On Tuesday, almost two-dozen Members of the Texas Legislature filed an amicus brief in support of the Laredo Merchants Association’s legal challenge to the City of Laredo’s plastic bag ban. A number of Texas cities either have or are considering similar restrictions.
As of November 2015, the City of Austin implemented a ban on short-term rentals for all residential single-family homes, unless the owner lives on the premises... Basically, these vacation rentals were deemed 'party homes,' thus the decision to ban them.
Center for Local Governance Policy Analyst Allegra Hill presented testimony on involuntary annexation to the Texas Senate Committee on Intergovernmental Relations. Hill's testimony, in part, reads: Is the invasion of people’s rights—to the extent such an invasion is permitted under current statute—justified in light of the desire for municipal growth? Do the ends justify the means? I would simply submit to you that the answer is no; municipal expansion does not justify bowling over the minority, and depriving people of the right to vote.
The city’s allegedly profitable recycling program has actually cost taxpayers approximately $2.7 million over the last two years.
TPPF reports that League City stands to save between $30 million to $56 million annually – a reduction of roughly 15 to 28 percent from recent spending levels – by simply contracting their services out to private providers.
It was only a matter of time before someone pointed out that the emperor had no clothes. For the City of Dallas, that moment came yesterday, when Moody’s Investor Service downgraded the City’s debt rating due, in part, to Dallas’ “very large and growing unfunded pension liabilities.” After years of providing defined benefit pensions — something a majority of the private sector moved away from long ago — the system has finally been exposed for what it is: unsustainable.
Without consulting the affected property owners, San Antonio has plans to annex more than 66 square miles of land, forcing their urban services and higher taxes on the prospective residents.