NPT Weekly: Stormwater, Salazar, and Status Quo
NPT Weekly. The best compilation of news, reads, commentary and culture from the Center of North America.
News
Legality of Stormwater Utility Questioned
by David Crowder
One law says a city can set up a second utility, including a drainage utility, under a board of at least seven members, but El Paso’s PSB is set up under a different law that limits the board to five members.
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Asarco Reps Met With TCEQ Commissioners Prior to Decision
by NPT Staff
Invoices filed by Asarco lawyers in the bankruptcy case indicate a meeting with one or more Texas Commission on Environmental Quality commissioners, an apparent violation of state law. The city of El Paso revealed the meetings in a filing this week.
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Capitol Hill Sparks Fly Over Guestworkers
by Kent Paterson
American Immigration Lawyers Association President Kathleen Campbell Walker said adding more visas to the pool was a "no brainer." Speaking about a House judiciary subcommittee, Walker said, the challenge is "to connect the dots between valid labor needs and our immigration laws."
Features
Land-Sailing, Within Range of El Chuco
by Rich Wright
The wind started to blow. The car sailed fast, knots and not miles per hour, but lots of them. I tried to pull a tack into the wind, and the cart got up on two wheels, and then everything happened at once.
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Ruben Salazar, Campechano
by Ken Flynn
Long before his recognition as a Chicano rights advocate during a turbulent time in our history, Ruben was already a hero in El Paso.
Politics
City Revenues Up, But Spending is up More
by David Crowder
What should be great news for City Hall -- increased revenues -- isn’t good enough because the city’s spending is $2.5 million over the $304 million general fund budget.
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District 3 Candidates on the Issues
by David Crowder
The election is important because 4-3 votes are frequent on important matters before City Council and the next representative could strengthen the current majority’s hold on policy matters or even the sides and force Mayor John Cook to break tie votes, defining his position with an election coming up.
Opinion
Byrd on Developing New Communities
by city Rep. Susie Byrd
The schedule and the goals of the subdivision ordinance rewrite, explained in a letter to constituents.
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El Paso Times Editorial Board was Half-Right
by Jaime Abeytia
I realize it’s an editorial piece, but their disappointment should be in the fact that the process wasn’t followed properly, not in a cast of characters that had peripheral influence over the matter at hand.
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News+Paper+Tree=Poli-Ticks
by Kyle Gabbard
More cartoons from the tatooed mind of Kyle.
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El Paso, It Is What It Is, and That's Just Fine
by David Karlsruher
Eventually they'll give up trying to make the rest of us wear khakis and drive "beamers" and retire to their area of town. They'll be happy in their little niche and you'll be happy in yours. And together we'll make up what will always be home, El Paso.
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The Children of El Dorado: Suffering at the Hands of the State?
by James C. Harrington
Imagine what kind of trauma befalls a young child who is rounded up with everyone else and transported en masse to live in Fort Concho national park and then herded off to the city coliseum – all while the state tries to take them away from their mothers.
Culture
"This Play is a Nightmare": Director Chuck Gorden on Macbeth
by Paul Geneson
The show continues Friday and Saturday night, 8 p.m., and Sunday afternoon at 2:30 p.m. in the Wise Family Theater on the UTEP campus.
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Rie Kawakami at Olo Gallery
by Becky Hendrick
Kawakami’s work is surprisingly broad. I say surprising because I witnessed the shaping of the large-scale sculpture and presumed that was her sole project. In fact, her productivity while “in residence” covers much more than steel fabrication.
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Calendar of Events 4.24.08: Chess and Combat
by NPT Staff
Do it.
