According to Mayor Dale Ross, the issue of Georgetown's continued participation in the Lone Star Rail District will likely be on the January 27, 2015 agenda. Citizens of Georgetown need to contact their city council members to let them know their thoughts and feelings on the issue. Their contact information is at the following link. https://government.georgetown.org/city-council/
Valuable information and insight can be gained by looking at the following presentation by Randal O'Toole from the CATO Institute on the Austin light rail proposal that was recently defeated at the polls. http://ti.org/pdfs/AustinLR.pdf He is a nationally known expert on the economics of transit systems. He points out that CAMPO, our Capitol Area Metropolitan Planning Organization, plans to spend more than 2/3 of our transportation funding on transit systems and only 25% on roads! Yet 99% of us use our personal vehicles on public roads for transportation.
It is insanity to lock up our property tax revenues in a Transit Reinvestment Zone(TIZ) forever. We know circumstances change over time and funds from the TIZ will not be available as long as Lone Star Rail exists, even if it does not meet the needs of Georgetown residents.
Get involved! Tell your councilman to untangle Georgetown from this money sink!
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