I'm a huge fan of a new commenter on this blog. He or she calls themself "voiceofdoom." Recently voiceofdoom pointed out that he or she heard some bitching on the radio and it reminded me of when I had tuned into the local talk and heard some bitching as well. It's a major problem here and the precise reason many people don't want to get involved in politics. Let's review.
voiceofdoom was specifically talking about the zoo fees and how people were calling into a show to bitch that they were going up. His or her point was that most of those people don't visit the zoo, so what's the point in bitching about it? Exactly. That old sayings ending in "the price of tea in China" applies here.
Nobody uses the zoo therefore they have to charge more per person to keep it funded. It's a simple concept, but it brings out the bitchers and complainers.
Those same bitchers and complainers failed to wake up and realize that impact fees are going to drive up their taxes by increasing the values of all new homes in El Paso. Of course, that in turn drives up the price of all existing homes. Buy hey, they really showed those homebuilders and developers, right? Nope - they increased their own taxes.
Speaking of home prices... I tuned into Strelzin the other day to see if he was going to continue to hang himself with his own words. To my surprise he had the lady on from the CAD. Guess what happened? The 15 morons he counts has listeners each called in with their own little sad tale of how their house or their neighbor's house went from being valued at $1,000 to $3 million in just one year. Half were making the shit up as they went along.
I exaggerated the numbers, but one guy in particular was a real estate appraiser and talking about houses in a neighborhood near where I live. The increase in value of his neighbor's house that he was bitching about was exactly in line with ever single house I looked at in that neighborhood when my wife and I were searching for our home.
These assholes whine and complain that their house isn't worth that much and it's highway robbery to increase the price of their home. If they had to sell their house tomorrow they'd have it listed for higher than what the CAD listed - I guarantee that on my grandfather's chat covered grave.
For literally 20 years nobody's appraisal moved an inch. The local leaders at the time were not tax happy fools and owned significant acreage of their own they wanted to protect. Sometime in the last six years that all changed and it was time to match the property values to today's reality. I know for a fact that people paying $350,000+ for homes on Broadmoor (Coronado Country Club) had their houses on the tax rolls for $125,000 in 2004. There are still folks they haven't gotten to.
If you don't want your property values to go up, make sure your neighbors don't put their house on the market for more than your house is currently appraised at. The more they ask, the more you pay. You yourself should ask next to nothing for your home when selling it if you are really really really worried about appraised values.
The problem with El Paso is that we bitch about high taxes, but then we want the government to provide everything. The upcoming budget session is a perfect example of the bullshit that goes on in this city. I'm going to call Emma Acosta and Susie Byrd to the carpet on this one.
Every single time they do a budget the city staff recommends they cut some senior center services. Acosta and Byrd will hear nothing of it. Basically the senior centers get used as free daycare for old folks when there is already federal dollars set aside for them to go to an actual adult daycare. Instead, we pay for these people twice to have daycare services. We pay through the nose for services at our senior centers that no senior center in the country would offer - they would tell you to put your grandma in a nursing home rather that provide the enormously expensive services we provide. The old people have taken advantage of the system and your tax dollars have to cover it twice - once locally and once federally.
As the budget process goes along you'll notice that Acosta is a total bitch about the process. She worked for the city for 30 years and allegedly helped many a person defraud the city out of millions. A little research on Hector Villa will show just how bad she was. Acosta hates city staff and is jealous of them and decides to give them a bunch of shit during the budget process to throw her circus midget weight around.
This costs you money.
If you want to complain about high taxes, then you need to stop voting for democrats. I have some very good friends that are democrats, but they will solve all your problems by spending your money and it's wrong.
If you don't want appraisals, fees etc. to go up, start doing something different than you are doing or stop complaining.
All we do here is complain.
The bridges are too slow
The bridges are too expensive
The bridges are in my backyard
The traffic is terrible - do something about it
Don't do anything to the roads - it's too expensive
We need more police!
The police are out of control!
No fireworks!
You have to let the kids have fireworks!
We need better neighborhoods!
Don't tell me how to live in my neighborhood!
Ft. Bliss sucks!
We need more troops!
We need a top notch university
We can't pay that much for a top notch university!
We need parks
Why the hell are we spending so much on parks?
stop the flooding!
Stop charging me for stopping the flooding!
I think you get the point. You can't have it both ways. Anything you ask of the government costs you money. If you don't want higher taxes, stop asking for more stuff.
Oh yeah - and just get rid of EPISD because they're don't care what you want, they just spend like drunken fools.
Recent Comments