Last week I took the opportunity to travel down to the Texas state capitol in Austin to provide testimony at a Senate Intergovernmental Relations (IGR) committee hearing regarding an Emergency Services District (ESD) bill - SB 359 filed by Senator Wentworth. The bill is actually quite simple. It repeals chapter 776 of the Texas Health & Safety Code and converts any ESD's formed under the authority of that chapter into chapter 775 ESD's. Seems harmless enough, right? That's what the ESD lobbyists would have you think. There is one key element in the 776 legislation that would be lost if 776 is repealed, a way for cities to get out. I've talked for a long time about getting a way for the City of Joshua (or others like us in 775 ESD's) out of the district. If Senator Wentworth's legislation is allowed to progress out of committee as written and pass then it would certainly push back my cause since the current precedence of chapter 776 would be lost. I saw this as an opportunity to finally get what I was after.
I've been in contact with most of the five senate IGR member's offices over the last six months or so leading up to the current legislative session. They've been very responsive to my information, but this hearing last week was the one opportunity I would get to be in front of all five members themselves and go on record with my reasons why this should be law.
With 33 years in Texas and a couple years of politics under my belt I've never actually been in the Capitol building until last week. It's a beautiful building and I immediately knew I would want to come back as often as I could to continue being a part of the process of government.
The committee room was smaller than it looked on archive footage I'd watched online. The senators all had staff members sitting behind them and there was a lot of in and out by various people. A busy place. When the committee chairman, Senator West, finally called up SB 359 he called down four of us to come forward to testify. The three people to my left turned out to be associated with SAFE-D, the ESD lobby. They were against my requested amendment, but they didn't have much reason for it. The only thing they could come up with was that it would reduce ESD revenue if cities were allowed to get out. No kidding, that's the point! We're tired of footing the bill for something we don't need. I was pleased to find strong support from Senator West and Senator Gallegos stayed on them pretty hard about just who the ESD's were accountable too. The answer to that question was easy to answer - nobody.
Here's how the current law treats cities in Texas that are inside an ESD, but grow to the point of not needing to be in an ESD anymore. Imagine you couldn't afford a lawnmower so you paid a neighbor $1 per week to mow your lawn. After years of advancement at work you finally got to the point of being able to buy a lawnmower and mow your own lawn. You pull out your old lawn mowing contract you had with your neighbor to find out about canceling the mowing service and you find there is no provision for that so now you mow your lawn each week with your new lawnmower and send your neighbor a dollar. You tell your neighbor that the lawn will get mowed now since you have a lawnmower that works well and can cut the entire lawn, but he's not sure that could really be the case so he decides its best that you continue to give him the dollar. After all the neighbor on the other side can't yet get his own lawnmower so your dollar will help cover that additional cost. There are cities around the state and our own county with very nice lawnmowers...we'd like our dollar back.
If you would like to help right a legislative wrong please contact Senator Wentworth and ask him to let cities out of ESD's. If you live in Johnson County also contact Senator Birdwell and Representative Orr. They're not yet convinced that we should get our dollar back.
If you'd like to view the IGR hearing from last week click here and fast forward to 34:00.
A.J.
No comments:
Post a Comment