Here’s an great article from Diego Mendoza-Moyers at ElPasoMatters.com about the subsidies El Paso taxpayers give to local home builders.
As housing developments extend further out into the desert along the periphery of El Paso’s city limits, El Paso Water executives have figured residents within the city are subsidizing home builders’ costs by an average of $2 to $3 on their monthly water bills, CEO John Balliew said in December. That’s because El Paso home builders are paying just a fraction of what it actually costs the utility to provide water and sewer services to increasingly outlying neighborhoods, according to consultants hired by El Paso Water.
The utility’s consultants said the city’s home builders should be paying El Paso Water $15.6 million extra per year – or thousands of additional dollars per new home they build – to cover the utility’s construction costs.
The City Council adopted impact fees in 2009, and they haven’t raised them since.
Do you know who benefits from those low impact fees? Tropicana Homes.
Do you know who owns Tropicana Homes? Bobby and Randy Bowling.
Coincidentally, a couple of guys named Bobby and Randall Bowling contributed $10,000 each to Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton, his latest campaign financing report shows. A couple named Randall J and Paige Bowling also contributed $10,000, and someone named Robert Bowling kicked in $10,000.
Ken Paxton recently brought suit against the El Paso church group Annunciation House, accusing “the religious group of smuggling humans across the southern border.”
Dime con quién andas, y te diré quién eres.
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