Today the El Paso Times published a guest column from City Engineer Sam Rodriguez.
A cursory scan reveals that is word for word identical to the paid advertisement that appeared in the El Paso Inc. yesterday.
Curious, don’t you think?
I reckon that the editors at the El Paso Inc. read the proposed guest column and decided that its message was too overtly political to run as a guest column, two days before a municipal election, and declined to run it. Then, whoever paid for the column, greased the skids.
So who paid for the column?
Do you reckon it was the same people behind the dark money campaign promoting “El Paso’s leaders”?
Then do you reckon that City Engineer Sam Rodriguez is working in concert with those same people?
Do you reckon that a city employee, writing under his official affiliation with the City of El Paso, should be campaigning in a city election?
Do you reckon it should cost him his job?
Dark money no doubt funded the ad. 🙁
Aren’t there city rules about civil servants’ involvement in political campaigns? If not, there should be rules; I don’t think bureaucrats should campaign.
However, I suspect he was pressured into doing this by the city manager and/or mayor Margo, so I think a warning and letter in his HR file is warranted at this point. He has also struck me as the type of person who will do what the bosses order.
How much is this guy paid and if they pushed him out if he refused to pay what are the chances he’d get another job even remotely as well-paid?
How much did said ad cost? For the Powers that Be, whatever it is would just be pocket change. They must be snickering….
And meantime the esteemed editorial board of the Behind The Times cannot even muster up an endorsement in the mayoral contest.
ENOUGH.
Another Lackey for the Powers that Be. Perhaps we can stop with all of the Tax Abatements and Downtown Incentives and spend that hard earned TAX MONEY on the Streets of El Paso. What is this guy’s point, other than shilling for the shysters who run this town? There are so many “wants” and not “needs” that El Paso has spent money on. How many streets would have been paid on all that money that was spent on the now-mothballed trolley? The Chihuahuas? Shameful that the City Engineer “pays” for an ad in El Paso Inc……as you said, he’s obviously overpaid if he’s “paying for–wink, wink” for a 1/2 page ad…..