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Item 4B AudioEvery two years the Texas Legislature meets in regular session, and the next time they meet will be January 2009. Item 4B creates the City’s legislative agenda which outlines our concerns and issues. 1 Over the last several years the Legislature has taken up a number of issues that have had an impact on City’s rights to govern themselves in accordance with the desires of the City’s citizens. In preparation for the upcoming legislative session. The City of Southlake will want to ensure that it has the ability to preserve its current authority to govern the City, its citizens and property and to inform local state representatives with regard to the issues that are of importance to the City of Southlake 2 categories including the City’s Priority Legislative Agenda, a discussion of legislation dealing with the issueOpposelegislation dealing with the issueSupportof legislation dealing with the issueSeek passagedesignation as follows:Each legislative issue under these categories is given a priority Goals of the Legislative Activities.the Priority Legislative Issues, General Legislative Agenda and finally, the The City, with the assistance of Hillco Partners, has developed the attached draftlegislative agenda for consideration by the City Council. The City’s General Legislative Policy is: As a general policy, the City of Southlake seeks to preserve its current authority to govern the city, its citizens, and its property. The City will monitor legislative activities viewed as detrimental to the City’s strategic goals; or that is contrary to the health, safety, and welfare of its citizens; or that mandates increased costs or loss of revenues; or that would diminish the fundamental authority of the City. Likewise, the City will support any legislation viewed as advancing the City’s strategic goals; or that improves the health, safety, and welfare of its citizens; or that reduces costs or responsibly increases revenues; or that advances the City’s authority to conduct the public's business. The City will form strategic partnerships with cities, political subdivisions, and private sector entities that share common goals with the City of Southlake. Additionally, the City will work in coordination with other cities and organizations such as the Texas Municipal League when their adopted positions are inline with the legislative objectives and goals of the City. The formation of strategic partnerships and coordinated efforts is intended to provide the City with a stronger presence in the legislative process. 3 The remainder of the legislative agenda is broken down into several population growth.and as the State of Texas recently did with the new school finance plan.government funding as other states have done, who impose revenue caps apply to all levels of government. The State could also supplement local applied uniformly to the state budget as well. In short the same rules should If revenue caps are going to be applied to local governments they should be levels of revenue to provide the required services. time unduly restricting the ability of local governments to raise the necessary numerous public services, with no funding from the State, while at the same It is inappropriate for the State of Texas to expect local governments to provide During the last several Texas Legislative Sessions, proposals have been set forth that would severely limit the ability of cities to set their budgets or raise adequate revenues to carryout their fundamental functions. For example, numerous proposals to “cap” local revenues and property appraisals have been filed in the Texas Legislature. Every elected official in the City of Southlake is sensitive to the tax burden our citizens and businesses pay and is accountable to the local electorate for the decision they make. However, we are also mindful that it takes a great deal of flexibility with our local budget to meet the unique demands for services while at the same time preserving the high standards our community has come to expect. Appraisal and revenue caps undermine the ability of local governments to meet the individual needs and circumstances of their cities. Additionally, one size fits all “caps” violate the fundamental principle of local control. Citizens and businesses have numerous opportunities to provide input in to the City of Southlake’s budget and tax rate setting processes. Most importantly the citizens of our City get to voice their approval or disapproval of our budgeting performance and tax rates every time we hold a City election. Unfortunately, extremely low appraisal and revenue caps can produce numerous problems. For instance, appraisal caps shift the inequitable tax burden to businesses and new homeowners. This inequitable shift can produce serious long-term negative consequences for the local economy. Revenue caps on the other hand require the City to cut services or undertake on more debt to fund local projects and services. These types of “caps” are particularly harmful to a city like Southlake because it prevents the City from 4 adequately dealing with the infrastructure needs brought on by tremendous For example, land use controls are used to keep undesirable businesses situations because of the vast differences between cities in this large state.be very cautious in proscribing solutions that are only applicable to individual those tools have been proscribed by the Texas legislature. The State should planning tools and techniques are most appropriate to its situation unless means that each home rule city can make its own decisions about what constitution or general laws enacted by the state legislature. The bottom line charters and pass ordinances al long as they do not conflict with the Texas constitution’s home rule provisions. Cities are allowed to amend The ability of most cities to manage growth and development is based on the their property.so in part to ensure that an incompatible structure will not be placed next to system. In short when a home or business locates in a particular city they do reasons people live in cities is to have the protection of a regulated land use from locating in neighborhood type settings. Additionally, one of the main Over the past few legislative sessions various proposals have been introduced to restrict the ability of cities to enforce their traditional land use controls. Specifically, legislation that requires cities to compensate landowners anytime a zoning classification change (often referred to as a “downzoning”) have become dangerously close to becoming the law. Under these proposals cities would have to compensate