"Looks like a natural arroyo to me"

"Looks like a natural arroyo to me."

"Looks like a natural arroyo to me." Thus spake Richard Shoephoerster, PSB member and Dean of Engineering at the University of Texas at El Paso at the PSB meeting when Ed Archuleta defended the purchase of property referred to as the Johnson Basin. Archuleta tried to justify the purchase using open space money because the land is located near the mountain. (So is the rest of El Paso.) When quizzed by Board member Rick Bonart regarding the cost of the land ($100,000 per acre), Archuleta tried to suggest that it was purchased at $293,000. When pressed about the real cost of $393,000, he said: "I think I've got that spread sheet." No other Board members questioned him about the price, the fact that the purchase was never brought to the Board for approval, a seeming lack of appraisals, and the inane suggestion that once the "facility" (Johnson Basin) is developed, there would be access to the mountain. Really? Sure, walk up a concrete sidewalk along a paved street, Pierce to Alabama - a 4 lane divided road, jaywalk, walk over some more commercial property and, yes, you will come to the entrance of McKelligon Canyon. Or, hop the rock wall onto William Beaumont Property, walk past the old Piedras exit, a retention pond, paved parking lots, hop another wall, trespass through some residential and commercial properties, jaywalk Alabama, etc. The bobbing heads bobbed.


You can see new pictures from Johnson Basin. EPWU is plowing land as fast as it can like the perp in a film noir movie burying the body in the woods.

New sign at Johnson Basin should read: 
"Do Not Take Pictures or Videos of Our Boondoggle or We Will Prosecute"