City council is about to foist another tax increase on us.
As it is our city owned water utility is being charged $3.55 million per year to use our city owned streets.
The charge is in the form of a franchise fee. That amount gets passed on to the water utility customers.
The city wants still more money from us so they are going to up the franchise fee by almost $3 million next year.
The next thing we know they will be wanting to charge us rent to live in the homes that we own.
By the way I doubt that any of us knows what “INFRASTRCUTRE” is. I guess that’s why this is an estimate.
We deserve better
Brutus
elpasospeak 
They already charge you to live in the home you own. Right now I pay $9250 a year in property taxes. That’s $770 per month to live in my own home. This doesn’t include other “fees” the city puts on services I pay, like waste and water. I paid more in property tax on my home than I did to rent any home I lived in prior to purchasing.
My first apartment was $210 month. My last home rental was $650 per month.
I will not be able to retire in El Paso, the taxes are too high already and too much of my monthly retirement check will be going to pay ridiculous tax rates that return no benefit.
On top of all this is the certainty that El Paso will file bankruptcy at some point in the near future (10 years or less). After that, taxes will still not go down.
Also, people who rent homes are paying about double what they would pay elsewhere, due to high taxes. Landlords/apartment owners don’t absorb these taxes.
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Same here. Over $9K a year in property taxes and my home value went down over $30k according to CAD this year. Thanks to all the tax increases, that decrease in value dropped my taxes by less than a dollar. Why are higher priced homes in nice neighborhoods suddenly losing value? People can’t afford to buy them thanks to property taxes so the market is cooling off. Our tax and spenders are miserable at real economic development so the jobs that fuel upward mobility in the housing market aren’t here and the tax burden is making them a bad investment. And now the city and county are talking about buying the Electric Company because Veronica Escobar sent them a letter warning them that the sale to an investment banking company wouldn’t be a good thing (according to reports from KTSM and KDBC). That will further raise taxes and rates, since they’d have to finance it and grossly overpay to outbid an existing buyer.
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El Taxo and it’s CON Artists, okay, okay POLITICIANS, Public Officials are getting so bad with all their taxing, rip-off schemes, that people in El Taxo will have to start moving to California, New York to get LOWER taxes. Elections, votes do have consequences and until EVERY El Pasoan figures that out, THEY will continue to suffer. GET OUT and vote and DON’T vote YOURSELF a tax INCREASE or maybe YOU like HIGHER taxes?? Just say NO to every Bond, Proposition, proposal that TAKES your hard earned money. The POLITICIANS, Tommy Gonzalez, Juan Cabrera do not CARE. THEY are just stuffing their own pockets and the money that YOU work for is stuffing their pockets, the idle rich of El Taxo. Political, Public Official CORRUPTION is inherent in El Taxo. THINK about the person, the Bond, the BS before YOU vote. And NEVER, ever vote for THEM to TAKE more from YOU.
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No matter who you vote for you get socked. Then, too, who voted for the bonds? Look in the mirror and see your nemesis.
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Jerry, when I look in the mirror I see someone who has voted no for every bond for over 29 years, plus has contacted friends and neighbors to encourage them to vote no. The folks reading this blog with a couple of exceptions aren’t the guys voting for the bonds. The folks voting for the bonds are getting checks funded by taxpayers, who are promised job security, raises or facility improvements as quid pro quo for their votes. And unfortunately, this region’s largest source of jobs is the public sector so that won’t end anytime soon.
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The City’s tactic is not new. Ever since the voters passed a 1/2% sales tax increase to fund public transit the City has found a way to take away some of the money.
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Here’s an idea for a future post. Invite commenters to list the services and expenses local government should cut.
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Maintenance on the bling TXDOT “gave us” on roads, all city funding associated with the ballpark, the bump up in funding for adding crap art to all new construction projects, Tommy G’s waterparks, economic development funding to retail businesses and hotels, the trolley, and activities associated with giving MountainStar a home for their basketball team would be a good start.
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“…list the services and expenses local government should cut.”
Start with bond payments on the stadium and rescind the 2% HOT to make our hotels more affordable. Let it go bankrupt or Hunt and Foster can bail it out.
Stop payments into City retirement funds (that are underfunded anyway) and convert employees’ equity into annuities. Subsequently make annual contributions into employees’ IRA accounts so they are on a level playing field with the private sector that has largely abandoned pensions.
Stop corporate subsidies and giveaways. What, $20MM for Hunt’s new DTEP building? 2,300 acres in NE for Baron Foster in exchange for 10? Tell Great Wolf to join the capitalist economy and pay for their own goddam land.
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