Lobbying With Your Money

            On the Consent  Agenda for the Monday, October 22, 2018, City Council meeting is a resolution to lobby the state and federal legislatures. The item on the agenda reads as follows, "To adopt the 2019 Legislative Program for the City of Plano, Texas; directing the City Manager or his designee to act with regard to the City's 2019 Legislative Program." Right now you are probably asking, what the heck is the Legislative Program? This is a list of items that the City supports or opposes. The resolution instructs the City Manager to "actively pursue passage of the appropriate legislation [the City supports]", and to "impede the passage of any legislation [the City opposes]." Simply put, the City wants to send Bruce Glasscock to lobby the state and federal governments. So, who gets the privilege of paying for this lobbying? You, of course. One of the items on the City's support list is "legislation that protects municipal revenue such as property taxes." Now we have a problem. To read the full resolution and Legislative Program go to
file:///C:/Users/jsgro/Downloads/GOVT102218-01Resolution.pdf
and file:///C:/Users/jsgro/Downloads/GOVT102218-02Exhibit_A.pdf
       Residents across the state of TX and the city of Plano have been complaining about the rise in property taxes. If you have read this site before, you know that the Plano City Council has raised property taxes over 40% in five years. For the past two years, residents of Plano have gone to the City Council begging them not to raise taxes. Sadly the City Council has ignored these pleas. Plano residents are not alone when it comes to being ignored by their city councils; many other cities in Texas face the same issue. Naturally, Texans were not going to let City politicians and bureaucrats stop them. Residents went to their state representatives for help, and in response, Plano and Collin County reps are working with the Lt. Governor and Governor to pass legislation to halt or slow the rise of property taxes. One idea that has come from this is letting the residents vote if a city raises taxes more then 4%. This would let residents decide if they want their taxes to go up.
      Of course, the city is against any proposal that would limit the amount they could raise taxes. They clearly don't care that residents are suffering from the tax increases. Hence, the city is more than happy to spend our tax dollars to lobby the government on this issue.  
The fact that a city would spend residents tax dollars lobbying against its own people is morally reprehensible. This is akin to gun control groups being forced to pay the NRA to lobby against gun control legislation. Therefore, a city should not be able to lobby against its own residents with tax dollars. If Bruce Glasscock or the Mayor want to lobby against the people they serve, they should do it on their own dime. 
        If you are against the city using your money to lobby for higher taxes go to the meeting, fill out a card to have the item 'r' removed from the consent agenda, and speak against it. In fact, this should not have been put on the consent agenda in the first place. That is supposed to be for items that are not controversial, and taxes are definitely controversial.
      Write to the members of the City Council and to your state reps as well. Tell your TX reps to ignore the lobbying from Plano staff on property taxes. The only people they should be listening to are the residents of Plano. 
       You can also call the City Secretary's Office at (972) 941-7120 to have a speaker card filled out or register your opinion for item 'r' on the consent agenda if you can not attend the meeting. 
City Council Members
Angela Miner: [email protected]

Anthony Ricciardelli: [email protected]

Rick Grady: [email protected]

Kayci Prince: [email protected]

Ron Kelley: [email protected]

Mayor LaRosiliere: [email protected]

Tom Harrison: [email protected]

Rick Smith: [email protected]

State reps.
Van Taylor - [email protected]  

Matt Shaheen House District 66 - [email protected]

Jeff Leah House District 67- [email protected]

HD 89 will definitely have a new rep for the next session. I would wait until after the Nov election to email the winner.  

This is Plano's Political Pit Bull signing off.