Tuesday, 8/25/09 at 730pm, City Council began their meeting (agenda).
The Executive Session/Workshop began at 530p.
Two items on the agenda were designated "Public Hearing"; Item #12 was the proposed '09-'10 budget and Item #13 was the proposed Property Tax increase for the '09-'10 budget.
The room was a standing room only crowd. There were over 100 people that had to stand and then city employees brought out chairs for the outside of city hall for people to sit.
There were plenty of people that had worn their "No New Taxes" white T-Shirts and all ages, men and women proudly displayed their displeasure with City Council's proposed Property Tax increase.
I would estimate that there were over 200 people at the meeting, but I admit, I didn't get a chance to count all of the chairs at the beginning of the meeting to figure out the seating capacity (could someone from the City email me this number?!).
Before the Public Hearing began, Mayor Peters told the room that there was a 60 minute time limit on Item #12 and Item #13 for citizen's comments. She asked for a motion to extend the one hour time block and no City Council member asked for motion to be passed. Mayor Peters explained that each speaker could have up to 5 minutes, but keeping it to the point and taking less than 5 minutes per speaker would allow for more people to speak.
The Public Hearing began and the first citizen to address City Council was a business owner; 'raise taxes and we lose business'.
After each citizen spoke in opposition to the Property Tax increase, there was applause from the crowd. Mayor Peters, repeatedly requested that the applause be kept to a minimum after the speakers or not applaud as a matter of decorum. It was apparent that the applause was irritating a few City Council members, especially Marsha Tunnell and Billy Faught.
Speaker after speaker, citizen after citizen stories were told to the City Council. Stories of how a downturn in the economy has lead to lost jobs, reduced pay and reduced family expenses. Business owners told stories of how the downturn has lead to reducing their staff and cutting expenses. Some tears were shed with some speakers telling their stories of husband's losing jobs and what sacrifices their families had to make over the past year.
There was a shift in the citizen's comments from personal stories of how the economy has hit them, to more focus on what has the City done to trim and cut expenses like the rest of the citizens have had to. The blue signs that have been erected in the city took more than one hit as poor spending as well as the new lit street signs on the traffic lights.
One resident, dedicated his yesterday to read over the 287 page budget to figure out how the city has trimmed expenses to justify a tax increase. He said he couldn't find them.
As the public hearings came to a close, there was anticipation from the room to hear what the City Council members had to say. It seemed fitting that Councilmember Tunnell moved to close discussion on Item #13 as she repeatedly leaned over to ask Mayor Peters to remind the citizens to stop applauding. The allotted time had expired and now, it was time to hear from our elected officials.
Part 2 to follow soon.
Posts
I was at the council meeting last night, and I spoke against the tax rate hike. I was very impressed with the very strong turnout of people and the reason and range of experience they brought to the meeting. I was equally UNimpressed with the majority of councilmembers who seem to think that they represent the various departments of the City instead of representing the people. It seems that only Mayor Peters and Councilmember Franklin are listening to the people on this. And those who want to ignore the voice of the people seem unable to state a logical reason ... tax increases just seem to be a matter of principle to them.
ReplyDeleteSo let's see where we are here. As far as I can tell, we don't have city council member elections until 2011, due to the three year-cycle that our council members enjoy.
I guess that leaves the Home Rule Charter ... the city's constitution. Article 6 of the charter concerns "Legislation by the People: Initiative, Referendum and Recall". While Article 6 precludes initiative power to pass ordinances that repeal taxes, Section 6.01 specifically states "this section shall not be construed to prevent the use of initiative power to place limits on the maximum tax rate of the city."
http://ci.coppell.tx.us/c2/content.nsf/site/2;City%20Council;City%20Charter;;City%20Charter?opendocument
Longer term, I think we the people of Coppell need to elect council members who will vote to amend the Home Rule Charter to allow recall of any council member without specific cause ... currently recall is limited to "incompetency, non-compliance with this charter, misconduct or malfeasance in office." Also in the long term I think we should move back to a two year term or at least stagger the existing terms so that a third of the council comes up for election every year.
