Fort Worth City Council agreed to a 10
cent tax cut under the gun last fall.
Local groups had mobilized and pushed a
Proposition 13 type tax cutting
plan. That's when council members
volunteered to cut taxes on their own
and backed with that promise, voters
turned down the forced tax cut proposal.
But lately, there have been mutterings.
The city's trying to beef up the police
department and that tax money could come
in handy for that purpose.
Today, a former council member warned
that he expects this council to live up
to the promises the old council made at
the time when we made the commitment.
We looked at the city manager and we
said, can you do this?
And he said, yes, we can.
Even if we have to rearrange some of our
priorities, even if we have to cut
in certain areas, we can come up with
a 10 cent tax cut.
And we're saying we're concerned about,
you know, our police protection.
Now's the time to do it.
And I'm not talking about just police.
I'm of public safety in general.
There may be ways to do both.
The city could take money from reserve
funds to spend on the police or more
civilian police employees could be
dressed in uniform to increase the
police's visibility.
Ironically, all this talk comes at a time
when Fort Worth Police Department has
some good news to report.
Burglary rates are down, response
time has been shortened, and police
officials attribute that to more money
being spent in the police department.
Carolyn Raiser, Channel 5 Action News,
Fort Worth.