Factual Information from NRH City Staff?
By Ron West
At a recent council
meeting, Mayor Trevino said that several presenters before the council were
essentially presenting untrue information.
He exhorted everyone present to ignore their input and to seek “truth”
from the
In the recent Fall Newsletter from the City, in an
obvious effort to downplay questions that are now arising about Hometown NRH
and the TIF#2 Financing District, the city published
outright factual lies.
Mr. Maury Siskel had asked sensitive questions and
implied that the new residents of Hometown NRH – through no fault of their own
– were not truly contributing to the city services that are required to service
their neighborhood. These services
include fire, police, water and all basic city services. Before the creation of TIF#2, the Hometown
NRH area was contributing approximately $230,000 per year to offset the above
listed city services. In the newsletter,
the city claimed that Hometown NRH was now contributing $2,300,000 to cover
city services each year thereby overstating the actual revenue by $2,070,000
per year. After being confronted with
the lie, the city corrected the number in a new video produced by the city. They have not printed a retraction to our
knowledge.
The real fact is that none of the new residents in
Hometown NRH contribute one new dime to cover city services. All revenue for city services for the
Hometown NRH area was in place and existing prior to the creation of Hometown
NRH. All new property tax revenue is
being siphoned off to a special fund managed by Mayor Trevino and four members
of the council. They can borrow money
and spend what they want without any further voter input or approval. The rest of us have to pay for the additional
costs of fire, police and other city services for all the new residents of
Hometown NRH. There is NO new revenue
being generated by Hometown NRH to help pay for normal city services.
If you are wondering about the money from the growth in
Hometown NRH, the TIF#2 Board is getting about $450,000 per year to spend on
the new $10 Million + library (that is not a requirement or a result of Hwy 820
expansion) and later on a new $21 Million Recreation Center. In addition to this money, the entire council
budgeted $565,400 from the general funds of the rest of the city to begin work
on the “South Library” better known as the old
Everyone’s first inclination is to assume that these were
inadvertent errors but why would the city allow the publishing of such gross
inaccuracies unless it was to actually mislead your thinking.
In the middle of the same newsletter there is yet another
glaring example of deliberately misleading information which the city was on
notice was in error. Ms. Karen Bostic presented the City Council with the same error in
June 2004. In the city newsletter under
the heading “Estimated Annual Revenue
Loss to NRH including Current Exemption if Senior/Disabled Tax Freeze is Adopted” is the figure of $605,000 for the first year
with the number growing to $1,030,000.
The real first year “cost” (loss of increased revenue) is $0. The number presented has nothing to do with
the vote on the freeze and represents the existing exemption for
senior/disabled households. With or
without the freeze, there was no vote to change this. All of the numbers in this table were likewise
false and very misleading.
Unfortunately for the citizens of NRH, our City
Newsletter has been converted to a propaganda instrument to further the wants
and wishes of city leadership that is bending the rules and the truth. Like our Mayor said, if you want real
information, ask our city employees – but – as long as the current
administration is in place, you might also want to check other sources to see
if what you are being told is really the truth!
The
most recent city newsletter belongs in the trash!