LETTER TO THE EDITOR

Tax rate: City did the right thing

Posted

(This letter will appear in the Thursday, Oct. 8 print and e-edtion of The Inquirer.)

Dear Editor:

This comes because in your report of the last City Council meeting you wrote of the allegations

brought forth about the increase of city tax. You also highlighted speakers that spoke against the

potential increase in taxes.

I have a response. There are two sides to the story.

I spoke at that City Council meeting in favor of the increase in tax because the city taxes have not kept pace with the needs of the city. The shortsightedness of some past officials and administrations have left us in danger of not being able to move forward in planning for the sustainability of the city of Gonzales.

In my comments I reminded the Council that they took an oath to execute the duties in the Charter; to provide the city with good business practices and one of the Charter requirements is a five-year capital improvement program.

I stated that each of the past years have seen increases in the city taxes to get to a normal tax to sustain the needs of the community. One of the ways to kill a city is to ignore plans for the future of the city. There is much here that has deferred restoration or renovation or repair and to save the integrity of his historic Texas town now or in the next oncoming years now is the time to address the issues.

I applaud the Mayor and the Council and all the City staff in their due diligence in taking serious their job for which taxes are needed. If you do the math, you will find that the taxes as a whole for the city are low.

I have not heard of any opposition to other taxing entities that have raised their taxes every year.

Sincerely,

Ann W. Covert, CPM

Gonzales

Comments