convince me to vote for this:

https://www.statesman.com/story/news/local/round-rock/2023/04/22/round-rock-voters-have-274-million-bond-on-ballot/70095026007/

The one statement you can make that is NOT true is taxes are out of control. I've lived here 29 years and not once did I feel I was paying too much in taxes. The city has always shown to be fairly good stewards of those tax dollars.

As for the bond, note this is the first one in 10 years. Not exactly an example of out of control borrowing and spending. Prop B is a no brainer. Putting money directly into public safety and works. Prop A is a personal decision. Keep in mind RR city has focused on attracting sports tourism for 20 years. So this is maintenance and upgrade to those facilities to continue earning tourist taxes. but I could see why someone would not vote for it.

Unfortunately our parks department thinks that "improving our parks" means adding pavement, concrete structures, barriers, fences, and office buildings, rather than building access to green space and fields.
Proposition A is asking $230 million. $147M is earmarked for construction in Old Settlers Park, a park formerly known as the crown jewel of the city, but each year seems to be less wildflowers and green space, more concrete and fences.
The construction includes:

• Building a new office building for themselves with a hilltop view, not in the city center next to other office buildings, but in the center of a park where all parkgoers can see their concrete and glass offices instead of bluebonnets.
• Tearing up a field and trees to add yet another covered pavilion. Why stop at 7 when you can build an 8th?
• Tear up another area for a new synthetic turf field, complete with concrete surround and fence barriers.
• Take out yet another chunk of green to build an indoor recreation center in the outdoor park. They could have chosen elsewhere that building is going on, but instead, they want to rip it out of the green space. There are plenty of places to build an indoor recreation center rather than taking it out of a chunk of the green.
• Fence in four large fields. The fields already exist as open space, but the plan is to fence them in and relabel them as "multipurpose fields". Somehow the parks administration doesn't see an open field as "multipurpose" already, it requires fences. There are already 24 fenced fields in the park, with most of those fences added within the last decade. This will fence in four more fields. Apparently an open field isn't a field unless it is surrounded by a fence that restricts access.
• More parking lots. Much it is the area they use for parking on event days rather than busing people in or having a short walk. Perhaps 20 days of the year during large events they reroute the tremendous number of people to park in an unwatered grassy field. The other 340 days of the year people can and do use the space. However, to make it easier for those few events they want to cut down the trees and pave over the fields, because what's a park without sprawling parking lots?

All total these "improvements" convert about 40 acres of existing green park space into more buildings, parking lots, and fenced areas.
That's in addition to another $43M for construction in other parks. Many of those construction projects include -- you guessed it -- more concrete and fences.
There's $20M for the sports center expansion, and $20M for the Madsen center expansion, and some unspecified portion allocated to Rock 'n' River. While the existing facilities do need work, they already charge fees that in theory are supposed to cover this. They shouldn't be coming from a bond package, but from the facilities and the operating budget.
Vote no. Parks are great. Open spaces are amazing. Replacing grassy fields and open spaces with pavement, buildings, and fencing, not so much.
/Edit: This is probably the best online writeup of the proposal. You can compare it with this Google Maps view of the park. The construction would consume almost all the remaining open space in the park. The roughly 640 acre park will have the last large open area removed, leaving open spaces as roughly 5 acres of open space northeast of the lake, 2 acres northwest of the lake, and 8 acres south of the lake. The entire rest of the park will have been paved, fenced, or otherwise "improved".

How much increased tax revenue has the city received from increased home values? Maybe the money should come from that…

Being asked to pay for some bureaucrat's utopian vision of what the park could be, plus the more money that is spent, the more bureaucracy that is needed to manage it, and the more they feel they should get paid.

Do they still have Disc Golf there?

Ferg said:

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Do they still have Disc Golf there?

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Yes...right behind the Dell diamond on both sides of the creek.

I pay 50k per year on my Round Rock office in taxes and I can't even vote there!

docb said:

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I pay 50k per year on my Round Rock office in taxes and I can't even vote there!