landowners, even if the proposed zoning changes did not interfere with the current or intended use of the property. In addition to compensating landowners for zoning changes, proposals have been considered that would require compensation for numerous types of city regulations. For example, previously proposed legislation would have required cities to compensate landowners if they restricted the ability of patrons to smoke on premises or limited the time of day that alcohol could be served. All of these types of local restrictions have been debated under the theory of “regulatory takings.” Additional legislative proposals would have prevented cities from ever changing the zoning classification of a property if any type of basic permit or site plan has been filed with anygovernmental entity. Since 1999 the Texas Legislature has continually expanded the “permit vesting” statute to include different aspects of city land use authority. The expansion of the “permit vesting” statute is beginning to interfere with the ability of cities to impose orderly, efficient, and comprehensive land use and development plans for their communities. 5 Restricting the ability of cities to properly regulate land uses ultimately prevents them from being able to respond to the needs and demands of their citizens. preempting municipalities from regulating the practices of midstream gas viability of private property.order to safeguard the interests of the public and the long term economic regulatory authority upon municipalities over the activities described herein in Certain intra-state gas utilities are not typical public utilities that deliver a product to the consumer, but rather transport natural gas for the benefit of the production companies that they are affiliated with. However, currently these companies have greater powers than typical public utilities, or even municipalities. Further, these companies refuse to collaborate in the coordination or utilization of other producers’ pipelines in the region. Instead these companies prefer to install their own redundant pipelines enforcing eminent domain on property owners. For those municipalities who have no requirement for these companies to map the pipeline route, they are not even required to notify the municipality of the installation. The possibility of having several redundant pipelines crossing our municipal boundaries can potentially ruin any opportunity for future economic growth of those areas. When easements for these lines are forcibly taken through threats of eminent domain, they are permanent, and therefore, the future land use is limited. Basically, it will be permanently used as limited agricultural use land only. While in some instances the land may not be ideal for other uses, these companies take the shortest and least expensive route, not taking into consideration the comprehensive plans set by the municipality. Therefore, we might find one of these pipelines going through areas that are planned commercial or residential areas, destroying future growth. Developers will then have to work around the pipeline easements when constructing homes and businesses. 6 The City Council of the City of Southlake, Texas, respectfully requests and urges the Legislature to revisit the prudence and continued appropriateness of clarify the “place of business” definition. The criteria used to determine be occurring at another location. Using a basis of only three sales during the course the retailer in question.place of business definition should be altered to consider the total sales of The whether a location qualifies as a place of business is not sufficient. Recently, some local governments have entered into agreements with retailers that alter the allocation of sales tax receipts from one city to another based on the interpretation of what constitutes a place of business.The Comptroller’s Office currently interprets a place of business to be any business location that has at least three sales within a calendar year.Using this guideline, some cities have persuaded retailers to alter their primary place of business from a traditional retail outlet to a warehouse in order to receive the sales tax receipts in their city instead.As a result of these practices, many cities are now losing revenue that is needed to support core services such as public safety, street maintenance, code enforcement, and libraries. The current “place of business” definition and sales tax agreements that have been implemented have created financial losses for many Texas cities. While presently limited in number, these agreements create a precedent for other retailers and municipal governments to follow.As such, it is possible that additional agreements from a number of retailers may follow suit which may cause tremendous financial strain for many local governments. Cities have made a number of service delivery financing decisions based on the historical collection of sales taxes.The reallocation procedures limit the effectiveness of long-term financial planning since cities cannot guarantee that sales tax dollars will continue to be received. These agreements meet the spirit of the tax code, and as such, the statute should be modified to prevent these types of issues from occurring in the future. 7 The Texas Legislature should amend Chapter 321 of the Texas Tax Code to For the FY 2009 budget the City of Southlake approved a homestead exemption for its residents. The ordinance that was approved by City Council setting the exemption stated that each resident is entitled to an exemption of $15,000 or 20% of assessed value, whichever is the lesser. After the budget and all the pertinent ordinances were approved the Tax Assessors office came forward claiming that we were not authorized by state law to set a hard dollar amount. In reviewing this issue with our attorneys it is our position that the exemption set by City Council is allowed since the City of Southlake operates as a home rule city and the tax code does not state that a hard number can not be set. School districts in Texas are able to set hard dollar number exemptions, and the City of Southlake would like this to be clarified in the tax code so as not to cause any confusion going forward. The City of Southlake would like to see an amendment to Texas Tax Code 11.13 allowing taxing entities to offer homestead exemptions as a hard dollar number, as long as it is still under the 20% cap already in place in the tax code. 8 In the mean time if you have any issues or concerns that you would like addressed in the City’s legislative agenda please let the City Manager’s office know so that we can ensure its inclusion in the agenda. 9