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I guess all this means is that Ms Hunt and the council members who signed the memo don't know anything about Appraisal Districts or how they operate and are funded. The city if they are so concerned about appraisals should certainly support legislation in Austin in the next session to support public disclosure of the price on all real estate sales. The conspiracy option is that it is cheap political theater, a specialty of the District 14 councilwoman designed to embarrass the mayor over the convention hotel

I just got an email notice that our "Adopt-a-School" kids (from an inner city elementary school) will not be able to come visit our office today for their last mentoring session of this school year. Turns out they could not find a school bus to carry them here. But what we REALLY need in this city is a 100 million dollar hotel that no one will use.

Alfredo: The Dallas City Council has lobbied the Texas Legislature to mandate disclosure of sales prices in real property transactions. Last session, Councilmember Koop and others testified in Austin on how critical this issue is to Dallas and other cities across Texas. Unfortunately, there was not the political will in Austin to pass this legislation.

The purpose of the council brieifing is to educate the council and mayor on the precise legal impediment at the state level resulting in undervalued commercial properties in Dallas. This inequity has resulted in a shift of the tax burden to homeowners and that isn't fair. Importantly, we will invite our Dallas legislative delegation to the briefing so that they may hear our concerns and work with us to resolve this issue. We'll also invite representatives from DCAD to explain how their hands are tied on this issue, and to point out some of their recent reassessments.

Ideally, I'd also like to see our city staff highlight some of the apparently undervalued commercial properties in Dallas, as examples.

While the council may have a general understanding that this is a "state issue," I can assure you that we do not have a grasp of the extent of the problem -- how many tens of millions of dollars we are losing from Dallas' city coffers as a result of these undervaluations.

Why wouldn't we want to highlight this issue, and in the process educate not only the council and mayor, but also Dallas residents? How many homeowners do you know that are aware of this inequity? How many homeowners know that some commercial property owners are getting a sweet deal on their taxes because DCAD is undervaluing the property due to a loophole in state law?

We can't fix a problem unless the public cares about it, and the public won't care about it unless they know about it.

If enough homeowners (and voters) learn what's really happening and express their frustration to their elected officials, perhaps that -- coupled with the city's lobbying efforts -- will persuade our legislature to make the necessary changes.

I sure as hell know that the city is updating their taxes mine went up beyond what an independent appraisal offered(for a re-finance)
If I gotta put up with this crap then screw those "sweet deal" mofo's.
These are the people that are taking much needed money away from the city ,maybe whey we cant finance basic city services,i.e road repair(unless you live in one of the better neighborhoods )