Remarks by David K. Leigh
244 remarks on the record, newest first · Page 3 of 10
- Play at 6:37
“So as we discussed the conversation with those developers, did they have comments about our fee schedule, positive, negative, neutral? So there was no specific concerns or issues that they brought up?”
City Council · Sep 15, 2026
- Play at 7:18
“Any other comments or the chair would entertain a motion?”
City Council · Sep 15, 2026
- Play at 7:28
“We have motion and second to adopt the City of Belton fee and rate schedule for fiscal year 2027. The one comment I will make on a lot of the fees that we saw is there are a lot of fees. Over the years, Belton has always been very low on our fees. When we're low on our fees, what we're doing is whatever that fee is, the cost of that is being supported by ad valorem tax primarily because we don't really control fees. sales tax revenue other than through policy of trying to bring in things that are not just houses. Like so when we bring in businesses that bring in sales tax. But there are a lot…”
City Council · Sep 15, 2026
- Play at 10:05
“Just want to make sure that- Yeah, so we went to a tiered. And then in some cases when it's engineering that are outside costs, it's the actual cost of whatever that is. We're not making a profit on that.”
City Council · Sep 15, 2026
- Play at 10:16
“Okay. And it's right. I mean, when we supplement anything in the city with taxes, especially property taxes, we need a good reason for it. And if it helps spur development, which generally lowers the taxes, the increase in the cost plus the increased revenue of more taxes pay for itself. So there's an economic development aspect to some of these fees, which again, I think ours is reasonable. Okay. Any other comments before we vote?”
City Council · Sep 15, 2026
- Play at 11:08
“So the alternative is that that cost that we're supplementing, whatever the fee is, would be shouldered by property taxes. So the corollary is if you're not for that, you're for an increase in property taxes to pay for that.”
City Council · Sep 15, 2026
- Play at 11:25
“Well, no, I mean, that's what it is. That's the only other level we have. If we have a fee here and a fee there and we want to go down here, we have to go up there. The only thing we can control, we can't change our sales tax revenue. We can change our property tax rate.”
City Council · Sep 15, 2026
- Play at 11:43
“We can't change our sales tax rate. It's set by the state.”
City Council · Sep 15, 2026
- Play at 11:51
“Yeah, but that's a different conversation than fee and rate schedule. That's a different, that's a different.”
City Council · Sep 15, 2026
- Play at 12:02
“Not today. That's correct. So today our choice is go up on fees or go up on property taxes.”
City Council · Sep 15, 2026
- Play at 12:13
“Well, that's fine. You don't have to agree with it. It doesn't make it right or wrong. But the fact is, if anything we change to lower revenue in one pot, we will have to increase revenue in another pot. And at this point in the game, the only thing we could do...”
City Council · Sep 15, 2026
- Play at 12:39
“The new fees are to accommodate the in kind cost the city has had. They're not new costs. They've always been. These are all costs. These are not new costs. And so all we're doing is replacing the cost with a fee. Reasonable.”
City Council · Sep 15, 2026
- Play at 13:01
“So, I just want to make sure we're technically correct. I mean, opinion, we can vote one way or the other, but from a technical standpoint, it's shifting it from fees to property taxes.”
City Council · Sep 15, 2026
- Play at 13:39
“And Temple Area Builders Association reviewed these fees.”
City Council · Sep 15, 2026
- Play at 14:41
“As a person who owns a construction company and as a person who does residential and commercial real estate development, I also shoulder the burdens of those costs. And when you go into a construction project, you don't know any of your costs. They're all variable. And you go in and look at the project, project by project, and you pay engineers out of your pocket to help you do that. So what we try to do is be transparent and work with Temple Area Builders Association so that they, as representatives of all the builders in the area, can give us feedback. And when we first rolled out, a lot of…”
City Council · Sep 15, 2026
- Play at 16:09
Not quoted here: it may name a member of the public. Hear it at the meeting.
City Council · Sep 15, 2026
- Play at 17:17
“All right. Again, we've gone through this multiple times. Any comments, questions, or the chair would entertain a motion?”
City Council · Sep 15, 2026
- Play at 21:21
“I'll just as a point of order, when we're talking about policy, we need to restrict our discussion about the current revenue being raised and not other policy decisions, because there's other governance and documents governing anything about economic development. That's a different discussion. We're not here to debate. economic development we're just here about the fiscal year 2027 annual budget if you want to make it a point that it's somewhere else but as we get into policy we need to post meetings about that kind of stuff and so we really need to limit our discussion about this year's…”
City Council · Sep 15, 2026
- Play at 22:29
“It is this discussion. It is not. It is a policy discussion. We're not here to grandstand. I'm not here to grandstand.”
City Council · Sep 15, 2026
- Play at 22:48
“Are your constituents sitting in this room?”
City Council · Sep 15, 2026
- Play at 23:02
“That's what you call grandstanding. It's using an opportunity for this to grandstand about a topic that's not related directly to this.”
City Council · Sep 15, 2026
- Play at 24:43
“We have a motion and a second to ratify that the budget being adopted is more than the budget from last year. Okay.”
City Council · Sep 15, 2026
- Play at 24:55
“All right. All in favor, say aye. Aye. Those opposed?”
City Council · Sep 15, 2026
- Play at 25:01
“Okay. I will just say from a point of order, it's just a number higher than last year, not how it got there. So, understandable. it's it's no it's just it's just ratify it's just the number now we're going to get into the next parts which is more to what your comments had to say all three of these items six item six is consider an ordinance adopting the fiscal year 2027 annual budget for the city of belton mr rogers”
City Council · Sep 15, 2026
- Play at 26:03
“Right. So again, we've seen this and heard this and have had inputs on the details of the expenses and the revenues. And I will say for the right that the staff has been very responsive to the request when it came to revenue or expenses and what we could do to get this as close to last year's tax rate as possible. But this is the budget portion, not the tax rate portion that will come in the next thing. So because we've gone through that again, the chair would entertain a motion or any comments.”
City Council · Sep 15, 2026