You wanna talk about "public trust" do you?

If you read the EP Times you'll see their story on the EPISD board's move to go forward with an audit of Byrd's actions in her dual role a board trustee and Vero's campaign manager.  The only got quotes from Al Velarde.  Al is squarely now on team Vero because he knows the consequences of not being there.  

Velarde thinks the audit would hurt the public's trust...  Some of you want to respond with - "Public trust?  Didn't know had any of that left. Thought we were fresh out of that since 2006."

The general public thinks the arrangement looks bad.  That doesn't mean it is bad.  Remember - there's a difference between "looks bad" and "is bad."  The El Paso Times tends to play the "is bad" card when it benefits Vero's team.  There's zero chance the El Paso Times covers this story if it's a unanimous vote and nobody to quote to protect Byrd.  You got this story so that they could start a narrative that says we shouldn't question our government... because digging for the truth would make people not trust government.... 

Yes, you read that right.  That's the insane narrative they are feeding you.  Just like the time they told you saving children's lives was a bad thing and against the law (speed bumps in front of a school).  That's where you are in El Paso these days. The media is so under the spell of one faction that they will tell you crazy things like up is down, Chico's Tacos is good and traffic on I-10 isn't that bad.  

Do I have to tell you that an audit that sheds light on the activities of an elected official is never a bad thing?   Where's Jaime Abeytia screaming for transparency on this one?  Seems his love of transparency is less than consistent. 

Hopefully y'all will see through this... 

On another note... You have to wonder what the outcome will be.  Do you remember when the big open records request around the ballpark vote happened?  We didn't learn too much from all those emails.  They were mostly just silly.

However, our elected officials learned something.  They learned not to use email.  All conversations went underground.  Even county and city staff stopped using email for anything other than the mundane.  Anything important is delivered by means that can't be tracked by the public.  

So you have to wonder what the outcome will be here.  Will elected officials shy away from being campaign consultants while holding office?  Or will they just figure out a better way to hide their involvement in campaigns?

Comments

[Not a Susie fan]

If Susie Byrd contends there is "no there, there" - then she should not object to an audit. If she's clean - then why worry. Velarde is out of touch with today's political climate. Anytime a group, a citizen wants to know what's going on he should not question it - after all he is very concerned about the public's trust in the EPISD Board. What are they hiding? Be open, be transparent, tell the truth. If you won't - then you (EPISD Board) are hiding something.

[Something to think about....]

Calm down. There isn't much else Al Velarde could say in her defense. It's not like he can say, "We can't do it because it's Susie." Al's answer was feeble.

[Mary]

True. What else could they do?
Byrd's "strategy" so far is worse than Al's feeble reply.

- First Byrd was dismissive.

Byrd claimed that everyone knew she was Escobar's campaign manager because supposedly the EP Times mentioned it, which btw there was no mention.

She also stated she was fine with an audit because there was nothing to find.

I am not sure which is more appalling the arrogance that she thinks everyone "knows" her or the stupidity in thinking that everyone reads the EPT.

Regardless she flipped from ok to not ok on the audit pretty quickly.

- Next Byrd tried to vilify the Board action.

Byrd objected to proceeding with an independent audit because she would not be treated fairly.

Seriously the only bigger bully than Byrd is Escobar and she wants you to believe she is being victimized.

- Now Byrd is trying to mischaracterize an audit as a waste of resources:

Byrd is claiming the District has a $7,000,000 budget gap and that the 10K - 15K cost of the audit is a waste of resources.

Although she does not seem to have a comment or a problem with having the District pay for a mediator to handle the mess she created by targeting Cabrera

[I think I see something]

In El Paso being transparent means looking thru an opaque window

[JerryK]

"We didn't learn too much from all those emails. They were mostly just silly."
------------------------------
We learned what we already knew: that our city doesn't work for us, that the CM effectively downloaded legislation directly from Mountainstar to the Council chamber, that her CFO spun the numbers to match the hype and that we could wait on the bond sale until past the election, a de facto $20MM campaign donation from the taxpayers to Steve (who lost).

That's what we learned. EPISD hasn't learned this yet but might.