Howdy Neighbors, September 18, 2014 The City of Gladewater has your property in its sights. The city council met tonight and voted to proceed with Phase One plans to annex your land, and assess to you new property taxes, in addition to what you already pay. The current Gladewater city tax is $577 per $100,000 of assessed value. This amount would be added to what you paid last year. There is also a Phase Two already commissioned which would continue the land grab further along into Smith County. Other than the “benefit” of being able to call yourself a citizen of the City of Gladewater, you would receive NO benefits of any city services. No new water, sewer, or fire department coverage has been allotted. You would, however, be under new city authority and their imposed regulations, including possible burn bans, noise restrictions, no firearm discharges and hunting bans. The City Council of Gladewater is determined to bring all nearby available landowners under its jurisdiction. I do not see a way to dissuade them, and the State of Texas has given them legal authority to unilaterally, without your consent, to accomplish this. Even if for some bizarre reason they decided to forego annexation of our houses and farms, then next year or the next elected council could bring it back as an issue. In the past, residents in Texas who were facing unfair taxation and annexation moved to petition a county judge or state official to incorporate and form their own town. They formed their own municipality to keep a neighboring city at bay. I propose pursuing the possibility of this option for us. The town can be as small as a few families. The founding charter could be fashioned to protect the liberties we hold dear for future residents, similar to the way the Constitution of the United States is very difficult to change. As an initial thought, guaranteed no (or ridiculously low) property taxes could be assessed, a ban on any new firearm regulations, and no restrictive regulations. The sole purpose of the town would be to protect our individual country freedoms and heritage. I will be speaking with an attorney in the next few days to see if this is indeed a viable option for us to protect our land rights. Ultimately, if families along McComic Road and further out are interested, we can survey a proposed area, write a petition, get 10% of eligible voters to agree, and file the documents. I would appreciate knowing any interest or lack of interest you have concerning this matter. Sincerely, Clint & Aviya Pace 23984 CR 374 Gladewater, TX 75647
Posted on: Fri, 19 Sep 2014 02:39:47 +0000