Your Voice Has Been Heard: The Franklin Compromise

In a fantastic display of representative government, the Public Hearing on the proposed Property Tax increase came to a close Tuesday evening.

Town Hall had plenty of Coppell citizens out in force to voice their opposition to the proposed Property Tax increase.

In what looks like "The Franklin Compromise", City Council listened to citizen after citizen voice their opposition to a proposed property tax increase.  If you remember from the 8/25 meeting, Marvin Franklin was the only City Council member in opposition to a Property Tax increase, as well as Mayor Peters.

Mayor Peters stated that their were 23 signed up to speak in opposition and 1 in favor.

Before the floor was opened to the public, Mayor Jayne Peters and City Manager Clay Phillips opened with comments.  Mayor Peters made a statement to "get the facts straight about the Northlake development".

Mr. Phillips (picture on left) discussed in detail how the City got to where it is now with our General Fund and fiscal stability.

 As each speaker expressed their opposition to the increase in Property Taxes, there was applause by the majority of the room.

After all the speakers were heard, Mayor Peters declared it was 'time for City Council deliberation and discussion'.

In what appears to be a 5-2 majority, City Council has listened to the citizens and is prepared to not raise taxes for the '09-'10 budget.  There was general concern that there would be a need to raise taxes the following year to pay down the Northlake bond.

I was using Twitter to update live and capture comments from the meeting.  Thanks to the City of Coppell for streaming the meetings live from their City website.  I was able to participate in this meeting while being out of town on a business meeting.

If you would like to read all of the detail of last night's meeting, go to www.twitter.com/concerncoppell.

Great job Coppell!  Last night was a great example of how representative government works and thank you Marvin Franklin and Mayor Jayne Peters for their leadership, as well as all of City Council for listening and understanding the right course of action.

The actual vote is on September 8th.  Stay tuned and thank you for all of the comments on the blog.  More to come on Stay Informed in Coppell!