County Commissioner Ken Clark

Alert 17

 

The chart below shows the Preliminary Valuations produced by the Central Appraisal District, broken down by city. The increase in Preliminary Values countywide is almost $1 billion dollars which represents 8.3% increase. (This could bring the county an additional $3.8 million dollars in taxes.) If you have had your appraisal increased and would like to appeal it, this must be done within 30 days from the date you received your notice. Make sure you take evidence of why you think your appraisal should be lower. The Certified Values will be released on July 25, 2001, which will be the values that the taxing jurisdiction will use for their budget.

 

City

2001

Preliminary

Net Taxable

2000

CERTIFIED

Net Taxable

Value

City

 

Galveston Co.

$12,009,194,929

$11,011,229,510

 997,965,419

City of Galveston

2,167,576,812

1,939,521,317

 228,055,485

City of Texas City

3,779,831,528

3,680, 263,657

 99,567,871

City of LaMarque

394,779,234

371,035,388

 23,743,846

City of Hitchcock

130,425,606

123,681,615

6,743,991

 

Cityof Jamaica Beach

141,411,420

124,451,049

 16,960,371

City of Dickinson

511,451,819

471,226,055

40,225,764

 

Cit of Friendswood

1,429, 364,203

1,239, 056,499

 190,307,704

City of Kemah

152,679,912

142,656,628

 10,023,284

City of League City

2,412, 286, 613

2,097, 961, 510

 314,325,103

Clear Lake Shores

90, 981, 042

86,932, 657

 4,048,385

City of Santa Fe

298,111,788

281,704,578

 16,407,210

City of Tiki Island

179,327,263

153,073,454

 26,253,809

City of Bayou Vista

86,582,867

77,072,542

 9,510,436

*Provided by the Galveston County Central Appraisal District

The court has also adopted criteria for redistricting
  1. Where possible, easily identifiable geographic boundaries should be followed.
  2. Communities of interest should be maintained in a single district, where possible, & attempts should be made to avoid splitting neighborhoods. This does not mean, however, that it is necessary or appropriate to include the County’s large cities in a single commissioner precinct. To the contrary, there has been a traditional practice of splitting cities, such as Galveston, Texas City, League City, so that they are in two or more commissioner precincts. Since the cities have different characteristics and economies (e.g. tourism and maritime vs. industrial and petrochemical vs. primarily suburban), ensuring that these communities are represented by more than one commissioner helps to avoid isolating a community and encourages a county-wide perspective by the commissioners’ court.
  3. To the extent possible, districts should be composed of whole voting precincts. Where this is not possible or practicable, districsts should be drawn in a way that permits the creation of practical voting precincts and that ensures that adequate facilities for polling places exist in each voting precinct.
  4. Although it is recongized that existing districts will have to be altered to reflect new population distribution, any redistricting plan should, to the extend possible, be based on existing districts.
  5. Commissioner precincts must be configured so that they are relatively equal in total population according to the 2000 federal census. In no event should the total deviation between the largest and the smallest commissioner precinct exceed ten percent. The County will attempt to achieve a deviation that is less than ten percent under the data released by the Census Bureau.
  6. The districts should be compact and composed of contiguous territory. Compactness may contain a functional, as well as a geographical dimension.
  7. Consideration may be given to the preservation of incumbent-constituency relations by recognition of the residence of incumbents and their history in representing certain areas. In addtition, consideration may be given to avoiding contest between incumbents holding Commissioner Precinct positions.
  8. In drawing justice of the peace/constable precincts, the court will consider the level of workload, the location of county facilities, and the convenience of the people.
  9. The redistricting plan should be narrowly tailored to avoid retrogression in the position of racial minorities and language minorities as defined in the Voting Rights Act with respect to their effective exercise of the electoral franchise.
  10. The redistricting plan should not fragment a geographically compact minority community or pack minority voters in the presence of polarized voting so as to create liability under section 2 of the Voting Rights Act, 42 U. S. C. 1973.

CITIZEN ADVISORY ALERT RECIPIENTS:
Please Update Your Contact Information
>From time to time, issues come up that are geographical, plus I would
like to know whom I am emailing. My email list is relatively large with
folks from all over. I would like to get names, addresses and telephone
numbers so that when I have an issue of particular geographical
interest, I will be able to get your input. If you would email this
information back to me by clicking on reply, I will be able to
communicate with you more effectively. Thanks!
Please forward this to a friend.
E-mail clarkk@co.galveston.tx.us
174 Calder Rd., League City, TX 77573
281-316-8745 fax 281-316-2000

REMINDER:
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