Now that the 2019 Bond Study Committee has made its recommendations to Garland City Council, as citizens and taxpayers in this community you need to don your best antennae and pay careful attention to what happens next.
If passed in its current state, any one of the three "tiers" recommended by the Bond Committee will set the stage to raise our future property-tax rates while attempting to fix unaddressed infrastructure needs in various parts of our town. The larger the tier the higher the tax increase, but also the more infrastructure that gets repaired, replaced, or built.
After listening carefully to (and taking copious notes of) every video recording of the bond-committee meetings—the meetings because of their location unfortunately were not televised live and video recordings of them had to be plowed through later—Kay and I are convinced the 2019 Bond Study Committee did an excellent job of laying out the choices that lie ahead for city council and the city's registered voters and taxpayers.
The committee put dollar amounts on projects, such as a new animal shelter ($18.9 million), that have long been the subject of conjecture, speculation, and debate.
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| On each of the three proposed "tiers" presented by the 2019 Bond Study Committee to Garland City Council is $18.9 million for a new Garland Animal Shelter to replace this existing one, which has been the focus of much controversy recently. |
The committee also did an amazing job of identifying in concrete terms how far behind our city is in terms of infrastructure and building for the future. The group, with city staff help, quickly pulled together a remarkable list of more than $1.2 billion in needed and desired projects—a number our city absolutely cannot afford at this time—then trimmed the number to below $500 million and broke that number down into three "tiers" ($489 million, $345 million and $250 million) from which council will choose or rewrite one—and citizens will eventually get to vote on it.
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| Symbolizing why the three bond proposal "tiers" must be scrutinized carefully is where special much-needed improvements are positioned in the lists. The $6.1 million proposed improvement plan for Rick Oden Park shows up only in the $489 million package. Many downtown Garland projects are also only in that third tier. |
1. Do we reject the bond-committee's recommendations and continue with so many unmet needs and instead continue operating with our city's huge deficiencies?
2. Does rejecting the bond committee's recommendations then become a launching pad for Garland to move within five or so years to becoming the "poster child" for a debt-free city without the burden of long-term bond debt—but paying for our desperate infrastructure needs too slowly as we go forward?
3. Do we embrace one of the bond committee's three tiers (and depending on how fast the bonds are sold, the money spent, and taxes raised) risk becoming a city with one of the highest tax rates in the entire DFW Metroplex?
4. Do we play it safe to keep our excellent credit-rating in place and go for the smallest amount possible? (Though not one of the three tiers recommended, a 4th tier of $100 million—see chart at top—apparently would require no tax hike. It, however, would also hardly make a dent in the needs here.)
5. Or do we take a risk and push forward with a debt that is enormous and scary ($489 million, the largest tier), but promises to kick-start updating our city rapidly so it can truly compete with our sister cities to the north, west, and east of us?
6. Or is there a happy middle ground somewhere, somehow?
It also boils down to how one looks at investment in infrastructure (streets, drainage, parks, libraries, public buildings, redevelopment funding, and so forth). Do we opt for the quickest solutions that will reduce citizen complaints or push fast and furiously for projects that could help build the tax base here, thus reducing the impact on our taxes long term?
Given the controversial and awkward way our city council has dealt in recent weeks with the apartment versus single-family residence water-rate hike, it's even more important now than ever that citizens understand clearly and fully the bond-proposal issues, their implications on property taxes, the tensions that inevitably will emerge on council regarding this bond package and proposed tax increases, and the pros and cons with this bond program in general.
And what role will a bond election this spring play in the May 2019 Municipal elections, in which political jockeying is already under way? The mayor's seat and four council positions—a majority of council positions—will be on that ballot.
The 2019 Bond Study Committee and its deputy chairperson, Dylan Hedrick, and staff headed by assistant city manager John Baker and finance director Matt Watson have been extremely clear about the choices. I commend them for their forthrightness, transparency, and honesty. No one in any city political leadership position can claim to be naive or misled about the bond proposals and their implications on our taxes.
The current city council could go down in history as the one that sets the stage to push the city deeper in debt than ever before and to raise taxes majorly—setting in motion the first tax-rate increase in 10 years.(The last increase in 2009 was for one-half cent—a mere pittance compared to what's on the drawing board now.)
Or it could go down in history as the one that ran from debt and tax-rate hikes but also failed to make plans to fix needed infrastructure repairs and improvements.
Or it could end up being repudiated at the ballot box by the voters, who have been conditioned by all the noise on the national and state level to eschew additional government debt and higher taxes.
In the days of Donald Trump, tax cuts are in and tax hikes are out! Will Garland buck the trend and go the opposite direction?
The choices are not easy, especially for politicians who present themselves as fiscal conservatives, which the majority of our city council claims to be. During the next weeks our "fiscal conservatives" on council will either have to reject any proposal that forces a tax hike and leaves a myriad of desperately needed projects lying on the cutting-room floor—or vote against the mood in Washington and Austin to recommend to voters a tax increase to address those sorely needed solutions.
And given the inconsistent and inconclusive ways previous city councils dealt with the most recent 2004 bond election—and of course the 2011 non-existent bond election that should have occurred but didn't seven years ago, based on decades of 7-year historic cycles in our city—all of us best keep our eyes on the players throughout this process.
This deal is fraught with possibilities for deception, distortion, finger-pointing, and the blame game.
The deal is also packed with great opportunities for our struggling city to make it a better place to live for ALL our citizens.
Our city's future depends on it. So do our pocketbooks. The choices are clear, but which way will we go?
At this point, my mind is NOT made up about which direction is best. I can see the pros and cons of each argument. I like the idea of a debt-free and cash-only city going forward, but I also fear what will happen if we delay too long addressing major projects needing attention now. Do we have assets that can be sold to pay for these identified improvements without long-term debt? No one has addressed that issue. Is private fund-raising an option? Not since the mid-1980s has the city successfully tried that route. Some councilmembers today much prefer raising your taxes than asking that question—and have argued with me when I have suggested that approach. What about privatizing any of our services? Again, a non-conversation starter with some of our current council members. "Conservative" on our council often seems to be equated with "status-quo" rather than bold movement either left or right.
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| Instead of just tax and borrow, in the 1980s the City of Garland opted for a variety of ways to fund special citywide projects. This plaque bears the names of major donors to The Pace House Event Center fundraiser in 1985. The Women's Building in downtown Garland contains a similar plaque of names of special donors to that citywide project in the same era. Today, some Garland city councilmembers argue against using such financial tools to fund needed projects, instead preferring tax and borrow only. |
These are tough options. Complicated? Yes. But don't let that scare you. The bond questions will directly impact our city's streets, drainage, parks, libraries, economic development, animal shelter, and police and fire departments as well as our real estate taxes for the years ahead.
I have little doubt that when the dust settles, our taxes will go up even more in addition to the massive property valuations foisted on us recently—or to be handed to us in the upcoming year—by the Dallas County Tax Appraisal District. But by how much and how soon will be the decisive questions! And which needed infrastructure projects will get the nod from council and voters?
Stay tuned! Antennae up! The fun has just begun.
Meanwhile, let's tell our city council that the final decision MUST be thoroughly discussed, examined, debated, and laid out in transparent details—even if that means the final vote at the ballot box gets delayed until November 2019 when more citizens generally take the opportunity to vote and our taxpaying citizens will have a much better understanding of what the bond issue is all about.
After one stumble (the 2004 bond election, whose implementation was badly fumbled and is not even finished yet) and one punt (the 2011 non-existent bond election that never occurred), our city can't afford to get this 2019 bond election wrong! Too much is at stake here. We MUST get this one right!
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