Staff Reports
The group of concerned Maverick County tax payers who originally brought the miscalculation of the tax rate back in September continue their investigation, and have currently run into another obstacle in trying to acquire the 2016 Tax Rate Worksheets.
For almost a week before the October 11, 2016 County Commissioners Court meeting and three weeks after, communications with Maverick County legal counsel Woody Wilson show him waiting 14 days from October 5 to October 19 to tell Maverick County taxpayer Ethelvina Felan that there were no documents related to her request for Tax Rate Worksheets supporting the Tax Rates adopted at the October 3, 2016 meeting. Felan's public information request the next day to view all versions of the tax rate calculations since September 7 in-person at the Tax Assessor Collector's Office was also denied by Wilson.
Wilson has now sent a letter, dated November 10, to the Attorney General's office arguing that Maverick County desires to continue denying public access to the tax rate calculations requested in-person by Felan because of the possibility that taxpayers could use the information to file an injunction to stop Maverick County's collection of taxes at the unexplained tax rates, or that taxpayers could use the information to pursue a Tax Rollback Petition.
Felan, the tax payer at the forefront of the investigation, who has been trying to access the documents, gave her opinion on the situation.
“He’s trying to get guidance from the Attorney General from when it should be open to the public as per the Texas Public Information Act. We also contacted the Attorney General, so it goes both ways,” said Felan. “To me it seems like they’re hiding something. They’re hiding something from the public they just don’t want us to see, and from my point of view, I think they made an error still and just don’t want the public to know. They do want our taxes but they don’t want us to know what exactly they included or did not include in the tax sheets.”
According to Felan, the county was supposed to have let the public know how they came about the “corrected” tax rate.
“That’s why we’re scratching our heads wondering what is it exactly that they approved and how they came up with the numbers for the tax rate they adopted when we had actually gone up there and told them to their faces, ‘Hey this is supposed to be the actual approximate percentage rate’ and they still ignored us, and they still wanted just to get their own numbers,” said Felan.
She added that they have been facing significant trouble in trying to access documents that would explain how the county got to the tax rate.
“They haven’t been working with us. They did not want to [give the forms to me]. [Tax Assessor and Collector Isamari Villarreal] did not even want to approach me until later after I said that I was not going to leave that office until I got answers. She finally approached me and said she needed to fax those forms to Mr.Wilson even though we knew those forms were in that office, and Wilson clearly states on his letter that those forms are actually there in that office and it’s supposed to be open for public,” said Felan. “We as Maverick County citizens have a right to know the truth. Why is it that they’re trying to hide all this? What is it that they’re hiding? Another corruption?”
Felan said she has yet to meet with any of the commissioners or County Judge David Saucedo. She and the other concerned tax payers have had to speak at commissioners court meetings in order to voice their opinions in front of the county officials.
“And as you probably already know, [Saucedo] didn’t even let me talk. He wants to run that court house like it’s his court house when in reality it’s our court house because we are the ones that elected them. They are supposed to be serving us not us to them,” said Felan. “We as voters are trusting these public officials to do the right thing, they promise all of this stuff that they put out there when they’re running, then once they get elected, what do they do? Do they just hide everything from the public, now they got their seat and that’s it? Look at how many of those elected officials are sitting in prison right now. Whenever we go out somewhere, they find out where we’re from and they’re like oh, you’re from that corrupted city. It’s embarrassing. We need to put a stop to that.”