Did you know that
Llano Citizens have been paying an Illegal Tax and the City won't change
it?
Did you know that some months ago City Council passed
a new Ordinance to supersede our old drought contingency plan? Much of
what was in the new plan was exactly the same as what was in the old
plan. Including a number of surcharges that total up to $4 on all of
our utility bills.
In researching this new Ordinance I found a Texas
State Attorney General's opinion showing that these surcharges were in
fact an illegal tax on all of us that pay a utility bill.
At Council, during the discussion on the matter I
took a printout of the AG's opinion with me, and informed the Mayor, the
rest of Council, and the City Manager. And although it wasn't an urgent
issue, a vote was held and the new Ordinance was passed - still with the
tax - by a margin of 3 - 2.
This tax has been collected for years and takes in
close to $70,000 a year. I estimate that nearly a quarter million
dollars has been collected this way.
Already at the time, using the procedures set up and
approved by Council, I had asked the Mayor a number of times for several
items to be placed on the Agenda for Council meetings. Yet I had never
received a reply from the Mayor, nor had any of those items been placed
on the Agenda.
Among the items I wished for Council to review is a
legal action involving the City Manager, that the City is paying for.
It's my understanding that not once in its 150 year history has Llano
spent $20,000 plus on a case like this. Until now.
Having had no response from the Mayor to my Agenda
request on this, and the other issues, and having failed to sway Council
with an Attorney General's opinion on the matter, I sought advice
elsewhere. I contacted the Texas Municipal League, former elected
officials of Llano, and citizens of Llano. All of their advice being
free, and all of them stating that I had the option of contacting the
City Attorney, and that I should do so.
I then emailed the City Attorney for his opinion. I
have also emailed him on the legality of duly submitted items being left
off the Agenda. It turns out that my requests of the City Attorney have
cost the City $2,300, and that something like this has never occurred in
the 150 year history of Llano.
Perhaps if it had, we wouldn't have been paying an
illegal tax to the tune of a quarter million dollars. Because the City
attorney, using the AG's opinion I sent him, confirmed that the utility
bill charges are in fact an illegal tax.
Despite my request almost a month ago that this item
be put on the Agenda, and resolved at Council, it hasn't been. At the
August 4 Council meeting Mayor Virdell told us the City hasn't had the
time.
Instead the Mayor and the City has found the time for
Council to discuss and vote on an item that curtails an initiative like
mine, outlined above. Its wording prohibits Aldermen from incurring a
fee to the City by directly contacting the City Attorney for an
opinion. At the August 4 Council meeting the measure passed.
So neither I nor any member of Council will be able
to again contact the City Attorney this way. Instead an Alderman must
now get the issue on the Agenda, persuade a majority of Council to fund
the effort, and only then may he or she contact the City Attorney. This
is the result of my efforts to show you were being unduly and illegally
taxed.
I am doing the utmost in pursuing the best for
everybody in this great City. I want you to know that. In the meantime
the illegal tax is still being collected, and the City is continuing to
spend an unprecedented amount of money on a court case protecting the
City Manager.
I appreciate the opportunity the voters have given me
to represent you.
Thank you, and God bless.
John Ferguson,
Alderman, City of Llano
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