"I began to realize how much direct influence the city government has in our daily lives, and how important it is to be involved and informed about what is going on in the city . . . "
Note: Growing cities have to pay for their growth somehow, most often through property tax increases. Wimberley, just like Kyle, has a boatload of projects floating in the wings. Here's an early prediction that the next Wimberley city council will VOTE IN an ad valorem property tax, especially if that much-ballyhooed central sewage system project & loan is approved by the state. It's amazing how some current members of the council, and candidates, are so totally whimsical about the inevitability of a Wimberley city property tax. My my, how things change.
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Do City Council elections really matter?
Published in the Kyle-Buda Eagle March 17 edition
Dear Editor,
In the upcoming Kyle City elections in May there is only one contested race, it is for seat one on the City Council.
Why does it matter who you vote for? Just two years ago the property tax rate here in Kyle was 27.07-cents per $100 of assessed value, today we are at 42 cents, a 55-percent increase and with the current debts, along with the projects we are committed to, it will go up to 53-cents by next year. If we include the proposed rec center it will go up to almost 60-cents. A possible 122-percent increase in taxes over a 3-4 year period of time.
This is a direct result of the people that have been voted into office by the few hundred citizens that voted in the city elections. I realize that city politics are generally uninteresting to people going about their daily lives. I must admit with the exception of the last two city elections I had been uninformed and uninterested in what was going on in the city government. After attending a few city council meetings I began to realize how much direct influence the city government has in our daily lives, and how important it is to be involved and informed about what is going on in the city.
This is why I decided to run for city council. I encourage everybody in Kyle to get informed about the upcoming election, find the candidate you like and agree with and get out and vote, it will effect directly what your taxes are going to do over the next several years.
— Jason Welch, Candidate for District 1 Kyle City Council
14 comments:
Gee, I wish everybody had the same perspective with regards to state and federal politics. If you think that the local politics directly affects your lives, you are only seeing the tail of the elephant. The rest of the elephant is the tax monster that is a derivative of the state and federal mandates levied against local municipalities requiring them to do certain things.
The feds just finished adopting a new entitlement program that will come with NEW mandates that will drive up the taxes that it will take to support those that will directly benefit from the new entitlements. It is not a matter of justice, as will be the likely comeback, it is a matter of economics, and whether or not those who don't have something can make someone else pay for them to get it. When this is carried to its illogical conclusion, it will arrive at the point of determining just what can the feds make us buy or not buy. (So when will it become the "right" for people to have internet, and cable/satellite television, or a certain amount of food, or a certain type of house that looks like and feels like a rich person's house? Why isn't it fair that the poor have to live in housing that looks and feels like poor housing? It isn't fair.)
Socialism, here we come!
I repeat some comments written after a previous article that are even more relevant here:
We see perennial higher local taxes because "....we continue to elect self-serving downtown business owners to the Wimberley City Council so they can continue to push through business expansion projects that obviously benefit their own pocketbooks. The phony architect guy and the embedded Seven A Ranch Perry clone are perfect examples.
And now we can look forward to either the Pigg or a big Mac. Makes me get indigestion thinking about it."
Also part of a previous discussion, we again find the same old tired "free markets" local businesspeople running for city council who influence voters under the bogus assumption that they are protecting their property and gun rights.
In fact, these local city council politicians are doing nothing more that playing on their voter's conservative fears (and greed) which end up raising property taxes or, worse, create cynicism with the electoral process to the point no one wants to run for city council other than the cabal of same mindless free markets local businessmen.
They end up creating a perpetual loop local oligarchy that rubber stamps crony projects for themselves, their political friends, and their golf or church buddies.
What a scam. And the local Republican "free market" robot citizens continue to think they are appointed by God to run the city.
Now is the time to make a stand. Boycott all the Wimberley City Council related businesses and their crony comrades who are part of this scam.
Let's see. There's a restaurant downtown, a fake architect business, an overpriced bed and breakfast, a trashy cabin and convention business on the river, etc.
You know who they are.
Anonymous 1, forget about trying to distract the smart reader. We're on to you. Let's keep the focus on the big developer tax entitlement program your hard core Republican free market buddies on the council (right under your big nose) want to impose on all us Wimberley residents. Forget you, man. And forget the council if they so much as sneeze a new property tax.
Listen Anonymous. Entitlement programs exist and are growing because you fear mongering socialist birthing paranoids keep allowing the Wall Street greed and corruption to siphon off more and more wealth from the middle class and small businesses who need it to grow or survive.
I am a small business owner and I can tell you it is wrong and immoral when I have to pay $600.00 a month for health insurance with a $1500.00 deductible compared to some big corporation slave who pays $200.00 a month with a $500.00 deductible - for the exact same plan.
That is not free markets, it is corporate lobby money bullshit that you Republican assholes mindlessly tout as the superior American way of life.
