Local Govt Flashcards
What are the advantages of home rule?
More flexibility, elections to draft, adopt, and revise the city charter through elections, establishes power of city officers, sets salaries, sets term limits. A city charter is like the constitution in that it is the document that says what they can and can’t do.
What are the types of city govt in TX?
In 2007, 4,835 local governments (called city, municipal, metro, local). Also have county govt for rural areas and special districts.
General law- smaller city, standard, generic charter from legislature (charter is like a constitution in that it says what they can and can’t do).
Home rule - big population, can draft their own city charter, full power of self-government (do have to follow TX law restrictions)
What are the 3 unique powers of home rule that larger cities have?
- recall or remove elected politicians thru elections
- initiative- gather tons of voter signatures to propose a new law
- referendum- gather tons of voter signatures to repeal or accept a law that is already passed. Usually to repeal one they are angry about.
What are the 4 main forms of city govt in US and Texas?
- strong mayor- council members (big cities). Mayor elected “at large” by all voters in a city and city council members elected thru “single member districts”, mayor power to veto, set budget approved by council and appoint or fire heads of city departments.
- weak mayor- council members (mayor is just like another city council member for the most part. Council can override his veto.
- council- city manager form. mayor is elected at large, head of city council members, few administrative powers that are left to the city manager and the city manager is hired by the mayor and council. City manager carries out the decisons of the council and manages city departments.
- commisioner-government. At county level, judge + commissioners.
What is non-partisan?
Where parties are not identified for voters on the election ballot. Unlike federal and state elections, the city elections (city, town, metro, special districts, county) do not have dem or rep listed by the name of the candidate running for office. A drawback is fewer voters turn up to vote (low voter turn out). And vote for personalities not the issues they should say they will solve. Bad for smaller towns.
What is at large and what is single member district (SMD)?
At large -elected by the whole city voters. This benefits or over represents anglos (who vote in large #s). Minorities under represented.
SMD - get to vote for the candidate that lives in your area/district so this increases the chance that minorities will get elected. So the city council members will have more diversity of anglos and minorities.
Cumulative voting- what is is?
The number of positions is the number of votes you can cast. Candidate with the most votes win. This increases minorities elected and representing their people. Amarillo School district adopted cumulative voting after they were sued. The school had 30% minority but the whole elected board was white/anglo BEFORE the lawsuit.
City revenue $. Main points:
Money to run city comes in from property taxes based on value & where house or business located, sales tax on store purchases. Poor cities get less from poorer property and rely more on sales tax which varies. So have to create new fees on things or raise fees, freeze hiring, cut services or bring in private company to do public service.
Municipal (municipal means city) Bonds. Bonds means money loans.
What are the 2 types of bonds the cities use?
General Obligation Bond-need taxpayer vote. Obligation of the general population to pay it back. Ex-vote whether to spend $ to build a park.
Revenue Bond- rely on $ revenue from the project itself. Ex-Alamo stadium. Money from using the stadium once built pays back the bond loan. Don’t need voter approval.
How do cities generate revenue/money? State and federal money appropriated is shrinking, especially for economic development projects. This is hard on poorer inner cities where old houses are dilapidated, bad streets and other poor infrastructure, more crime
To attract more money to their city, they use 1. Tax Reinvestment Zone and 2.Tax Breaks to businesses to come to their city.
County. What do they do?
They focus on rural areas but also provide service to urban areas. Summerglen suburb is outside the city, it is in Bexar county. So we can’t vote in city elections, we pay most of our taxes to the county. Our fire and cops come from the county. What do they do?
Counties collect taxes. They issue car licenses, enforce the state laws, register voters, etc. They try to keep taxes low so they don’t provide as many services as a city does.
Who are county officials and what do they do?
- Elected in partisan (dem or rep by their name) elections.
County judge is the head and he is elected “at large” by all voting. Have 4 commissioners (elected from single member districts). - Duties-county budget, decide tax rate, jails, court, fix roads and bridges and run county health and welfare programs, etc.
Other county officials are also elected to do stuff for the county.
County problems
Have unfunded mandates from the state (county money comes in from property taxes and fees like traffic fines and sale of liquor.)
Have rigid structure and duties (like only 4 commissioners and a judge)
set up by the Texas constitutuion. No HOME RULE allowed in TX for the counties. So can’t adopt their own charter. Remember cities are created by the State, not feds.
Variation in size of different counties makes coordination hard.
Metro/City Areas
85% live in metro areas rather than rural.
Problems of traffic, limited access to healthcare, crime, pollution,etc
conflict-City resident needs vs wealthier suburban residents needs.
Municipal (city) Annexation
Goal-improve order and sprawl of development outside the city and have more planned growth. Must provide services to areas they annex.
1963 law. Gave cities limited authority in their ETJ. ExtraTerritorial Jurisdiction. Bigger cities have bigger ETJ. Advantage over smaller suburbs. Cities can annex without needing the vote or permission of those living there.
