Remarks by Liston Crim
26 remarks on the record, newest first · Page 1 of 2
- Play at 1:17:28
“folks I think we're nickel and diming this thing to death and the reason I say that the difference in the impact on the taxpayer between proposed 66 and the 67 or even the 68 Guys, we're making a correction here. If you know the history of the council, back in 23 and 24, I think is when they reduced the tax rate, they didn't do us any favors. They thought they were at the time, but they didn't do us any favors. Since 2020, this community has grown 40%, and it continues to grow at a rate of about 6% a year. We continue to add about 800 to 1,000 homes a year to this community.”
City Council · Sep 15, 2026
- Play at 1:18:11
“Almost one a day. And the thing is, if we look at even real conservative predictions, we're going to be servicing 20,000 people in a short period of time. And some people even go as high as maybe 40, 50,000 people by 20, you know, in 10 years. So my point is... i don't think we're doing the taxpayers any any justice by not continuing to try to protect their investment and that's these people that's our employees again i'll go back and say it a thousand times if you've got a guy if you've got a certified deep guy in water and waste water and you lose him it's going to cost you twenty thousand…”
City Council · Sep 15, 2026
- Play at 1:21:21
“Yeah, no, but I'm just saying to reduce the tax rate any lower and put these guys in a position to have to go dig up. I mean, the impact. They're going to have to find the money. They're going to have to find the money. And the impact is going to be so minuscule. Again, I'm not making light of $100. Yeah, I wouldn't say that.”
City Council · Sep 15, 2026
- Play at 1:21:55
“I'm just saying if you don't do it now you'll do it to him later which is going to be worse.”
City Council · Sep 15, 2026
- Play at 1:22:31
“Got it. Again, I just think the council from years ago can't go, you know, whatever somebody did back then is what they did. But my point is I don't think they did us any favor now because at the rate we're growing, you know, we've grown 40% since 2020. Our staff hasn't grown 40% since 2020. And, again, if you... If you're just being reactive in terms of, we're not fixing whole streets anymore, we're just patching potholes. And unless we got the money to do the work, we can't do it. So that's my point.”
City Council · Sep 15, 2026
- Play at 1:28:55
“And I also think we're not progressive with our infrastructure and our employees and things like that. You know, these commercial endeavors that come into it, like Taylor and some of those places, they're looking at places that can afford them some capacity, not necessarily, you know, In other words, they're looking at communities that are flourishing and that sort of thing. And again, I look at it like maintenance on my car. I can do a little bit of maintenance every year and save my car, or I can wait until the engine explodes and then, you know. You pay more. You're going to pay more. The…”
City Council · Sep 15, 2026
- Play at 1:32:48
“I mean my hope is that Eventually that Elgin takes off in terms of retail, but we were Supposedly the hottest thing going in in that in this corridor out here in terms of growth and And I think we've got some promising commercial growth ahead of us and that we would start sharing in some of the $9.6 million that Bastrop takes in every year for sales tax. So that's my hope.”
City Council · Sep 15, 2026
- Play at 1:38:22
“Would it make more sense if we adopted a tax rate than the budget?”
City Council · Sep 15, 2026
- Play at 25:44
“But I assume some of those items are included in this.”
City Council · Sep 9, 2026
- Play at 54:27
“I wonder if one consideration might be to tie it to our revenues as a percentage of saying, you know, eventually we will have a bigger tax base than what we have today.”
City Council · Sep 9, 2026
- Play at 1:01:09
“So leave us with 527.033. Are there any positions up there that you guys”
City Council · Sep 9, 2026
- Play at 1:02:07
“I was going to say, what role does this person play in IT? I mean, is it just support?”
City Council · Sep 9, 2026
- Play at 1:12:36
“And all these salaries based on the market? Yes. We're not bringing them at a deficit?”
City Council · Sep 9, 2026
- Play at 1:17:19
“Well, just to again to clarify this, these figures covered those 13. Yes, positions.”
City Council · Sep 9, 2026
- Play at 1:17:43
“OK, so from what I understand, going back, if my memory serves me, the vast majority of our employees are still below in that one bottom one fourth.”
City Council · Sep 9, 2026
- Play at 1:18:03
“Somewhere I heard 70% of our employees were still in the bottom one quarter of their pay scale.”
City Council · Sep 9, 2026
- Play at 1:20:08
“And this won't do anything for us when we're talking about compression and stuff like that, right?”
City Council · Sep 9, 2026
- Play at 1:28:28
“Okay We're we're might Refresh my memory. What are those 36 folks? How do they compare to the other the bulk of the employees that are still below the market baseline? I mean we said they're in a critical position, right and”
City Council · Sep 9, 2026
- Play at 1:28:50
“Well, I do too, but I'm trying to figure out how to distinguish between what I feel like I want to cover all employees, but I'm trying to figure out how would we determine these 36 votes. What criteria did we use?”
City Council · Sep 9, 2026
- Play at 1:32:11
“If you look at those positions that we're talking about, newly funded positions, those that are mandated And we're going to require a tax increase because we don't do anything without a tax increase other than a zero balance budget.”
City Council · Sep 9, 2026
- Play at 1:36:47
“One of the things I think we need to consider too is that when we talk about the impact on the average assessed value of a home in Elgin is about $290,000. That's not market value, that's the assessed value. The total impact on that person would be $203 a year, about $17 a month. I'm not saying that's good because there's nobody on this council that wants to raise taxes. There's no incentive for me to do that because I pay taxes. But my point is, for what we're trying to do, when you talk about employees, I've always made the comment it cost us to lose employees. The average, when we lose…”
City Council · Sep 9, 2026
- Play at 1:44:37
“Would you, Beau, would you do me a favor and include that impact on the taxpayer figure for us? In other words, we suggest it's $203 a year for the average assessed value at home. And then what 67 and 68 would do. And remember, guys, too, there was a comment made about how that impacts our most vulnerable part of our community, which we always consider 65 and older. Their taxes are frozen, folks. They don't pay a dime toward any rate increase. Again, none of us want to raise taxes, I believe.”
City Council · Sep 9, 2026
- Play at 6:36
“And, dear Lord, we ask that you be with us this evening as we conduct city business, and we ask that you give us the guidance and the good judgment to do so. In Jesus' name we pray, amen.”
City Council · Aug 25, 2026
- Play at 52:10
“So the 68 would satisfy the request that we've had?”
City Council · Aug 25, 2026
- Play at 52:40
“Because when we said 500,000, I'm like, not much.”
City Council · Aug 25, 2026