Having lived here for 18 years, one recurring theme I’ve heard is “That’s how we do it here. If you don’t like it, go back where you came from!” I was recently told this personally by one of our esteemed commissioners.
Since I’ve been here, I’ve seen some heed the call, including our vital industries – Halliburton, Nielson-Skanska, Triad. We now have a single major industrial tenant, Kinder Morgan, which pays half of the property taxes in the county. Their expected business life is reported to be around 15-20 years, at which time all of the remaining CO2 will have been sucked from the ground.
The current sales pitch from our leaders is that new home construction is the future. The county eagerly gathers up development fees, which are spent in short order. The truth is that residential development in the absence of industry generates a need for new services which outstrip the existing county tax basis. The county runs short of revenues and begins sniffing around for new taxes to fill the gap. The model is to impose additional sales and property taxes, which burden hard-working families.
Developers certainly benefit though. There’s a historical model of collaborative investment in rural communities. But current Republican party doctrine opposes such programs, instead favoring a system that stuffs massive amounts of cash into the pockets of their campaign donors and the maw of the military-industrial complex. And our local Republican leaders remain in lock-step.
Chris Barnhouse
Cortez
