I am sure I have political opponents. There will be members of Rowlett "officialdom" that disagree with me no matter what I write. If I wrote the sun was coming up in the East tomorrow, someone would disagree with me. The fact that the sun has been coming up in the East every day for more than several weeks in a row has nothing to do with it. Politics has nothing to do with the sunrise. Neither should it have anything to do with good business decisions.
There will be some elected officials and some city hall flotsam and jetsam that will have disagreed with everything I have written. That's okay. I presume they have the facts to support their conclusions. If they have the facts, they owe you, the tax payer, some explanations. I have just challenged their decisions. They owe you a rebuttal. It should be something more than, "Oh, he's just bitter." Well, I have just produced $29 million of "bitter" and I could have made it a lot worse. I have just spent five months setting out my logic for the numbers I ultimately presented. All of my facts and observations are documented in the previous posts. I feel I have assembled enough information to allow me to comfortably conclude that Rowlett's "officialdom" is grossly inexperienced in real estate matters. If you prefer the word uninformed, that's fine.
As I have said many times on this blog site, all I write is about tax base, nothing more. Why tax base? Because I think tax base is a full 50% of the business of running a town or city. Good tax base management provides a level of reasonable tax bills, home values, and lifestyle that cities with lesser tax base skills could ever hope to achieve. An "overachieving" tax base manager will have the money to provide an excellent lifestyle and keep the per capita tax bill lower than underachieving cities. All of these characteristics contribute to increasing real estate values without increasing tax rate. This would actually put real estate value on your balance sheet....tax free. Plus, a tax base that is increasing faster than the city's expenses can potentially cause tax bills to remain the same.......or even go lower.
Now, if you have elected a person to office that disagrees with me, you should ask them, Why?" If they can't tell you, or won't tell you, you've just elected the wrong person to office. I have built a case that permits me to say that Rowlett's "officialdom" is inexperienced in real estate negotiations and that flaw, in spite of perhaps other redeeming features, is costing the tax payer a whole bunch of money. It is incumbent upon our elected officials to provide information and demonstrate why they are searching out the information to make intelligent decisions regarding our tax base.
So..... where do we go from here? Some of the damage is already done. Can't change what's done. Fortunately, the potential jewel of Rowlett is still relatively intact.......not trouble free, but intact. That would be the Robertson Park land and I will get to it later.
There are several areas in Rowlett still remaining that can provide the development that can enhance the community's life style, contribute to the overall value of real estate, and provide excellent tax base growth. If done properly, the tax rate, thus each individual property's tax bills, should not be unreasonably excessive.
We have time to get it right.......but, I think we have wasted a lot of time and a misapplied a lot of raw material.
Besides the areas that we have discussed so far, other important areas are the "outtakes" or "infills" that exist all over Rowlett, the "Wellness" area (which is a horrible name), and the combination of private land and the adjacent Robertson Park land highly visible from I-30. By far, the most important development decisions will now be the Robertson Park developments. The addition of the Robertson Park land into Rowlett jurisdiction will be the most important transaction to ever happen to Rowlett. It is the one piece of land that can put Rowlett on the map.......really on the map. It's big. It can accommodate nearly all kinds of real estate development, and the water is close to everything. It can all be seen from I-30. Anyone traveling from Memphis to Ft. Worth will see Rowlett......and know it when they do.
There will be some elected officials and some city hall flotsam and jetsam that will have disagreed with everything I have written. That's okay. I presume they have the facts to support their conclusions. If they have the facts, they owe you, the tax payer, some explanations. I have just challenged their decisions. They owe you a rebuttal. It should be something more than, "Oh, he's just bitter." Well, I have just produced $29 million of "bitter" and I could have made it a lot worse. I have just spent five months setting out my logic for the numbers I ultimately presented. All of my facts and observations are documented in the previous posts. I feel I have assembled enough information to allow me to comfortably conclude that Rowlett's "officialdom" is grossly inexperienced in real estate matters. If you prefer the word uninformed, that's fine.
As I have said many times on this blog site, all I write is about tax base, nothing more. Why tax base? Because I think tax base is a full 50% of the business of running a town or city. Good tax base management provides a level of reasonable tax bills, home values, and lifestyle that cities with lesser tax base skills could ever hope to achieve. An "overachieving" tax base manager will have the money to provide an excellent lifestyle and keep the per capita tax bill lower than underachieving cities. All of these characteristics contribute to increasing real estate values without increasing tax rate. This would actually put real estate value on your balance sheet....tax free. Plus, a tax base that is increasing faster than the city's expenses can potentially cause tax bills to remain the same.......or even go lower.
Now, if you have elected a person to office that disagrees with me, you should ask them, Why?" If they can't tell you, or won't tell you, you've just elected the wrong person to office. I have built a case that permits me to say that Rowlett's "officialdom" is inexperienced in real estate negotiations and that flaw, in spite of perhaps other redeeming features, is costing the tax payer a whole bunch of money. It is incumbent upon our elected officials to provide information and demonstrate why they are searching out the information to make intelligent decisions regarding our tax base.
So..... where do we go from here? Some of the damage is already done. Can't change what's done. Fortunately, the potential jewel of Rowlett is still relatively intact.......not trouble free, but intact. That would be the Robertson Park land and I will get to it later.
There are several areas in Rowlett still remaining that can provide the development that can enhance the community's life style, contribute to the overall value of real estate, and provide excellent tax base growth. If done properly, the tax rate, thus each individual property's tax bills, should not be unreasonably excessive.
We have time to get it right.......but, I think we have wasted a lot of time and a misapplied a lot of raw material.
Besides the areas that we have discussed so far, other important areas are the "outtakes" or "infills" that exist all over Rowlett, the "Wellness" area (which is a horrible name), and the combination of private land and the adjacent Robertson Park land highly visible from I-30. By far, the most important development decisions will now be the Robertson Park developments. The addition of the Robertson Park land into Rowlett jurisdiction will be the most important transaction to ever happen to Rowlett. It is the one piece of land that can put Rowlett on the map.......really on the map. It's big. It can accommodate nearly all kinds of real estate development, and the water is close to everything. It can all be seen from I-30. Anyone traveling from Memphis to Ft. Worth will see Rowlett......and know it when they do.
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