The Houston Chronicle recently broke the story on a special purpose district in Austin that’s discovered a way to manipulate the law in its favor—a manipulation that has generated the district, and its board members, millions of dollars in profits. Put simply, the SH130 Municipal Management District uses a tax workaround to exempt developers’ land...
Not all heroes wear capes—some simply skip a meeting or two. That’s how two Harris County commissioners blocked an onrushing property tax hike that would have cost taxpayers there an additional $245.2 million. By breaking quorum, Commissioners Tom Ramsey and Jack Cagle denied the Harris County Commissioners Court the supermajority it needed for a tax...
In California, the embarrassing disconnect between the state’s whole-of-government approach in the fight against climate change versus the smoking reality of spectacular failure is seen where it counts: in the real world. A Wall Street Journal editorial on Oct. 23 cited a University of California study finding that California’s 2020 wildfire emissions “were two times higher than...