Unintended consequences, such as people who cannot afford the additional tax, will do what poor people have almost always done: opt out of trash pickup and dispose of their garbage the cheapest way possible. That is assuming that residents are allowed to opt out of the fee. The city may continue to hold its resident’s, hostage, by making it part of the water bill. The water gets turned off if one doesn’t pay the water bill. With the new mayor and the MAGA-heavy city council, it would not surprise me that they will force people to pay for the incompetence of the administrations that have failed to live within their means.
I don’t think the people who come up with all those ideas on making people pay more have ever been to or lived in a poor area. We already pay $15 a year for the “lease” of the trash and recycle containers. We used to buy our own, but the city started requiring a specific type of container, and they started charging us a fee that is paid with the water bill. That fee was supposed to sunset (expire) this year in July, but since my August water bill still has the cost, I guess the mayor and council decided to keep the tax by doing nothing.
The city is considering a fee of $25.00 a month or $300 a year.
At $1.14 per month, the additional charge was pitched by proponents as a job saver and an acceptable means of helping the city navigate hard financial times.
But opponents said the timing for the fee was “terrible” with Houston Councilman Mike Knox calling the measure an involuntary tax that would hit low-income families hardest.
“I think it will disproportionately affect our minority and low-income communities where every penny makes a difference in their budget,” said Knox.
Turner pushed back hard, ultimately winning a tight 8-6 vote after warning of potential layoffs and the re-instigation of water service cut-offs.
… Opponents of the garbage fee did get one concession. The Mayor agreed that the measure will expire or “sunset” in four years, at which time a new Council can decide whether not to levy it again.
The garbage container lease fee is scheduled to take effect on July 1.
People steal electricity, gasoline, and even water in many poor countries. Will we soon face such dilemmas? Will we lock them up and throw away the key?
As much as half the world’s water supply is being stolen, with agriculture responsible for much of that, according to a new study. Source
There is also the “Rain Tax,” or tax on impervious surfaces, which varies but is generally over $100.00 a year. That is also added to the water bill. They force us to pay taxes that are supposed to be for specific projects but wind up elsewhere.
The City of Houston, already facing a budget crunch, could be forced to spend millions more per year on drainage and street projects after a Texas appeals court determined this week that the city has been violating a voter-backed charter amendment by not allocating enough money for those initiatives.
A charter amendment initially passed in 2010 and amended in 2018 stipulates that the flood-prone city must set aside 11.8 cents out of every $100 collected in property taxes for a special drainage and road repair fund. But in many of the years since the city adjusted that amount to factor for its revenue cap, which was previously approved by voters and has contributed to the city’s property tax rate being gradually lowered.
Houston residents Bob Jones and Allen Watson, who supported the charter amendment, sued the city’s mayor and council members in 2019 over their practice of adjusting the drainage allocation, arguing that it resulted in a fund shortfall of about $50 million in fiscal year 2020. The 14th Court of Appeals sided with them and reversed a lower court’s ruling in an opinion issued Tuesday, saying the drainage fund allotment can no longer be impacted by the revenue cap and can only be reduced by the amount of the city’s debt service obligations as stated in the charter amendment.
“This ruling is not just a win for us; it is a win for all residents of Houston,” Matthew Erickson, an Austin-based attorney for Jones and Watson, said in a statement Wednesday. “As the court recognized, the City of Houston has been illegally withholding hundreds of millions of dollars from the Dedicated Drainage and Street Renewal Fund, violating the charter amendment voters approved in 2018. Thanks to this ruling, that practice must now stop.”
So, if residents can opt out of the garbage tax, what could people who can’t afford the cost do?
They may place it in containers near their homes.
They could dump it in empty lots.
They could dump it in dumpsters in apartments or commercial buildings.
They could dump it in the bayous. I have seen people doing it.
People can get creative when they need to do so.
Will Houston start looking like downtown?
