In a time when Texans are struggling to pay soaring property tax bills, it\u2019s hard to imagine a city council sticking a massive rate increase on its residents.\u00a0<\/p>\n
But that is what the Arlington City Council did last year, along with raising water and sanitary fees residents must pay. We aren\u2019t talking about a small change. The city\u2019s own calculation is that the average homeowner will be stuck nearly $147 more a year in costs.<\/p>\n
Of course, seniors are exempt from tax rate increases so it will be young families and renters who bear the brunt.<\/p>\n
The City Council, led by Mayor Jim Ross, owed it to residents to seek deeper cuts than the paltry $7.7 million that city management brought back. Just 1% in deeper cuts might have spared a tax rate increase.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Williams is supporting longtime Arlington businessman Steve Cavender, who is more focused on fiscal discipline. We think that\u2019s the right choice.\u00a0<\/p>\n
We wish Cavender, 76, was more up to speed on important issues like Senate Bill 840. But he is someone who has balanced Arlington residents\u2019 desire to protect existing neighborhoods with the need to spur development where it fits.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Ross\u2019s leadership has leaned too much into cultural issues like the recent fight over the removal of an anti-discrimination ordinance that risked federal funding for the city. No other North Texas city had the public struggle Arlington saw.<\/p>\n
Meanwhile, Arlington has offered generous raises to all city employees in a time when taxpayers are suffering. And the effort to balance the budget mainly leaned on eliminating vacant jobs.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Arlington should have done better in tight times.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Also on the ballot are Hunter Crow and Shaun Mallory.\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"In a time when Texans are struggling to pay soaring property tax bills, it\u2019s hard to imagine a…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":240023,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[13],"tags":[150,152,151,4395,87907,90397],"class_list":{"0":"post-240022","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-arlington","8":"tag-arlington","9":"tag-arlington-headlines","10":"tag-arlington-news","11":"tag-podcasts","12":"tag-tp-arlington","13":"tag-tp-landman"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/240022","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=240022"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/240022\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/240023"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=240022"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=240022"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=240022"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}