The City offered up their newly minted Chief Financial Officer to defend our sky high tax rates. Here’s David Crowder
Category: quality of life projects
We’re Number One!
No, not for some made up cost-of-living click bait. For taxes! Property tax rates for industrial properties, to be specific.
The Big Lie
The advocates for the City’s Quality of Life projects pretend that we need ballparks and arenas to spur economic development.
About Those Quality of Life Projects
Advocates of the Quality of Life bonds completely misrepresented the facts before the 2012 elections. They minimized the impact on
Tales From the Morgue
From a May 10, 2012, article in the El Paso Times* written by Cindy Ramirez: The city’s November bond issue
The City’s Filmmaker Program
This from KVIA: The El Paso City Council voted to create a local Filmmaker Program. The city will award $30,000
We’re Number 2! (For Now)
Fort Worth has slightly higher property tax rates than El Paso. For now. According to SmartAsset.com (killer website name), the
Times Change
Lookie here. That chart at the top of this article shows the difference in taxable property values from 1999 to
Naysayers, Malcontents, and Liars
Former City Council Representative and Mayoral Candidate and current member of the board of the Downtown Management District Steve Ortega,
Quality of Life
If you found fifty bucks on the street, what would you do with it? Pay down your credit card debt?
Stuart Blaugrund’s Column in the Times
Stuart Blaugrund “represented a group of Downtown business and property owners who successfully resisted the taking of their properties for
Looking Back
Look at this chart from Interim Director of Municipal Financial Operations Robert Cortinas’ presentation last Tuesday: It shows the growth
Support For the Arena?
Those arena advocates are always quick to point out that the Quality of Life bond measure was supported by over
Retrovision: The Road to Economic Development
This is a lightly edited version of an article that originally appeared on 6 June 2013. Since then, very little
Big Changes at City Hall
Remember when the rationale for all those pricey public amenities was “to shift the property tax burden from residential to
Does This Sound Like El Paso?
From a 2009 El Paso Inc. interview with Woody Hunt: Q. How does corruption impact economic development? If the procurement
Retrovision: An Arena? Really?
This article originally appeared on January 10, 2017. Over the last twenty years, we’ve spent a lot of money on
Ballpark Numbers Updated
An alert reader sent me this spreadsheet which shows the actual numbers for the ballpark. Four years in and we’re
Will Tourism Save Us?
Besides call centers, the City of El Paso’s economic development policy seems to be solely focused on tourism as a
Rent Seeking
From Investopedia.com: What is ‘Rent-Seeking’ Rent-seeking is the use of the resources of a company, an organization or an individual