Show us what taxes will really be
Re: “Council approves budget of $4.75B — Plan includes slight tax-rate drop, higher fees,” Thursday Metro & Business story.
Some may read this and think “Wow, my city taxes will be less next year.” Please reflect on what this means.
Show an example of what that means when their property value increases x amount and the new tax rate decreases x amount. It will show your actual tax expenses are increasing.
We need to require this in all discussions about city and school budgets. Showing an example of what a taxpayer actually pays in dollars this year versus next year would be welcome transparency. This will educate the taxpayer.
Every year taxpayers are shocked at the bumped up real estate tax bill. And it is too late. Inform the voter/taxpayer while the budget is being discussed. We need to slow down this runaway train.
Frank Wagnon, Southlake
Replace Paxton with woman
Re: “Paxton saw server as threat — He said he ran away out of concern for his and his family’s safety,” Wednesday news story.
According to The Dallas Morning News, Ken Paxton fled his home because “a strange man came onto my property and charged toward me.” He was so scared and worried he sent his wife to the door to handle the scary man.
Well, it’s obvious to me he thinks women should handle the hard stuff, so I say we all vote for a woman, namely Rochelle Garza, to replace him as attorney general this November.
Lynn Wolfe, Plano
7-year delay embarrassing
The judges, trial and appellate, along with pass-the-buck prosecuting attorneys are the actual persons making a mockery of our judicial system. They have juggled the hot potato securities fraud case of Ken Paxton for seven long years now. It is an embarrassment to our legal system.
David Hill, Henderson
Elect a new governor
How dare anyone force a woman to deliver and raise a child against her will? The last time I checked, we live in America, the land of the free, where everyone has the right to “freedom of choice,” not in a dictatorship like Russia.
If our Texas governor is willing to punish women and force upon them a lifestyle they don’t want, then what is next? Forced marriages?
Wake up, Texans, and this November, elect a new governor.
John Bell, Richardson
Former GOP voter explains
Re: “The forgotten GOP voters,” by James Conly, and “Do candidates believe big lie?” by Richard Senechal, Wednesday Letters.
I agree with these two letters to the editor. I also feel forgotten or shunned by the Republican Party. I have voted Republican since the 1972 Nixon/McGovern race.
I do not understand how the deniers actually believe the 2020 election was stolen. I did not vote for the former president in the last election. He began saying before the polls even opened that if he lost, it was because of fraud.
That along with his attitude during the pandemic turned me away from the party. Unless our legislators, both state and federal, don’t cease with this nonsense, I cannot support them or the party.
Republicans, beware this election cycle, your jobs are on the line.
Doug Moore, Grand Prairie
Save mothers’ lives, Texas
In 2018, researchers reported Texas’ maternal mortality rates were the worst in the country. Gov. Greg Abbott tweeted, “Critics of the Texas maternal mortality rate were just lying. It’s about 1/10 of 1%. Facts matter.”
Abbott’s math was wrong, but facts do matter. Since 2018, Texas has revised its methods of defining and counting maternal deaths. Revised rates for Texas are lower but still above the national average, especially for women of color, whose risk of death is three to four times higher than whites.
A Maternal Mortality Review Committee was created to discover causes of maternal mortality. It is required to report findings prior to each biennial legislative session. In September, the Texas Department of State Health Services announced it is withholding the 2022 MMRC report. It is blaming procedural issues for the delay and estimates the report will be out sometime in summer 2023.
Postponing release of current information (previous reports use data from 2013) and focusing on procedures and methods of counting deaths rather than on preventing them delay life-saving changes in maternal health care.
To date, Texas has failed to fund key MMRC recommendations for preventing maternal mortality, especially extending postpartum care to one year for Medicaid mothers.
Texas can and should do more to save mothers’ lives, and that is no lie.
Patti A. Hamilton, Forestburg
Go get workers, Plano
Re: “Plano could use workers,” by Steve Richardson, Sept. 25 Letters.
In this letter, Richardson commented that Gov. Greg Abbott should send migrants to Plano because Plano has many available jobs. Why should the governor have to do that? Why can’t Plano drive down to the border and find the people themselves and bring them back to Plano?
Better yet, why doesn’t Plano just have a hiring fair down in El Paso?
Pat Johnson, Plano
Iran punishes for appearance
Over time my hair has gone, a loss but a trivial one, unlike the loss of hair and lives in Iran. Hair can be a beautiful part of a person, and although some choose to hide it, women as well as men should be able to make that choice without fear.
Any society that would punish, and in the current case probably kill, people for their appearance deserves to be condemned and shunned. Although clothes may be less modest than in the last century, good people are still good people no matter how they appear.
Judge people by what they do and say, not what they wear.
Dennis Fitzgerald, Melbourne, Australia
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