El Paso’s county commissioners just added another $10 to the annual cost of registering a vehicle in El Paso county.
Highest again
The fee in 2014 will be $20, the highest in the state. You can look at this chart to see rates by county in 2013.
We can thank our state senator and our local state representative who serves on the transportation committee for this. They worked to amend house bill 1198 to add El Paso county to the prior list of Cameron, Hidalgo and Webb counties. These lucky four counties are the only ones that can charge their citizens the extra $10 under this bill.
Wrong Again
One of the county commissioners claims that this is a benefit to property owners since some people do not pay property tax. The truth is that if you pay rent your landlord must pay property tax. That tax is passed on to you as part of your rent payment.
The increase in the fee is a tax increase. The county pays for transportation projects now. The over $30 million that the fee increase is expected to raise in the next five years would have otherwise come out of the regular budget.
Not accountable
To make matters even worse, the county intends to turn the money over to the Camino Real Regional Mobility Authority. Remember that in another power grab there are plans to turn control of our international bridges to this group.
This group is composed of appointed citizens. They are not accountable to the voters. Local politicians have found another way to take control of how our money is spent away from the voters and transfer it to a committee that cannot be held accountable by the voters.
According to the city’s web site the duties of the the group are: “…to directly benefit the State of Texas, The City of El Paso, and the traveling public through the improvement of the state’s transportation systems in and around the City of El Paso”.
That mission statement deserves another post at a later time.
We deserve better
Brutus
elpasospeak 
It’s worth noting the order of the beneficiaries:
”…to directly benefit the State of Texas, The City of El Paso, and the traveling public”.
Based on how things are managed and how monies are spent, I think the reference to the City of El Paso is intended to mean the bureaucratic empire and special interests, not the taxpayers.
The city and county are increasingly redirecting money and decision making to certain entities that are controlled by special interests or persons who are proxies for special interests.
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