Shame on me

The howmowners in the area need to get to the local government officials and stop it. Don't let them forget how they got elected. Sometimes the politician have a personal interest , and they are doing it for themselves, so be careful, and find out where it started.

Hey Sondra- this is what localism and blogging are all about, you should interview some of these people including your power grabbing politicians and get them up on your blog!  Big Brother is getting way out of Hand.

Sondra,  I agree that the annexation will be painful, I myself am in the same situation living in the ETJ.  the extra taxes on my home, valued at about 300K, at the current tax rate of .4394 per hundred dollar value, will be about $1318.20 a year.  It will, however, initally save me the garbage service fee that I pay every three months, approximately $70, totalling $280 a year.  Once they put the sewers through it will save me the septic system maintenance fees required by the Health Department,  yearly of about $275 and the chlorine tablet supply of about $200 a year.  I won't even factor in my cost to repair the septic system probably once a year and the cost of pumping it out every three years.  Once the city systems are in place it will save me approximately $755 a year (without factoring in the additinal cost of repair and pumping), leaving us paying another $563 a year in taxes. 

For homeowners with more modest homes, say a 200K value, their taxes will go up about $880.  They still pay the $280 garbage fee.  This makes the additional taxes $50 per month.  Again, once the addition of the sewers is made they would be left with an additional $125 a year in taxes. 

These taxes will be deductable from your federal taxes if you itemize.  The service fees for garbage, septic maintanance fees, chlorine tablets and repair are not deductable.  If your tax rates are 25% you would save $220 a year in federal taxes, bringing that homeowner with a $200K home actually saving money once the septic lines are put in.

Unfortunately those septic lines will not be put through right away, but even without those extra charges our 200K homeowner will, once the federal taxes of approximately 25% are taken into account, only be paying $380 additional dollars a year.

I believe that if more of these homeowners kept the taxes in perspective they would probably be far more reassured.

Sondra

I was present at the meet the candidates forum in College Station offered by our associatioin's governmental affairs committee. The feeling I got was that they are trying to whittle the 20 acre thing down to around 5 acres. I still think that is still too much.  Guess I am just big on property rights issues. The biggest concern I have right now is with the planning and zoning department at the city. Many of them are not easy to work with. I have had difficulty in the past getting phone calls returned or meetings set up. It is an "attitude" more than anything..  It is not pro-developer. Not Pro- growth. Not pro- business.  This is not good for our business in general and certainly not good for the citizens in the long run. As one councilman from Bryan said " The cost of saying no to the Super Walmart in College Station  in terms of sales tax alone cost the city untold millions." That deal should have happened.    He said "Bryan would love to have that Walmart"

Annexation is always difficult. We fended it off several times when I lived in one area of Wellborn. We had sheriff patrol. We had good water and electric service. Most of us had good septic systems. And by the way just being on city sewer is not always a blessing in and of its self. But more importantly we had our freedom from municipal government.