Not in my backyard

August 13, 2017

According to the Times our local housing authority has received a $15 million grant to help with the rebuilding of the old El Paso Natural Gas (blue flame) headquarters.

Word on the street is that the project may not get the go-ahead from the authority.

It seems that putting poor people downtown does not set well with some people involved with the downtown projects.

Maybe they only consider government assistance to be a good thing when people with money receive it.

Of particular interest in this situation is the fact that the building is owned by our local billionaire.

We deserve better

Brutus

4 Comments | City government | Permalink
Posted by Brutus

Worse than credit card debt

August 12, 2017

If you think that the local property tax rates are high, think about the penalties that will be assessed if you are late paying them.

This graphic came from the city’s web page:

Let’s say that the taxes due on your home are $5,000 for the year.

If you are one week late paying the bill you will owe $5,350.

If you cannot pay until December you will owe over $6,200.

In addition the law firm that has been hired to collect past due accounts can charge you up to 20% after four months.

You could end up paying over 43% for being 11 months late.

Yet the city still complains about the high rates the payday loan companies charge.

We deserve better

Brutus

5 Comments | City government, County Government, State Government | Permalink
Posted by Brutus

Sold into slavery

August 11, 2017

Both the city and county are considering raising your taxes 8% this year.

State law allows the voters to trigger a tax rollback election if they go over 8%.

The rollback process requires that 7% of the registered voters sign a properly formatted petition asking for the rollback election.  The signatures cannot be older than 120 days.

Getting to the 7% number would be difficult.

Even with the difficulty, the cowards that are our local elected officials are afraid to go over the 8% and thus give us a chance.  Their fear confirms the belief that they know the voters are unhappy and might rise up and strike them down.

Our state legislature is currently changing the law.  Some think that they may go as low as 4%.

Word on the street is that city council and commissioner’s court want to get their money while they can–before the 8% threshold is lowered.

We deserve better

Brutus

3 Comments | City government, County Government, State Government | Permalink
Posted by Brutus

City hides from the public

August 9, 2017

The city took the “arena” question out of town to an Austin courtroom as Texas law allowed them to do.

While it may have been legal, we don’t think it was fair.  Going to Austin effectively stifled public input.

Now the judge has gone on record thinking the same way:

“I doubted from the beginning whether it was wise, as a city, to come ask a Travis County judge to tell them what they’d done was correct or not”

No kidding

We deserve better

Brutus

 

8 Comments | City government | Permalink
Posted by Brutus

While they’re at it

August 8, 2017

Part of the city’s problem with issuing the $69 million in certificates of obligation is that the debt would place the city over prior council’s mandated limit of 30 cents per hundred dollars of real estate valuation.

The $69 million would put them at 30.4 cents or so depending upon what issuing the bonds really costs.

Don’t worry

Their solution is to raise the rate to 35 cents.

In fact once they do that they figure then can issue another $200 million in debt.

This slide was part of yesterday’s presentation:

We are surprised they did not ask for 40 cents.

We deserve better

Brutus

8 Comments | City government | Permalink
Posted by Brutus

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