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Yeah, that's how things work… everywhere. Make Round Rock your residence and boom you can vote there

cityagboy said:

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docb said:

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I pay 50k per year on my Round Rock office in taxes and I can't even vote there!

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Yeah, that's how things work… everywhere. Make Round Rock your residence and boom you can vote there

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I probably wouldn't even bother.

docb said:

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cityagboy said:

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docb said:

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I pay 50k per year on my Round Rock office in taxes and I can't even vote there!

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Yeah, that's how things work… everywhere. Make Round Rock your residence and boom you can vote there

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I probably wouldn't even bother.

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Well, that's how it works everywhere…. It would be pretty wild to let people vote where they worked regardless of where they live….

cityagboy said:

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docb said:

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cityagboy said:

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docb said:

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I pay 50k per year on my Round Rock office in taxes and I can't even vote there!

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Yeah, that's how things work… everywhere. Make Round Rock your residence and boom you can vote there

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I probably wouldn't even bother.

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Well, that's how it works everywhere…. It would be pretty wild to let people vote where they worked regardless of where they live….

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Most people don't pay taxes where they work. I don't think it would be unreasonable for people who own property in a city to be able to vote there.

docb said:

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cityagboy said:

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docb said:

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cityagboy said:

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docb said:

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I pay 50k per year on my Round Rock office in taxes and I can't even vote there!

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Yeah, that's how things work… everywhere. Make Round Rock your residence and boom you can vote there

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I probably wouldn't even bother.

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Well, that's how it works everywhere…. It would be pretty wild to let people vote where they worked regardless of where they live….

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Most people don't pay taxes where they work. I don't think it would be unreasonable for people who own property in a city to be able to vote there.

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Well, many companies pay taxes in many cities…. Who do you suggest gets the vote for each company? What about LLCs? What about non-profits? Do you think you should be able to buy property in 100 cities and vote in all of them?

It has to be where you have your residence or people with money would be voting all over the place…. Vote where you live

I live in Austin. But own property in Arkansas. Should I be able to vote in Arkansas?

cityagboy said:

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docb said:

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cityagboy said:

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docb said:

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cityagboy said:

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docb said:

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I pay 50k per year on my Round Rock office in taxes and I can't even vote there!

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Yeah, that's how things work… everywhere. Make Round Rock your residence and boom you can vote there

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I probably wouldn't even bother.

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Well, that's how it works everywhere…. It would be pretty wild to let people vote where they worked regardless of where they live….

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Most people don't pay taxes where they work. I don't think it would be unreasonable for people who own property in a city to be able to vote there.

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Well, many companies pay taxes in many cities…. Who do you suggest gets the vote for each company? What about LLCs? What about non-profits? Do you think you should be able to buy property in 100 cities and vote in all of them?

It has to be where you have your residence or people with money would be voting all over the place…. Vote where you live

I live in Austin. But own property in Arkansas. Should I be able to vote in Arkansas?

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Why not? You're paying taxes on that property to fund the municipality and schools. Why not have a say? I know it's not going to happen but it seems fair to me.

docb said:

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cityagboy said:

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docb said:

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cityagboy said:

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docb said:

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cityagboy said:

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docb said:

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I pay 50k per year on my Round Rock office in taxes and I can't even vote there!

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Yeah, that's how things work… everywhere. Make Round Rock your residence and boom you can vote there

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I probably wouldn't even bother.

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Well, that's how it works everywhere…. It would be pretty wild to let people vote where they worked regardless of where they live….

---

Most people don't pay taxes where they work. I don't think it would be unreasonable for people who own property in a city to be able to vote there.

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Well, many companies pay taxes in many cities…. Who do you suggest gets the vote for each company? What about LLCs? What about non-profits? Do you think you should be able to buy property in 100 cities and vote in all of them?

It has to be where you have your residence or people with money would be voting all over the place…. Vote where you live

I live in Austin. But own property in Arkansas. Should I be able to vote in Arkansas?

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Why not? You're paying taxes on that property to fund the municipality and schools. Why not have a say? I know it's not going to happen but it seems fair to me.

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Fair enough

I disagree