Questions for the Candidates for CEO President of EPWU

In less than an hour, the PSB will convene and then move into Executive Session to interview four candidates for CEO to replace retiring Ed Archuleta.

Read more information about the finalists from Chris Roberts.

Here are the questions I want the candidates for CEO to answer and the PSB should ask:

1. Are you willing to use the 10% of the stormwater fee to purchase natural open space as prioritized by the City’s Open Space Advisory Board rather than funding more (frivolous)park pond projects?
2. How do you see yourself working with the Open Space Advisory Board?
3. In what ways do you see preserving natural open space as a land management and a water conservation strategy for the utility?
4. Recently the State Legislature passed a law disenfranchising thousands of people from voting in the WID#1. Will you work for its repeal?
5. Mr. Archuleta envisioned a water smart home project. How will you help move that project forward and what do you think makes a home water smart?
6. What strategies would you employ to postpone or replace the need to import water from faraway to El Paso? What about recycling and reusing water?
7. Can and should El Paso limit growth and sprawl in the interest of conserving the scarce resource of water?
8. How will you work regionally to conserve water?
9. In what ways is water wasted or overused in our region? What can the EPWU do about it?
10. What are your thoughts about rainwater harvesting? About green infrastructure/low impact development?
11. Will you fight tooth and nail for every inch of land in the PSB inventory against conservationists/environmentalists or will you work with them?
12. What is your leadership style?
13. PSB members often complain that they do not get all of the details and facts before a decision on any matter of great or small value. Are you willing to be more open and transparent with the PSB? With the City? With the people of El Paso?
14. How do you see yourself working with the City Manager, Mayor, Council and City departments especially on issues affecting water management and conservation?
15. What improvements can the City and its departments make regarding water conservation?

And, in case you haven't heard, the TEA Commissioner just announced that he has stripped all power from the EPISD Board of Directors and is appointing a Board of Managers which will include Mr. Ed Archuleta. Elpasonaturally believes that Mr. Archuleta will bring the kind of expertise, experience and wisdom that the City and School District sorely need. His appointment is very good news.

Sen. Shapleigh Announces Next Town Hall to Reform EPISD

Read the court document of charges against Lorenzo Garcia, the disgraced, indicted and convicted ex-Superintendent of the El Paso Independent Public School System. In spite of all we know and all that the El Paso Times has brought out publicly, the EPISD School Board voted unanimously yesterday to direct attorney, Tony Safi, to get clarification from the Texas Attorney General's Office regarding audits and the Texas Open Meetings Act. (EP Times story.) Not just a majority of the board seeks to continue this Nixonian policy of cover-up - but a majority.


The incompetence and seeming complicity of the EPISD Board of Directors is the reason to get behind the reform efforts of former Senator Eliot Shapleigh. Sen. Shapleigh sent out the following email announcing another citizen's event:

Dear Fellow Paseños—

Wow! What a great town hall at Valle Verde! That story by Bowie teacher Pat Padilla on how her students got ‘disappeared’ at EPISD made me really want to do more. So many more teachers, students and parents are now coming out with their stories.

Let’s do our next Town Hall — mark your calendar now -- UTEP on August 2^nd at 5.30 at Union Cinema. Strap on your chanclas—and let’s get going!

Over the last few days, dozens of you have helped on a petition, work on a website and share great ideas about great schools. Let’s first thank all the great students and teachers at EPISD for a job well done. But let’s roll up our sleeves now to un-do the monumental mess Lorenzo Garcia made at our largest district.

If you want a road map to corruption, here is Garcia’s federal information. [Court document link above] When school starts, our job is to stop the corruption, kick out the culprits and restore great education to a great district.

Join me at UTEP, Thursday, August 2^nd at 5.30p at the Union Cinema. Please, send this email to ten of your friends—don’t wait. Do it now. And on August 2^nd give each a call to get them to UTEP.  Better schools start today.

For all of us, for all our children and grandchildren, it’s worth the fight!

Eliot Shapleigh

Proud Paseño  

The sustainability of our City depends on an educated citizenry. Poorly managed, EPISD must be reformed now. Changes must occur now. Transparency must be paramount.