Do you reckon that the El Paso Independent School District will put mobile voting stations in their high schools the way that the Ysleta ISD did for their $430 million bond election last fall?
EPISD hired (and then fired) the same bond consultants that YISD hired.
Getting those 18-year-olds to vote is a smart move by the EPISD trustees. Those young people don’t care about property taxes. They will likely be moving out of town anyway, to go to college, or to someplace where there’s work. They won’t be paying local property taxes.
And their coaches, and favorite teachers, and counselors and administrators, will probably be happy to persuade those impressionable young minds to support the bond issue. And what the heck? Why should they care? Those graduating students are moving to Austin, or El Lay, or Dallas.
And El Paso will end up with the highest property tax rates in the country. We already have the highest Hotel Occupancy Tax rates in the country.
And we have the third highest property tax rates in the country right now. Our standing will probably rise whether or not the EPISD bonds are approved, with tax raises from the City, and County, and hospital districts, and the Community College.
Not to mention rate increases from all of our utilities.
Taxpayers in El Paso will die the Death of a Thousand Cuts.
People considering a move to El Paso notice things like tax rates. Our elected officials like to pretend that people are stupid. But El Paso not going to improve if we only get stupid people to move here.
And forget attracting businesses. Businesses hire people to look at things like tax rates. New businesses might get a ten year tax abatement, but what do you suppose is going to happen after ten years? Hasta la vista, baby.