Agreed. We need to mount a concerted effort to oust those members who do not understand they are there to represent the people.
ReplyDeleteI attended the council meeting last night with my wife and 5 yr old wearing our No New Taxes shirts. I was encouraged by all of the citizens comments but had to leave at 9pm. If these council members proceed to increase our taxes with arrogant disregard for what we have to say we need to throw the whole bunch out. I breifly went over the 09-10 city budget and saw expenditures that either need calrification or need to be eliminated: $344,000 for a Redlight project (by the way i'm against the Coplights at Sandy Lake/Denton Tapp and Beltline/MacArthur and don't know why we didn't get to vote on that)and we spend over $650,000/yr to fund things like crossing guards for Carrollton & Farmers Branch ISD's??? I agree with other citizen comments to eliminate ridiculous spending like that for parades and "info" signs telling us that we live in Coppell. I'm glad our applause irritated Faught and Tunnell because my wife and are more than irritated by the council members arrogance.
ReplyDeleteI'm with you Jim. By the way, on the subject of the Red Light cameras, I wonder how many fines were paid by people doing a "rolling stop" and then turning right on red? Most accidents in intersections do not involve people turning right on red. This whole thing is a gimmick.
ReplyDeleteLet's give a look at the State Rules on Recall Elections, since in fact the City is a subset of the State and therefore subject to the acts of the legislature. I am not an attorney but not long ago the State allowed for recall elections if the citizens could muster 10% of the registered voters or a total of the number of the voters in the last election. The rules may have changed, just don't know. BUT we only had a few thousand voters in last election, some of this is our own fault. rmk
ReplyDeleteThere's a lot of questions about the recall procedure in the City of Coppell, so here's the official information.
ReplyDeleteReference link: http://www.municode.com/resources/gateway.asp?sid=43&pid=13230
SECTION 6.05 PRESENTATION OF PETITIONS
A. A petition to the City Council for recall containing the signatures of qualified voters equal in number to no fewer than fifteen percent (15%) of the qualified voters on the date of the last regular municipal election shall be presented to the city secretary not later than thirty (30) days following the filing of the affidavit by the petitioners' committee. (Amended November 1995)
B. A petition to the City Council for initiative or referendum containing the signatures of qualified voters equal in number to no fewer than ten percent (10%) of the qualified voters on the date of the last regular municipal election shall be presented to the city secretary not later than thirty (30) days following the filing of the affidavit by the petitioners' committee. (Amended November 1995)
I also attended and thought many presentations, particularly Mark Wolff's, were very enlightening. My take-away from the meeting was:
ReplyDeleteProperty taxes in Coppell have basically doubled in the last 10 years. The promises of an increased commercial tax base that would allow a tax decrease have never materialized.
The quality of Coppell schools has declined dramatically despite the significant increase in taxes.
City budget growth rate is substantially higher than the growth rate in the population it supports.
Coppell is already at a competitive disadvantage in attracting businesses relative to Grapevine and Irving. The tax increase will simply amplify that disadvantage.
At a 40,000 ft level, we have a lifeless "town center" with unused retail space scattered across the city, public works like the aquatic center that will never support themselves financially, no apparent plan to build a commercial tax base and a city council that seems to think that's all just wonderful. Personally, my real estate taxes have gone from about $6,000 to almost $11,000 and I'm not happy about it. Enough is enough. Relative to other suburbs, Coppell is no longer a good value.
And, as a sidebar, I did receive a "Safe Light" ticket doing a right turn on red. I reviewed the video and couldn't see anything that I did incorrectly. On appeal, I was told that my "tires were supposed to stop behind the white line". $75 fine, thanks for playing. So don't forget, as you drive through town there is always someone watching you. Nice place to live, eh?