This came in the other day:
Brutus.
[P] Here is another website you might consider adding to your list — since in this ongoing Texas Legislative Session — legislators will be looking at reducing the property roll back cap trigger down from it’s current trigger level of 8-percent — to a 2-percent trigger cap. See — https://www.gregabbott.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/01/PropertyTaxReform.pdf
[P] Our local legislative delegation members will fight against lowering the cap — and Sunday night on the KVIA TV News Extra program — Senator Rodriguez indicated he is against it. As he goes, the other members of the delegation will follow. In addition, the city, county, UMC and school districthired lobbyists — will also raise objections and fight against any lowering of the cap. The reality is — individual voters’ and property taxpayers — do not have hired lobbyists and others fighting for their interests. Bottom line — that’s where your blog can create an impact!
[P] The 2-percent level is most likely too low — so that cap trigger level may possibly be only a negotiating point — so legislators can compromise at a 4 or 5-percent trigger cap.
[P] Since many of your faithful blog followers’ and creatively blunt posters — are pissed about always rising local property taxes, plus associated stupid spending — here’s a chance for them to get their ‘oars in the water’ — and let those state legislators outside El Paso who are pushing this issue — know there are El Paso voters’ and property taxpayers — who approve, plus appreciate and support their efforts.
———————————— Old Fart.
POST SCRIPT: Since you keep your blog updated each day — with a fresh topic for public thought and discussion — it is certainly better than the stale blogs of David K, Max Powers, Zorro and some of the others. Therefore, it certainly seems you have a daily opportunity — to make your blog an action site — by posting interactive web links as you have just started to do.
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He is of course right.
We need to speak up and let the legislators know how we feel.
We deserve better
Brutus
elpasospeak 
Thanks. This is valuable info.
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It is past time to replace sales tax and home owner taxes with a state income tax.
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In which case, our taxes would continue to go up because politicians would have another bucket. Property taxes never go away—there isn’t a single state that has eliminated property tax in favor of state income tax. Property tax would dip temporarily with a state income tax but then both go up. Shapleigh wanted a state income tax—more money to blow on stuff we don’t need.
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And btw, if sales taxes were eliminated as part of a state income tax trade, our focus on tourism would be even more stupid because the only folks paying tax would be residents. Tourism would not add tax revenue in that scenario. And with no property tax, we’d likely see folks from Juarez invested in EP properties avoid any taxation as well even if they did reside here part-time.
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I would like for my tax dollars to only be used for efforts to LOWER my taxes.
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i would like to channel my episd property tax donation towards my child’s tuition at radford. im sick of paying for other’s kids to attend public(failing) schools but the tuition is over 800 a month for my kid to attend the best school in el paso. the lobbyists will win. taxes will NEVER go down. EVER.
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There are stealth ways to increase revenue outside of property taxes and that is by fees, e.g., added to utility bills, parking, permits, etc.
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Here is the email I sent to our state senator:
Dear Senator Rodriguez,
As you well know, our city administrations at various levels can hardly control themselves when it comes to taking away our hard-earned money and spending it on all sorts of non-beneficial projects as-well-as (and this is important) NOT spending it on the most beneficial and necessary items such as street repairs and maintenance and increased police and fire protection. Our school districts are constantly trying to one-up each other when it comes to building facilities yet fall quite a bit short of the mark on actually producing great education for our youth. Our senior citizens have little protection from these increases in property taxes except to have a fixed exemption regardless of their income which puts their ownership of the home they worked hard for many years to pay off at risk because their fixed income situation isn’t acknowledged by our local taxing entities in most cases.
Just this past year the entire inventory of real estate properties in El Paso went through an appraisal and an average assessment increase of seven to eight percent. The only taxing entity that held the line on taxes and held the line on their annual budget was the county. They actually did what should be done by any branch of government that truly cares about its people and even lowered the rate to offset the increases in assessed value. Our city, however, being the most abusive and careless of all those with the power to tax us went absolutely wild by hitting us with another five percent increase which compounded the amount of tax revenues they took from property owners and especially home owners since currently homeowners are the ones who shoulder seventy percent of the tax burden in our city.
We need someone who is bold enough to fight back and stand by our side in this legislative session and say YES to limiting the rollback rate to two percent as opposed to eight percent where it currently stands. You live in our city and I know that you have not been afraid to stand up to several issues when you knew that what our elected officials were doing was wrong. I hope that all El Pasoans can count on your support to protect our homes by securing a limitation on the amount of taxation that our local governments can’t seem to limit on their own.
Sincerely,
John B. Hogan
Proud, but so far disappointed El Pasoan
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