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Dallas Morning News
reports a proposed 3% city property tax increase on top of a 10%
increase due to appraisal increases on area property.
My home increased a record 38% again this year.
This is a yearly occurrence.
At the continued rate, I will be
taxed out of my home, as I was back in 1995!
This tax increase is
in the midst of record foreclosures, mind numbing
financial market meltdowns and a slump in the housing industry which some
compare to the housing slump in the 1980’s.
The 80's housing slump precipitated the savings and loan scandals of that
era that have no end in sight!
Nowhere in any of the city's figures on what it will
cost the average homeowner is information factoring in
the appraisal increase to our tax bill. This is
the same nonsense the city used when they lobbied the voters on last year's
record bond proposal. At a town meeting last
year (more like a spending fest -“look at all this money we have! Help us
squander it!”), I called this to
the attention of the city’s Chief Financial officer David Cook.
All I got was hems and haws. Only one
city council member expressed any degree of concern on alerting her constituency
of this factor!
The city is untrustworthy. Like a junkie robbing
their loved ones of money for their unbridled spending
habits, city personnel will lie and misrepresent their
way to increased tax moneys to squander.
The city lacks the ability to prioritize its spending,
like placing over-budget suspension bridges and
putting parks over freeways at the expense of basic
issues such as police protection. They
have lied and will lie about the nature of projects
(the Trinity River Toll Road vs a promised and voted on park).
They will continue to ignore voters'
wish to limit property valuations to 5%
per year or the use of eminent domain on condemnation
of private property in favor of developers.
I could rant for hours on the misspending and
court judgments (due to city employee mistakes
and wrongdoing)
that taxpayers must pay for. Our local
governments target
those who are least able to defend themselves and favor
only those with financial ability to take them
to court.
City finances are a tangled mess of needs with no way
of matching funds to them. For example,
it has been suggested the reason why a tollroad
in the Trinity River Park is such an issue for the
city is the monies that had been slated for fixing the
mixmaster were diverted to the over-budget Trinity
River Suspension Bridges.
Any talk of reduced spending comes not at the
expense of fluff projects such as the Trinity Project or the
Woodall Rodgers Lid Park. The misguided persona of the city deem
fluff is more important than such basics
as police protection and infrastructure repair.
Look at Arlington, which needs a special tax to
fight crime as opposed to the realization that basic taxes should cover this
first! The problem is not limited just to Dallas,
but all local governments. No sense of reality
at all.
What we need for is the state government to enact the 5%
valuation cap to prevent the appraisal districts
from gouging us
out of our homes.
We need state government limits on eminent domain use
to controll local politician's ability to seize
our property and give it to developers under the guise of
increasing tax revenue.
We need a petition process that would limit and gain grass roots public
support in any project that falls outside the basic core duties of government.
David W. Tuthill
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