epicenter of national politics on public corruption, immigration and border politics.
But to give you an outlet, I’ve decided to bring back the El Paso Forum. It helped expose a lot of the corruption while it was running. It can help again. It can also give you an outlet to vent about the El Paso politics.
The new platform gives you the ability to post quick hits on El Paso political shenanigans. For those that want to get their feet wet on writing blogs, you can create a blog on the site. Grassroots groups can organize virtual groups as well.
As before, I commit to giving you anonymity on the site so that you do not fear the retaliation El Paso is well known for.
I let a few people know about the forum when I launched it a few days ago so there should be some interesting things on it today.
I promise to leave it up through December. If it doesn’t take off, I’ll just shut it down at the end of the year. If it helps El Paso taxpayers, then I’ll make it a permanent thing.
Click here to go to The El Paso Forum.
