Parker admits estimate wrong on drainage fee – Chris Moran, Houston Chronicle
Mayor Annise Parker acknowledged Tuesday that her administration erred in telling voters that the average homeowner’s monthly Proposition 1 drainage fee would be $5. It is actually closer to $8.25, she said.
Parker said that among the options she will send to the Houston City Council to make up for the error is to lower homeowners’ bills to the $5 average.
[snip]
“The typical example we used may have given the wrong impression to the voters and to Council,” Parker said.
Gee, ya think?
The rain tax proposition narrowly passed, despite the fact that many property owners seemed to rely on the assertions of proponents (and “trusted” elected officials) that they’d be paying $5/month on average (of course, non-property owners probably were less concerned about those assertions). So voters were misled by their elected officials. This is EXACTLY why some of us suggested the proposal needed to be more specific (sadly, a majority ignored us).
Even worse, citizens were misled by the former city controller, who was presumably thought to have some grasp of numbers by the voters who made her mayor.
At least the mayor has finally owned up to the big deception. Just a few weeks ago, shortly after we raised the matter of the excessive rain tax assessments here (before any MSM outlets), the mayor’s spokesperson told Texas Watchdog:
“The $5 was based on 1,875 square feet,” said Janice Evans, the mayor’s spokeswoman. “I don’t know what Renew Houston was saying. She supported the ballot initiative, but they ran their own campaign.”
So what changed the administration’s tune? Believe it or not, some rare watchdog reporting from the Houston Chronicle:
Prompted by an opens records request from the Chronicle, Parker said, the city discovered that there were far more bills above $5 a month than below. As a result the city discovered its error.
Remember, this is the former city controller who was presumably elected, in part, because voters trusted her with numbers. Whoops!
Speaking of which, here’s more from Moran’s print story:
Parker said lowering bills to home owners enough to stay true to the $5 average would leave the city $10 million to $12 million short of what it needs to collect as decreed by the proposition. She said the city could borrow that money to get through fiscal year 2012.
Tax, spend, borrow! Why not?
There’s one thing that we probably already knew but has been reported definitely — this “glitch” (as the headline writer quaintly calls it) won’t hold up the bills based on the Parker/Costello rain tax deception! Surely you didn’t expect otherwise?
