Thursday, August 12, 2010

Piling on....

On top of $8 Billion for the Renew Houston funding plan (with a drainage and flood control plan to follow, we promise!*) the city is also planning to tack on an additional drainage fee that will add.....well, we're not sure exactly WHAT it's supposed to add since we've been told that Renew Houston is the cure for what ails us? The linked ChronBlog story does mention that this tax "fee" has been a priority of Mayor Annise Parker since her days on City Council. She's also pushing for no exemptions, which means that schools, non-profits, and other groups would have to pay as well. Ouch. Tying this fee to the success of the Renew Houston bonds referendum could be the dagger in the heart of the plan.



*The dirty secret about Renew Houston is that they don't really have a drainage plan, just a "give us money" plan. Now the City is jumping on doubling up without a plan either.

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

This is nothing more than a mechanism to steer hundreds of millions in public funding to politically connected engineering and construction companies -- after all, they're the ones that proposed it!

Not to mention that the diversion of the water department from their core mission to collect this tax will impact their already terrible customer service...

Ubu Roi

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