Does JV City Council represent all property owners or do they represent a small group of residents pushing their desires rather than providing good government?
To answer that question, we need to look at where their efforts have been placed in the past few years and at their plans for the future. That will tell you a lot about their plans; however, there is another issue that every homeowner should be aware of and should be concerned about. Jersey Village City Council and Mayor do not want the homeowners to have a vote on anything they do!
Over the past several years JVCC has made several decisions that have cost the residents a lot of money in the form of higher property taxes than otherwise required. Their actions got the city into a lawsuit that ended with the city buying about 43 acres on the other side of 290. For years that land has sat with “NO” property taxes received from that property. Then for several years, the residents were led to believe that the “Village Center” would be built there with several buildings that would generate large sums of sales taxes that would reduce our residential property taxes. The Mayor put on a “show and tell” event and had the companies involved present their parts of the project. The vast majority of what was presented was not truthful and not supported with any facts. That project involved a requirement of the city building a new city hall within the project and the city council was prepared to enter into a contract for $11.5 million when it became public knowledge that the developer could not provide any money for the “Village Center” project. It was also disclosed that the city council had known that fact for several months prior to the 2021 May Election. Also, property owners had gathered more than 900 signatures on a petition to force the city council to put the project on the ballot to allow residents to decide if the city hall should be moved to the other side of 290. The Mayor and city council just rejected the petition and said the voters should not have any say in what decisions are made.
Over the past 20 years, the city council has had a “pet” project – the golf course. With the current financial reporting for the golf course, it is not possible to know the true cost to the taxpayers. Many improvement costs are carried within other accounts and even major expenses like studies, drawings of new buildings, engineering costs, and even the debt service for the purchase of the golf course are not disclosed within the golf course accounting. One could assume that the city council does not want the taxpayers to know how those costs affect their property taxes. The best estimate of Jersey Village’s current debt is around $7 million. In the past few years, the city council has spent more than $500,000 on the golf course without any input from the residents. Fact is, the purchase of the golf course did not even get a vote from the voters. More than $500,000 was spent on the Village Center project without a shovel in the ground and nothing to show for that money.
The city council has gone through many different design phases for the golf course building(s), each time at great expense only to be surprised at the construction cost estimates being much higher than expected. They currently are in the process of moving forward with a design that is now estimated somewhere north of $7.7 million. They plan to do this without a vote by the taxpayers using funds that have been accumulated over years by higher residential property tax rates than needed on a year-to-year basis. This was their plan for the new city hall building until that entire project fell apart. The city council is going to raise your property tax rate this year at the same time spending close to $8 million on the golf course.
The city council is now pushing the idea of the Village Center again with the addition of a baseball stadium in the design. The main developer is KHJR that was involved with the previous project. Most of what was presented for the other project by this company was not truthful and the fact that this LLC company had received almost $400,000 in Covid funds to pay the salaries of their 8 employees. Also, this LLC has not started or completed a single project under this name.
Members of the city council are untruthful when they say that the city charter does not allow them to seek voter approvals for projects. The current version of the city charter does not require them to seek voter approval for projects where they have funds to pay for them without raising the tax rate over a certain amount. Nothing prevents any city from getting a majority vote to support an action they want to do. The Jersey Village City Council, Mayor, and City Manager do not trust the voters to support their projects!
Soon after the golf course project is underway, you will hear that the city council will be putting a Tax Increase on the ballot for next May to do street repairs and other city improvements. This week during the Budget Meetings, the tax rate for this year was discussed. The suggestion was to increase the rate for this year to a rate that would be just below what would require a vote by the taxpayers and then another rate increase next year that would not appear as much of an increase. The tax rate for last year, 2021 was 0.742500 and they are setting the rate for 2022 at 0.760150. They are saying they need more TAXPAYER MONEY TO SPEND.
July 22, 2022