El Pasoans aren’t getting any younger.
True fact: We’re all either dead or getting older.
(Today in the A Section of the El Paso Times there were three pages of obituaries.)
In El Paso, homeowners 65 years old or older get an additional $10,000 knocked off of their house’s property tax valuation. City Council passed that exemption in 2012, to get the seniors’ support for the QoL bonds. The bond advocates pandered to everyone.
Our aging population is going to knock some more stuffing out of property tax receipts.
The pandemic will take its toll on tax receipts, also. Sure, we’ve got Fort Bliss, and the border security apparatus. Those jobs aren’t going away in a hurry. But the rest of our economy, the private sector, will get hurt.
Bars. Restaurants. Hotels. The pandemic stuck a dagger in the hearts of lots of those businesses.
Retail is seeing a seismic shift. Amazon and the big box stores will do all right, but those little mom-and-pops? Hasta la vista. All those stores that depended on the casual Mexican shopper who can no longer cross the border? Adios.
City government is driving down a road that was designed 20 years ago. A lot has happened in the last 20 years. A lot has happened in the last nine months. Still, City Government is using a map like the one your dad kept in the glove box. Things have changed, and they’re not done changing. The wheel of fate still turns.
You’d think that with this convergence of calamities, City Government might have shown a little fiscal restraint. Au contraire.
From the September 7, 2020, El Paso Inc.:
After nearly two years of design work on the building and exhibits, construction is expected to start soon on what promises to be a magical children’s museum – a project El Paso voters approved in 2012.
All of that has only hastened our eventual, inevitable, bankruptcy. We can’t spend our way to prosperity. We can’t “fake it till we make it” if we never make it, and every year the prospects grow dimmer. They’ll keep stringing us along, promising that the next big spending splurge will finance the boondoggle that will put us over the top.
Tommy don’t care. He’s going to ride out his contract and then retire to Abernathy with his golden parachute. You know, at least Lubbock has a Main Event.
So think about what El Paso will look like in bankruptcy. Higher taxes. Fewer services. Vacant houses, as the old homeowner moves out, and no one moves in
Or maybe you’ll get lucky and die first.
One more time to sing my song…the voters did not approve a children’s museum in 2012, regardless of what the Inc says. They approved a PACKAGE of projects (which included “multipurpose performing arts and entertainment” in the list of facilities to be IMPROVED) and the voters had to approve the entire package to get what individual facility they might be interested in – yes, perhaps a children’s museum, but also museum and library improvements, the digital wall, and the cultural heritage center (now the Mexican American Cultural Center). The clever drafters ensured that this proposition would pass by making it an All or Nothing proposal – and they also cleverly left off the words “sports arena.” Where in this vote was approval for an “arena?” Oh well. Joyce and company will not pay the bill, that’s for sure.
I screamed loudly that, if it wasn’t illegal, it damn well ought to be, to bundle bond issues like that. This is basically another bait and switch technique. If the city is going to underbudget items on bond issues, they should then cancel those issues. Not rocket science but then no one is thinking any of our city council members are rocket scientists. They’re all in it for their own gain.
This Senior Citizen is tired of people always taking the rap for any decrease in property tax revenues: (“In El Paso, homeowners 65 years old or older get an additional $10,000 knocked off of their house’s property tax valuation. City Council passed that exemption in 2012, to get the seniors’ support for the QoL bonds. The bond advocates pandered to everyone.
Our aging population is going to knock some more stuffing out of property tax receipts.”)
Realistically, please keep in mind that we very seldom are going to live in homes that are valued at a quarter of a million dollars, or more. Ours is maybe a hundred grand, so we’d pay less in property taxes anyway. As it is, we save perhaps a few hundred dollars, as opposed to other, richer folks who only pay $750 in a year’s time when taking in millions. That is wrong. We seniors are not to blame for any significant hit on property tax revenue. And, we did NOT vote for these QoL bonds, and we DID oppose the tearing down of a perfectly good City Hall, and the construction (at our expense) of a freaking baseball park!
I meant to say that we seniors are taking of taking the rap. (Why can’t we edit our mistakes here)?
Dayum! Tired of taking the rap!
Don’t you worry, Mr. Dungan. City Council is unlikely to take that exemption away from you, for the same reason they passed it in the first place: Old people vote. I’m not railing against it. I’m just pointing out that tax receipts are likely to decline, and one of the reasons is that we’re getting older.
Those “progressives” were so sure that we were on the brink of an expanding economy that they thought they could afford it. Hubris. Their hubris doomed us.