Gayle C. King. (File photo: RGG/Bill Rovira)

McALLEN, Sept. 5 - McAllen Mayor Richard Cortez has repeatedly stated that he is working for the future generations, the future leaders of McAllen and their children.

An amazing thing happened in the past few months. Citizens from all walks of life in this fine city became active to speak out for what they too believe. 

It was those future leaders and concerned citizens that formed a grass roots movement to send a message to the mayor and city commissioners: “No sir, we do not want to be left in debt, we do not want to be left without our Botanical Gardens, the natural habitat of our history, we do not want Westside Park, our neighborhood park turned into asphalt and concrete and we do not want our hard earned cash reserves spent on overpriced sports facilities and to buy overpriced farmland.”

The message is all the more important because it comes from this part of our community. Young voters rallied around the cause in the past months, coming out to speak their voice, learning that they could be heard, demanding that they should be heard. 

I commend the mayor after his town hall meeting for respecting the majority vote of the citizens and taking steps to open the Botanical Gardens and removing Westside Park sale off the November ballot. We know our mayor has McAllen’s interest at heart and believes development is the only answer to replenish our deficit. WE the PEOPLE also have a vision for the future of McAllen; we CARE very much about how McAllen develops and we want to participate.
 
While the mayor stated that we have not had a property tax increase ‘in the past 10 or 11 years’ in his town hall speech, all of us have seen our property appraisals increase ten percent year after year while inflation remains close to two percent per year. While our ‘rate’ may not have increased, our tax burden certainly has and the voters are not fooled as they pay more and more to the city in taxes each year. The mayor did not explain that bond issue two-three percent increase in the ad valorem tax (property tax) is not about $30 per $100,000 value. It is the $30 compounded every year as your property appraisal goes up every year for 20 years of the bond issue.

If this practice of raising values, therefore property taxes, in an economic stagnant time hits you in your pocket, contact your State Representative, Veronica Gonzales, or your State Senator, Juan ‘Chuy’ Hinojosa, they are the ones that oversee the Hidalgo County Appraisal District. Our income has not gone up by ten percent a year, our sales tax is down because people may have less money to spend because they may be spending on the ad valorem taxes and may have taken cuts in pay. We should not have to protest our taxes EVERY year, 95 percent of those who don’t protest do not have the market information or the expertise to do so.

Last Monday there was a hearing at city hall regarding a tax increase. It is the first of two public hearings McAllen must hold on property taxes before adopting the proposed property tax rate of 0.4213 cents per $100 valuation. Though that’s the same rate McAllen used last year, it’s higher than the effective rate. Because commissioners picked the more expensive option (costing the owner of an average home $20 more) they must hold the hearings. As expected, no one showed up to voice an opinion. Keep in mind we are expecting at least two more bond issues, school and the sports facilities (which we DO need), so that is three tax increases on your ad valorem taxes in addition to the ten percent average increase by Hidalgo County Appraisal District. The mayor stated that there were more tax protests this year - that is because people have to pay their taxes and there is no more money in their pockets for anything else. They are tapped out.

We are all becoming aware of the shortfall in the city of McAllen budget for the coming year. Our main historical revenue streams are each in their own way, for their own reasons threatened and diminishing, causing a potential deficit. In the town hall speech Mayor Cortez laid out this challenge very clearly. But rather than proposing the ‘fiscal responsibility’ we hear so often from our elected officials, cutbacks and belt tightening that we are all faced with in our life at home, he proposed an increase to our property tax rate and an increase in spending. This is not the fiscal responsibility we elected our public officials to practice. The people said no. They said no in the May election and they said no again at the town hall meeting survey through their public input. We do need our sports facilities, but it’s time to take a good hard look at the costs and get legitimate bids, build what is absolutely necessary and phase in the rest. We do not need to buy farm land that costs $3.60 a square foot; there are other alternatives which have been presented to the city that could save McAllen up to $2.5 million dollars in land costs. So, yes we do question and we want to know other alternatives and we demand accountability.
 
City Manager Mike Perez has been a wizard over the past 20 years, guiding the city through growth and prosperity, managing that growth and our finances with care and wisdom. McAllen has one of the top credit ratings afforded a municipality in the United States. McAllen has a rainy day fund, a war chest like no other city of its size. While elected officials often see that as a pot to dip into, it should be used for what it was intended. With the economy in its current state and the threats to our local economy ever greater with the situation along the border and throughout Mexico worsening each day, today may be that rainy day. We have worked so hard to protect our earnings from successful years to put them at risk in this precarious time. They should be used to keep our community economically sound and secure in our homes and families so that the legacy of this generation is truly to protect future generations. The Hidalgo County Appraisal District continues to increase our tax appraisals (and so to our tax burden to our city) at several multiples of inflation. The families of McAllen must live with much less each year and live within their means. We expect our elected officials to do the same with the city with which they have been entrusted.

Gayle C. King is a licensed commercial real estate broker who lives in McAllen, Texas.

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