Property improvement district approval requirements

March 7, 2018

Someone asked how many property owners have to sign the petition to authorize a property improvement district.

The first step is that the petitioners must define the geographic area that will benefit from the construction.

Then generally “owners of taxable real property representing more than 50 percent of the appraised value of taxable real property liable for assessment under the proposal” need to approve the petition.

It would appear that the big guys could gang up on the little guys.

We deserve better

Brutus

 

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

Putting you in debt

March 6, 2018

City council met Monday, March 5 in one of their “special” meetings.

There were only two agenda items, the second one being:

Presentation on the use of economic development and public infrastructure financing tools, including Tax Increment Reinvestment Zones and Public Improvement Districts.

Many of the readers know what tax increment reinvestment zones are.  What are public improvement districts?

Take a look at this slide that comes from a presentation that council will consider:

Yep.  This would allow the city to spend money in your neighborhood, assess the bill against your property,  and file a lien on your property until the assessment was paid.

We deserve better

Brutus

 

6 Comments | City government | Permalink
Posted by Brutus

Childrens hospital continues to lose money

March 5, 2018

For the three months ended December 2017 our children’s hospital lost $3.466 million dollars.

That comes to $13.86 million on an annual basis.

The money will have to come from the taxpayers.

The new administrator of our county hospital is doing a remarkable job but he was handed a disaster.

We deserve better

Brutus

8 Comments | County Government | Permalink
Posted by Brutus

Andress bond problems

March 4, 2018

It looks like the Andress High School portion of the bond project is in trouble.

The last paragraph talks about the buildings being in a flood plain.

When did the district learn this?

We deserve better

Brutus

5 Comments | El Paso Independent School District | Permalink
Posted by Brutus

Unnecessary hospital building

March 3, 2018

One of the arguments against the construction of a special building costing $120 million for the children’s hospital has not appeared in our local blogs as far as I can tell.

There is little special advantage that rooms in the children’s hospital offer compared to rooms in a regular hospital.  The real contribution the children’s hospital brings is the addition of physicians and other staff that specialize in the treatment of pediatric problems.

If the voters decided that they had need for better medical treatment of children, doctors and staff could have been hired and could have operated out of the existing hospital.  Yes, they might have had to add special treatment rooms and more beds, but we did not need a whole new hospital.

We deserve better

Brutus

 

12 Comments | County Government | Permalink
Posted by Brutus

« Previous Entries
Next Entries »