Dallas Taxpayers Subsidizing Apartment TIFs at $94,000 per Unit!

 

[Editor’s Note: This story is the opinion of the writer and should not be interpreted as an endorsement. CandysDirt.com does not make endorsements in political races — yes, even when our founder is running!]

Tomorrow is election day in Dallas, and as you know, I am running for Dallas City Council in District 11. I have learned so much campaigning over the past few weeks. Campaigning is really a lot like reporting: you walk and talk and find out what concerns people, then make notes to do something about it once you hit City Hall. I have also learned first-hand how our system is stacked, and will spill the beans next week.

Oh, before I forget, the numbers were great for early voting across the city: 2418 turned out in my District, which is great news. Here’s a chart comparing years:

In my district, people are most concerned about the Police and Fire pension debacle and security. On the one hand, they are beyond furious that the fund was mismanaged — hello, poor leadership, why I’m running — and they clearly want blood from the investors and advisors who led the board astray.

But they love the police and also want security.

They are tired of car windows being bashed, homes being burglar-ed. I even got to meet my famous neighbor who drove his suburban into the guy burglarizing his home in broad daylight, this home just behind mine. Don’t you bet our crime stats are down, and my opponent lies, they are UP. Since my opponent took office we have almost 1000 fewer police officers, 29,000 more violet crimes, and have had 431 murders, not counting the violence just this week.

Austin is fixing the pension for us, because again, lack of leadership: police couldn’t work with my opponent because he villainizes them, treats them like they are on a lower plane than he is. Guess we cannot all be born rich or have $140,000 war chests.

And all over my district people are worried about property taxes, especially now that values are up again. How did your property fare?

But look, just in time, here comes a wonderful piece by Jm Schutze of The Dallas Observer  with news from our new City manager: Dallas finally has some cash.

All the construction and building is bringing on increased revenue for the city.

The city’s tax base increased by almost $14 billion last year, a boost of more than 11 percent. That means higher revenue:

And, listen, that wasn’t just the work of little scrubbing-bubble guys from the appraisal district going around town with their legal pads and their pop-bottle spectacles chalking up the values of everybody’s already existing property. Over $2.5 billion or 18 percent of the total increase came from new construction.

So we’re loaded, right? Oh my gosh, 14 with a big old B for billion. No more worries. Oh, well, then that brought me to the dark side of my hobby: If we’re so loaded, how come we’re so poor?

Remember, my opponent is all worried about how the pension crisis is going to hurt us high paying taxpayers. The pension is not going to make us pay a single penny more in taxes. The money will come out of the general fund, more than we were contributing, but still, no taxes.

But here, as a taxpayer forking over almost $50K per year to the city of Dallas, I am pretty ticked to hear that we are subsidizing apartments, too many of which are being built, to the tune of $94,000 per unit!

That is right. Our hard tax dollars are being used to help developers. You know I love developers, bring ’em on. I love development.

I just don’t want to subsidize it if not for a good reason.

So wish me luck on Saturday, and I will be back next week, after a massage at Equinox, with all the House Porn and news that has been piling on my desk while I have been knocking on doors and kissing babies. It has been wild! Love ya!