What "Local Control" Really Means

In recent years the mayor has opposed changes in the annexation laws and restrictions on the city's power to tax under the guise of local control. Politicians have subverted the true meaning of local control, which they define as city control, as opposed to the actual meaning of individual or voter control.

This description of the high jacking of the term "local control" comes from Michael Quinn Sullivan.

Practically speaking, mayors and city councils around the state treat your hometown like their personal kingdom with you as their subjects. The tool of “local control” has been seized by them and perverted into a faux principle. “Local control” – like any other governance catchphrase – is a tool available to safeguard liberty, or misused to run roughshod over the citizens.

In recent years, it’s been the latter rather than the former. We have watched city officials screech “local control” to hide schemes enriching their cronies. Across Texas, “local control” is the justification mayors and city councils are using to undermine your rights while consolidating power for themselves.

When your mayor crows about “local control,” ask when the city will follow the example of the mayor of Stafford, Texas, who used local control to abolish property taxes.

Right now, cities around the state are passing left-wing ordinances to ban shopping bags and dictate minimum wages, sick leave policies, and even the bathroom policies businesses must adopt. With the blessing of the taxpayer-funded lobbying group known as the “Texas Municipal League,” city council are attempting to turn Texas into a patchwork of leftist policies mirroring the failed states of California and Oregon.

Over the past two weeks we have seen cities like Austin and Pfluegerville testifying to the Texas Legislature that imposition of a 2.5% trigger on property tax increases would cause them to cut public safety budgets. This of course is hog wash and in Washington D.C it is known as the "Washington Monument" response to any slowing of budget increases.

So take back the term "local control" and use it as originally intended, citizen or voter control.