NRH City Council Endorses Higher Sales Taxes

by Ron West

        Wouldn't it be wonderful to write an article about our local city council being concerned about the taxes paid by local residents?  Instead, all I can find by council actions are efforts to continually increase the taxes paid by citizens of North Richland Hills.  Regardless of the amount of money and taxes collected, our council, unanimously seeks ever more taxes and money to fund their runaway spending habits.

        The minutes from the October 9, 2006 City Council Meeting endorses trying to get the Texas State Legislature to either raise or remove the current 2% Local Sales Tax Cap so that they can raise the local sales taxes to whatever maximum they are allowed to do.  This is one of Mayor Trevino's pet projects and he is chairman of a related committee outside our local city government.

        As usual, there were no "town hall meetings" to seek local voter approval.   No, as always, they know what is best for us and in their opinion, higher taxes can always be justified.   The "joint recommendations for regional rail" that our city is now supporting with the call for higher taxes is not enumerated or shown in the endorsement of the higher taxes.  I guess how much they will spend is just based on how high they can take the taxes.

        Regional rail transportation is a subject that is much broader than any one city and should probably be approached more by County Commissioners if it is in any way justified.  Lobby efforts by our council - either funded or unfunded - should only be undertaken if there is clear and compelling evidence that the majority of the citizens of our city support such efforts.  So far no one has asked the citizens.

        Exact wording is copied below from the minutes of the 10/03/06 Council Meeting showing the Unanimous Vote by NRH City Council to support raising sales taxes for NRH.

        Taxes will only be high enough when our pockets are empty and the NRH City Council controls all of our money.