I got up early this morning, while the rest of the house was asleep, and booted up my laptop, as eager as a kid on Christmas morning.
Yesterday an anonymous commenter on the blog ElPasoSpeak.com had promised that all my questions about the disputed communications between the City and Union Pacific would be revealed in an article in the El Paso Times.
Well, they weren’t. At least not in my anonymized browser version of the online edition.
I put on my slippers and walked down to the newspaper vending machine on the corner. I thought, soon these machines will be as obsolete as phone booths.
I was late to that party. The machine hadn’t been stocked, and the price was still posted at seventy five cents.
Turns out newspaper vending machines are already as obsolete as phone booths.
So I stole the neighbor’s paper.
To no avail. Still no story about the lost emails.
I wrapped the rubber band around it and threw the paper onto the neighbor’s porch.
It’s been four days since District 8 Representative Cortney Niland said the City had emails and recordings of conversations with Union Pacific discussing the acquisition of the rail yard site for the arena. Union Pacific denies that such conversations took place.
We wanna see the emails.
You know damn well they do not exist. Meanwhile, didn’t I see something this morning about the City’s failure to follow through on their previous agreement with Union Pacific arising out of the tear-down-City-Hall-and-build-a-ball-park fiasco? They lied to us about the need for a downtown location. They lied to us about another city trying to get the team. And, apparently, they lied to Union Pacific about what they would do for Union Pacific.
Oh, ye of little faith.
Surely you don’t think that our City Council thinks so little of their constituents that they would spout bald-faced lies to the local media? I’m sure they’re not so brazen as to say that they have evidence that they can’t produce. That would be stupid. Political suicide.
And if one of them were to lie to the public, they couldn’t expect the other eight (counting the Mayor) to stand silently by, unless they were all in on it.
Am I right?
I spoke to Jim Tolbert about this yesterday and expressed my disappointment as a fellow TX Master Naturalist, with his vote. He asked where I would choose to have this arena and expressed anywhere that doesn’t displace humans. What is the urgency to pick a spot? Oh, there’s urgency, he said. Show us the emails and recordings Ms. Nyland is using as an excuse, I retorted. He then stated he was also disappointed in the lack of transperancy where that issue is concerned. Unfortunately I did not have the gumption to harp on anything further with Mr. Tolbert…I wasted an opportunity yesterday. More on that later.