I know you and your ilk don't like the "n----r in the White House" but at least he is trying to balance for all Americans the currently imbalanced scales you hateful free markets jerks think is just fine (while all the time you act like victims of affirmative action and labor union prejudice). What a crock!
It is you and your neo-Republican ignorance that is making America a second class country. Screw you and your ignorant white Joe the Plumber nonsense.
While your sons and daughters are playing high school football and cheerleading, our sons and daughters are graduating with honors, learning two languages, and getting scholarships to top universities. We will see who runs the country in a couple decades.
It was good to hear that the CCC will be reopening soon, a good source of sales tax revenue for the city. Does anyone know how the new owners got past the county to get the septic system re-permitted there?
Legal bribes and payoffs, what else.
Hey Angry, I also work for a small business. The only plan we can barely even afford is one with a $5,000.00 deductible. Right off the bat, that puts us all in the poor house if we get seriously hurt or sick.
Every year our premium shoots up. It's a sham and a shame how the insurance companies are robbing small businesses blind.
I'll be celebrating when the Democrats in Congress repeal the insurance industry's anti-trust exemption and busts them good.
If the city passes a property tax they'll be able to hand out infrastructure freebies to developers and afford gold plated health insurance for the staff. Soon after, the mayor will be chauffeured around in a city limousine. Wave to Mayor Flocke, kids, in his brand new limo.
The last Anonymous knows what's going on.
Insurance companies got the free marketers so far up their corporate butts they don't even know the insurance industry's anti-trust exemption is nothing but corporate welfare.
How any small business person can actually believe the Republican Party is looking our for their economic interests is totally incomprehensible.
Turn your anger where it belongs - to the insurance company pimps who own your ass and the Republican party politicians who lie for them.
Back to the subject at hand. I think it would be a mistake to elect someone whose only involvement in their city is having attended a "few" city council meetings. Voters need to be educated and study all the candidates.
I come to this Blog periodically for entertainment and to see just how far liberals will go. The hate for free markets (capitalism) just reeks here. The love of the Nanny State and Federal Entitlements is almost orgasmic. Thank God you people are in a shrinking minority. Come this November, you will see the fruits of your labor, annihilation of the liberal control in Washington. I think the Republicans and like-minded Democrats will rule locally.
Yeah, that would be Republicans and like-minded Democrats who will be living off the fat of the taxpayers money, then flipping our money for their own personal gain. What a team!
Funny, I thought the devastation the so-called free markets Republicans levied on the American economy as a result of the Bush-Vader years is why Obama and the Dems were voted into office in the first place.
As things stand now, Americans are in a no-win situation. The Republicans are totally incompetent to run America in a global economy 21st Century but the Democrats can't get any cooperation as the majority party because the hate, anger and, yes, re-emerging racism of the conservative white population sabotages any positive efforts put forth in a changing economic and cultural landscape.
Conservatives in Texas and the south are simply out of touch with the rest of the world. I would love to think we could allow Texas and the South to separate from the Union.
Unfortunately, for a little while longer anyway, we need the Republican South's cheap labor, undereducated workforce and agricultural produce so most Americans can survive until the new multicultural and intelligent American ruling class can wean ourselves from fossil fuels and can develop sustainable agriculture in the more fertile northern climates.
Then, we adaptable Americans will be able to leave the hate states of the South. At that time, you rednecks can go back to what is left of the remnants of your parched lands and failed education system. You will be able to live happily ever after marrying your cousins, sucking up the polluted coal air and searching through your decaying infrastructure for signs of survival.
Yes, all you have to do to make that happen is to bring back into power the same Republican Party we voted out in 2008. And the way things are looking, that is exactly what you want to do.
Hey, Goober, it is not about free markets capitalism. Of course that is the best economic system for Americans. It is about having an intelligent capitalist system that works for everyone and is not run by the Wall Street crooks who brainwash you conservatives with lies about the American Dream and what it means to be free.
Face it. The Republican Party, as it stands now - local, county, state, or federal - has no idea what a workable egalitarian economy is.
Get smart or get left behind. The past is not the future.
If Wimberley even begins to even consider a property tax, I can sure you that the disincorporation group/s will come alive and will win this time. The support for disincorporation is strengthened by the anti-government forces awakened by the Obama Care disaster. The people have just had enough of all levels of government taking their hard earned money and wasting it.
One of the Wimberley city council candidates is openly supporting a new central wastewater system by saying it's about saving our creeks. Doesn't he realize the few customers the city will force on to the system will not be enough to afford it and keep it operating? The central wastewater system is the elephant (GOP) that will assure a city property tax. Is he telling voters it will also eventually require millions of gallons of (ground)water to operate safely and effectively? The voters need to be told the facts behind all these nice sounding campaign slogans.
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