Max Grossman sent this in:
The El Paso Times and KTSM are reporting that the City of El Paso wants to raise our property taxes by $0.04, to a total of $0.88 per every $100 of valuation. I have taken the liberty of updating the City’s property tax chart to show what this new increase will look like. The City will have raised our property tax by 33% in only seven years (!!!), far beyond the other local taxing entities. This is in spite of the fact that our population is not only flat, but actually declining. As we know, El Paso has the second highest homestead property tax among the fifty largest cities in the United States–and that is before the proposed tax hike.
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We deserve better
Brutus
elpasospeak 
Welcome to Democrat rule. Spare me the “mayor is a Republican” spiel unless you can point to any conservative principle he has promoted since being in office. Before too long El Paso will be like every other major American city dominated by Democrats and their failed policies. Little Detroit…
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Spare me the Democratic rule spiel. El Paso is not ruled by elected officials. Those with the gold make the rules. El Paso is ruled by a small group of businessmen who are the ones benefitting from the tax spending and the tax breaks and subsidies gifted to them for their deals.
If you don’t like the way things work, run on down to the ballpark built with tax dollars and see if you can get a meeting with Hunt, Foster and friends in the owners’ private skybox. If you succeed, maybe you can explain the concept of free markets to conservative Republicans who demand millions of dollars of taxpayer subsidies for their private projects that they said could not be justified without tens of millions of dollars in tax breaks that have to be made up by the rest of us.
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Did I mention that the Mayor is a Republican?
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And, once again, you’ve got it wrong. Read my lips: Local politics are not anywhere near as partisan as national politics. This city is not being run by Democratic ideals, otherwise we’d have more being done for the people, and less for the rich, fat cats. We are a poor city that is being run into the ground by those rich fat cats, and politics has nothing to do with it!
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Agreed. This is a case of self-serving big donors and a city that votes predictably for well-publicized inexperienced candidates promising free stuff.
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John, the Democrats ideal is to use government “to fix” whatever they think is important. Seems like El Paso is fully aligned with these ideas. You’re delusional if you don’t think that Democrats nationally don’t favor fat cats.
Your elected Dems like to go to parties with rich people and Hollywood. Trust me, that’s who feeding them ideas. The Clintons and the Obamas didn’t get rich by caring for the poor.
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that’s called equivocation. you defend republicans screwing us because dems do it, too. no wonder taxpayers get screwed. both sides are laughing because they have us all arguing among ourselves while they do whatever they want at our expense. we’re all wrapped up in trying to win arguments, while fat cats and politicians are focused on the big picture —- taking our money.
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Equivocation, big word … simplistic thinking.
Just because I criticize Dems don’t assume that I love R’s. They screw us too … absolutely.
My critique is of Dungan. That fool actually believes that the Dems have ideals.
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I’d be curious to know how much of this is due to the bond issues.
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Our financial mess is due to economic incentives, 380 degree agreements, turning over our land to developers, Municipal Management Districts (look it up), Smart Code which requires no bid “master developers” and other give aways of our money and land. If there are any dems on city council I can only point to one who keeps voting against the give-away of public money. The rest I have no idea about their politics except it’s bad for El Paso. With the state now setting a cap on property tax rates we are destined for a very bad fall very quickly. Look for the CM to find another job outside of Texas.
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I predict the CM will move to the private sector with help from the people whose bidding he has been doing.
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You do realize voters voted in 2012 to tax themselves to pay for the QOL Bond Projects?
You do realize voters voted in 2015 to approve the firefighters referendum?
Both of those votes were made with the expectation taxes would be increased to pay for them not to slash all services and departments…
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Actually, just as is being done with this new proposed bond issue, voters were told the Q of L bond issue would help hold the line on taxes by funding big projects along with road repair. We also told having this stuff would attract businesses and longer term that would lower our tax rate. Those of us who pointed out debt service costs and operating costs would substantially raise taxes were called crazies. So no, the bulk of the folks who voted yes on these projects had no idea about the raised taxes. On top of that voters voted for a specific amount of money, not an endless stream of COs and raids on the general fund to pay for the cavier pipe dreams of hick politicians who visit big cities, see something that was built they like and want to copy that here even though the bond issue numbers don’t cover that scale of project. And, the folks who voted yes are also shocked that they have to pay for using this stuff, so our politicians often subsidize operating costs which adds to the tax burden. Now they are trying to convince us this billion dollar bond will actually pay for police, fire and roads. My guess is what it will really pay for is the arena and cost overruns on projects yet to be built, plus some road repair, a couple of police cars and a fire truck or two. The the 2012 bond issue was supposed to pay for road repair. Our city has a track record of telling voters what they want to hear to get bond issues and then dancing to the tune of big donors when the bond issue passes. None of the bond issue promises relative to business attraction, tax rate stabilization or actual costs have been kept. All the bond issue has done is created a pump and dump situation downtown enabling REIT investors to flip their properties at a profit. We need to face the reality that the freeway construction will impact tourism for years to come and start pulling the plug on some of this. I-10 disconnect isn’t just road resurfacing. They are going to be replacing the highway bed, changing the downtown exit system and raising the height on the bridges to bring them in compliance with current highway codes. That is a massive amount of construction that will snarl traffic downtown for years.
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The hick politicians as you call them are just doing what a few wealthy businessmen tell them to do. The politicians somehow think that by toting water for the wealthy they will be allowed in the club.
I don’t buy your pump and dump statement because most of the downtown properties have been transferred to other local owners. That should worry you even more because the new owners also have clout and are going to be pushing for even more spending to support downtown.
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The fact that REIT is dissolving this year after most properties just changed hands locally suggests the pump (unaffordable public projects downtown) and dump didn’t achieve its objectives of attracting outside investment.
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BRUTUS: Thanks for posting, plus following this interesting item. Especially in light of this corresponding article in El Paso Inc, “November ballot may include largest ever El Paso bond.”
Wonder if that new Texas Legislature passed initiative creating a 3.5 percent tax roll back trigger, has got the city ‘jumping through their ass’ to fund all these items, the city likes to ‘fashionable say’ voters deserve?
If it is, that means local voters will get to vote on the issue. Recently hasn’t it become fashionable for one or two of your posters to ask ‘what is the solution?’ Well here seems to be a voter solution.
And thank you for earlier in the year posting internet links to those elected state government officials, allowing your blog readers to provide input on this proposed tax roll back initiative!
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