Local News and Events LocalNewsOnly.com

Time Stamped 07-16-01 @2:34PM

Subject: Re: Another angry taxpayer, regarding the lack of care of the City of Colleyville

Yep!

I think that when a main thoroughfare like John McCain is scheduled for reconstruction the manager in charge of the street department should make sure the taxpayers are informed in a timely manner. Today there was no access from Hwy 26 to Caldwell Creek Drive. The road was CLOSED. I spoke with the manager of the street department and he told me that trailer signs were put up on Friday afternoon informing us that the road would closed Monday. I feel that that is an insufficient amount of time. The street department failed to notify the citizen in a timely fashion and left us no other route to take. Not only was the notice not timely, it was also not given to each individual homeowner.

Does the City of Colleyville assume that every one of it's residents owns a computer? Does the City of Colleyville assume that every household is hooked up to the Internet? Why doesn't the City of Colleyville have an avenue to communicate to it's citizens, in a traditional way? Not every one is a Cyber junkie!

I was told that the Contractor "Branch & Sons" gave the homeowners association the notice. I don't think it's the president of our homeowner association job to run to every door and put up a notice. That's not his job! That's passing the buck. The Contractor is the one getting paid to do the work, and it was his responsibility, per his contract to notify the residents of the proposed work.

I telephoned the city last week with a complaint regarding the City not
notifying us that the road was scheduled for repaving. I had to drive my car thru ruts of dirt 6-8 inches deep. I don't appreciate the fact that I had to drive my $80,000 car through dirt that contained harmful chemicals. When I called in the complaint the only person available to take my complaint was the manager of the water department. I was told that the street manager was in a seminar and would not be in the office.

It's unthinkable that the City of Colleyville would treat it's citizens with
so much disrespect.

Angry taxpayer.

Lori Renda
Colleyville

Time Stamped 07-02-01 @4:59PM

To: Linda Newton (Editor, Local News Only) July 2, 2001

The headlines sent to us on your E-mail list concerning the story, "Ranking of Local Cities," says sales tax, not sales revenue. The city collects only 2% of every dollar of sales revenue from our retailers. This story's headlines could have us believe Colleyville is down over a million dollars in sales tax revenue, which is far from true. We, like several of our neighboring cities, have a shortfall year to date in sales taxes. After researching Colleyville's financial status, Colleyville's shortfall is $24,000 for the year over our previous year, not $1 million dollars.

The statement in that story says, "The only city to experience substantial loss in SALES TAXES was Colleyville with over $1 million shortfall." Again, sales taxes are very different numbers than sales revenue for our retailers. Colleyville gets about $20,000 from each $1 million in sales from our businesses. I would guess that LNO meant sales revenue, not sales taxes.

Payless Cashways closing will impact Colleyville's sales taxes collected, however in order to affect the city by million or more dollars in sales taxes, Payless would have to have generated over $50 million in sales. If it had generated that much in sales, my guess is it would have remained open. To give you a perspective, my research finds our grocery stores probably each generated about $15 million in sales revenue (not taxes) this year.

Most citizens have expected the closure for many months because of the impact Lowe's had, and the impending U.S. bankruptcy of the Payless Corporation that was reported in the Star Telegram several weeks ago.

A more telling story for Colleyville is our financial condition as of May 31, 2001, eight months into our fiscal year. Colleyville residents should know that the city's revenues are $8,842,138. Our expenditures are $7,132,787 year to date. Upon review of our city finances, I find our bonding ratings are up, and our working capital is at an all time high. Colleyville's debt per capita has been lowered over the last few years.

These are facts that are available to me or any citizen anytime at our City Hall (817) 577-7576.

Although the Colleyville residents are very astute with budgets, this story's headline and in story statement could be very confusing to any citizen, including even those who would keep up with sales tax versus sales revenue.

But, what it does do is emphasize the fact that all of us who live in Colleyville should buy as many products in Colleyville as we possibly can. Yes, we may have to go out of town for some purchases, but we also have great retailers. Our grocery stores, Albertson's and Kroger, as well as our smaller shops need to be heavily supported by our residents. We are just repaying ourselves when we shop in Colleyville. That is how we get money for parks, police, and fire.

Thank you,

Bill Dennis
Colleyville, Texas

		E-Mails to Editor July 2001