Corpus Christi Caller Times Caller.com - City offers voters 6 choices this time

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Tuesday, October 10, 2000

City offers voters 6 choices this time
Overwhelming rejection of 1997 bond proposal changes ballot approach
By Jason Ma
Caller-Times

Paul Iverson/Caller-Times

Repair of streets is included in a proposed $20.7 million bond issue - one of six items on the Nov. 7 city ballot. Work on Leopard Street at Violet Road is being done with money approved in 1986.

Voters' rejection of $105 million in community projects in 1997 and the more than a decade wait for projects approved in a 1986 election has reshaped the city's ballot approach: fewer projects, less money, quicker turnaround and more choices.
   In 1997, the city took an all-or-nothing approach in asking voters to fund 35 projects, including expanding the Bayfront Plaza Convention Center, renovating libraries and building a $9 million baseball facility to be owned by Texas A&M University-Corpus Christi.
   Voters, 69 percent of them, chose nothing.
   This time around the city has separated bond proposals and tax increases into six ballot questions that promise to give city officials a clearer picture of where voters want the city to go.
   Councilman Rex Kinnison said bundling measures together obscures what exactly citizens support and what they do not. The multiple questions on November's ballot are in response to criticism of the lack of choice in 1997, he said.
   "We were just trying to be responsive to the voters," he said. Under bundled bond proposals, "they may have liked one of them, but they didn't like all of them."
   On Nov. 7, residents will vote on:

A one-eighth cent sales tax increase for an arena.

A one-eighth cent sales tax increase for repairs to the seawall.

A one-eighth cent sales tax increase for economic development.

A $5.33 million bond issue for public health and safety, which would include a new fire station and police training facility.

A $4.42 million bond issue for park and recreation improvements and $270,000 for museum improvements.

An estimated $20.7 million bond issue for street repairs.
   The city's $30.8 million bond package would be financed by a 4-cent increase in the property tax rate. The impact on the owner of a $67,278 home would be $26.91 annually, or about $2.24 a month.
   Small steps
   Betty Steiner, a 71-year-old homemaker, said she voted against the 1997 bond package because there were too many items included in it, some that she did not want. "I resented that."
   She's happy about having a choice on each item in this election, and wants to vote for the seawall repairs but not for the arena.
   "We can choose now," she said. "If they were all lumped together, it gives us a bad feeling."
   Ron Massey, assistant city manager for public works, said whatever the election results, the city will get a better understanding of what voters want because of the separate ballot questions.
   What voters want will be important information as the city continues to pursue its plan of asking voters for capital improvements incrementally, Kinnison said.
   "(The ballot items) represent a small portion of the capital improvements we need," he said. "Future City Councils will need to go back to the voters."
   That plan to request a few projects at a time stems from voter disillusionment about the city's ability to complete large-scale bond projects, city officials said.
   Cynicism grew after $105 million in projects approved in 1986 were delayed for lack of funding.
   "We lost trust in them," Steiner said. "If they had done it then, voters would not be so against voting on increases in taxes."
   Regaining credibility
   The city authorized bonds last month that would complete the last of those projects. They include repairs to sections of Alameda Street, Santa Fe Street and Weber Road.
   The problem with the 1986 bonds, Massey said, was that the collected tax revenue fell short of what was expected because a downturn in the region's economy shrank the tax base. But if voters OK these projects, city officials are confident that they can complete the projects in the time promised and regain some credibility with voters.
   The city is using conservative estimates of tax revenue growth, officials said. For the general obligation bonds, the city assumes a 2.5 percent increase in tax revenue for the first five years and 1 percent each year after that, said Skip Noe, deputy city manager. And for the sales tax measures, the city would operate on the assumption of no growth in revenue.
   The bonds up for consideration this time are estimated to be substantially finished in three years. In 1986, the time was five years.
   "The key is that this is a short-term deal," Kinnison said. "The short time period ensures that something like that (revenue shortfalls) doesn't happen."


Staff writer Jason Ma can be reached at 886-3778 or by e-mail at maj@caller.com

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