VOTE NO TO ALL 8 CITY PROPOSITIONS A THROUGH H!

It is not enough that Houston mayor Bill White:

• Pays property taxes on only 56% of the $2.9 million fair market value of his home, per the appraisal district web site.
• Refuses to rebate to Houstonians the $8 million by which the city’s total property tax revenues for fiscal year 2006 exceeded the cap set by the mayor’s own Prop 1, a hoax passed off on Houstonians in 2004.
• Spent a minimum of $100,000 of taxpayers’ money in pursuing and losing three court actions to try to prevent implementation of the voter-initiated Prop 2 TABOR, which was overwhelmingly approved by over 242,000 Houstonians in 2004 and carried in every city council district.

Now, mayor Bill White has obtained the political complicity of the entire city council (excluding Shelly Sekula-Gibbs and Addie Wiseman) in placing on the November 7, 2006 city ballot two proposals (Props G & H) that will gut the Prop 2 TABOR and will apparently violate not only the city charter but also state law.

Props G & H are so written that they not only apparently violate the 2004 Prop 2 TABOR amendment to the city charter and state law, the two proposals absolutely refuse to acknowledge that the Prop 2 TABOR charter amendment even exists.

The mayor’s and city council’s proposed eight amendments (A through H) would:

• Prop G - Remove the enterprise funds, principally the very large water and sewer fund, from the voter-controlled TABOR cap---at a time when Houston has the highest water and sewer rates of the ten largest US cities and the city’s water and sewer debt has more than doubled over the last ten years.
• Prop G - Exempt from any city revenue cap TIRZ (tax incentive reinvestment zone) property tax revenues soon to be coming back into the city’s revenue stream.
• Prop G - Assign to city council, rather than the city’s independent accountants, the responsibility for interpreting accounting matters pertaining to city revenue caps.
• Prop H - Automatically add $90 million to an already greatly expanded and more than adequate public safety budget, and permanently imbed the $90 million into the public safety budget, immune from future public vote---all in apparent violation of the city charter and state law.
• Props A through F - Add $625 million to the city’s long-term debt, which has more than doubled in the last ten years, and, on a per inhabitant basis, stands at more than 2.5 times the debt of the State of California, which is in very serious financial difficulty. These bond ballot issues were in violation of the city charter’s Prop 2 TABOR requirements for public notice and meetings until the very last legal date for posting public notice. And then the public notice contained a disclaimer that Prop 2 was invalid in the City’s opinion.

In summary, proposed city Props G and H would rip the hands of voter control off the throttle controlling the rate of growth in city spending, and turn control back to the politicians, power brokers and those doing business with the City. And Props A-F would add even more debt to the already greatly overburdened Houston taxpayers..

Please do not permit them to take away your Taxpayer Bill Of Rights control over the city’s total spending, which right to control was so hard-won in 2004!

VOTE NO TO ALL 8 CITY PROPOSITIONS A THROUGH H!