The proposed 2020 city budget has been published. You can see it here.
It shows that they plan to charge our own city water company over $19.8 million dollars in franchise fees.
Actually the $19.8 million will get added to our water bills.
They are charging us to use our own roads and other city property.
Next will we see the fire and police departments getting the same treatment since they both generate some revenue.
The franchise fee is nothing but another tax.
We deserve better
Brutus
elpasospeak 
What we have let those greedy bastards do to our Public Service Board is criminal. And, I still don’t understand how it can be legal to charge franchise fees to public owned entities. I doubt if many people ever take a close look at their water bills, but my last look revealed that I was not paying as much for water as I thought I was. Most of my bill goes to garbage pickup, sewer (which we also already paid for) and the various fees. And, still our streets need repaving all over town!
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I’ll charge my car to park in my garage.
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Politicians in El Taxo are no better than the idiot Democrats that run, RUIN California. They charge US every month for RAIN and maybe it RAINS 2-3 rimes a year. So what happens to that money? So now they will charge US to drive on their broken, unrepaired, UNSAFE streets. These politicians, City “Manager” are RESPONSIBLE, to BLAME for most traffic accidents, deaths, injuries, on El Taxo streets. Unmarked lanes, little to no lighting, no markings, crumbling streets, HOLES that will break an axle, destroy a vehicle. And yet they do nothing. The tax, waste, spend, tax some more just continues in El Taxo.. Why don’t they charge the Illegals, homeless, vagrants to live on the streets???????
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California is in far better shape than El Paso.
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This is not new. This practice started under Larry Francis. He attended a conference and saw other cities were doing this. When he returned, the city charged Sanitation for using the streets. That is hidden in your Solid Waste Management bill.
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It is not a new practice, but it has been expanded greatly with more different fees and fees increases. Once fees are imposed, they never go away.
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