 Well, hey guys, thank y'all so much again for coming out and getting through some of the good people are new. My name's Stephen Pennington. I am running for Bear County Tax Assessor Collector. Also just wanted to before we get started, want to give huge kudos and a huge thank you and appreciation to Erin and her husband, the Eatons, and to Ole Miss Perks. We are amazing, we are amazing. We're so gracious for allowing us to use their space for a town hall and hopefully y'all got some great, I think however we kind of term it as, Sips and Sweets, Sweets and Sips, is that right? There we go, Sips and Sweets, very well. So I just got from this place a while back and Erin's amazing, so anyway, that being said, thank you again for coming out. I'm running for Bear County Tax Assessor Collector because I believe in a fair, smart, and transparent tax system. I believe that the Tax Assessor Collector should be an advocate for taxpayers and citizens of Bear County, but not to just focus on property taxes in particular, but I really wanted to see what could the office be done, what could be done with the office to make it smart as well. When I say smart, I'm talking about simple things and practical things like making an online system before you don't have to go to one of three substations, wasting tons of time. I have my own personal anecdotes that I've described to many of you and that are available even on the Facebook page now in the form of live video. But I really wanted to use this opportunity, use this time to kind of field questions from the community leaders who have shown up. We have a hodgepodge of people here, not only supporters, but people from the community, people who found us just on Facebook who are interested in the issue and I think it's very important that, they asked me the tough questions. I can kind of field those answers. That way you can understand that I'm a serious candidate recently endorsed by San Antonio Express News, very, very, very appreciative of that endorsement and I think it's very telling. We were, it's the only endorsement that they actually made one in each primary and so we'll read into that what we will, but I think kind of what they were able to say and the fact that I was bringing a fresh voice and I think that's exactly what the office needs. It's a fresh new perspective. Not a lot has gone on in the past eight years and so I've jokingly said, but in all seriousness, if the taxes doesn't go like the office, or decides tomorrow that they're gonna implement all the kind of changes and ideas that we're trying to, that I'm proposing that we implement, I'll drop out of the race, but the thing is I can say that with confidence because they've had eight years to do it, it's not gonna happen. And so we do have Cynthia Spillman here today as well. She is the co-founder and I'm gonna let her give her her title as well, of tier one. Also my former English, high school English teacher and yeah, just funny how the world's kind of recalibrated. Cynthia, thank you so much for being here. She's gonna be hosting this community conversation today. I'll go ahead and hand it over to you, ma'am. Thank you. No, I remember him when he was a skinny goofy kid always late to English class and the kids turned out good. Hey now, hey now, why would I late? Why would I late? Oh, he's making an announcement. Thank you. He said. He said. I was making announcements. He was already in front of a microphone at a young age. My name is Cynthia Merlis Spillman and I am co-founder of an organization called Tier One Neighborhood Coalition with several other people, one of which Cosma Colvin is here today with us. It's a coalition of over 60 neighborhoods plus organizations. We're now expanding in a coalition of all San Antonio neighborhoods, suburban and inner city alike because we realize there are a lot of issues that we have in common, a lot of concerns. Those are non-partisan, you know, not based on geography, but our neighborhoods and our concern for those neighborhoods. Many neighborhoods and these are my thoughts not representative of anybody, but they are informed by the work I do and by the people I speak to both in the inner city and the suburbs. Many neighborhood advocates work on issues of displacement and affordability in our inner city neighborhoods. We understand that the more intense and dense development has created a speculative land frenzy driving up land values. In this case, it's not our homes the developers want, it's our land. Demolishing a home and replacing it with six tall market rate structures is very lucrative. In my neighborhood, a replanted lot that sold for 35,000 several years ago was sold for 200,000 and just recently went on the market for 250,000. Nothing's been done to this lot, it is sad empty. We are besieged with notices, signs, calls, letters offering to buy our homes. Flippers often without pulling permits or cutting corners, slapping a granite counter, a coat of paint, some shellac on the floors in these homes and then selling them for three times of what they paid. Well, you might say, you should be happy you're sitting on a gold mine. But my neighbor, Danny, who was born in his home says people tell me this is an investment but it's not an investment to me. This is my home, where am I gonna go? Danny is paying for his own displacement because the elephant in the room is our property taxes. My neighbor Kay, a renter, is vulnerable. It's her landlord raises her rents because he cannot pay his property taxes unless he does so. She'll not find any other affordable units nearby. This is not an anti-development screed. Although there can be some bad actors, developers and investment companies are simply businesses. It is the way that we're taxed is one of the major issues. One of my fellow advocates once said we have a permanent tenant landlord relationship with the government and that landlord is harsh. We buy a home we can afford and vote and through no fault of our own, often because of the result of city development policies, our homes become a burden that we find hard to bear. And with the raising saws rates, insurance, transportation costs, it's no wonder that many people are forced to sell. We're living in a society in which people are literally being taxed out of their homes. We're living in a society in which our children, many of whom are already burdened by education loans, have a little hope of owning a home, creating a permanent social structure of has and have nots. We are worsening the economic segregation in the city that limits future possibilities of generations to come. And I feel this is a moral crisis. And to make it worse, that tax burden is not equally shared. In fact, the poor, the resident more extreme consequences. Commercial properties who do not pay their fair share, wealthy home owners who do not disclose selling prices, avoiding the taxes that rest of us pay, tax rebates and breaks for market rate developments. We carry the burden for them. And frankly, I'm sick of it. We live in a city that's growing. We want jobs and opportunities for our children and grandchildren. We need good schools, transportation choices for the future, clean water and other public services that allow our city to not only exist, but to thrive. I am not an anti-tax person. I am happy to pay my taxes for a city that's a good place to live. But homeowners and small landlords cannot carry that burden along. Token tax breaks that do more harm than good, but allow politicians to appear sympathetic to their constituencies or a joke. I want a well-funded city in which we are not forced to choose between water and transportation and early childhood education. But I want that burden to be lessened by all paying their fair share. And this will take political will, which can only come from a concerted effort on the part of citizens for meaningful change. This will take pressure, this takes pressure on our state legislature and government. And I'm talking serious, non-partisan, long-term work to change the property tax rules in this state. We have been divided and manipulated and we squabble in fight and guess who wins, not us. We have been played by politics like those little plastic rock and sock of games where the little plastic boxers manipulated by invisible hands beat the snot at each other. I'm done with that, and I hope many of you are too. Very, very appreciative of that monologue, shall we call it? Monologue, that's right. Big mouth moment, just a couple of times everywhere. But there's a few things that can get kind of touched on there and I'm gonna kind of work my way backwards. She was talking about political will. I mean, obviously folks, this is a big office that we're going for and I'm a young guy with nothing to lose and that's to your benefit. The thing is, I'm running, I talked to a ton of people and they said, why are you running for the office that everybody, that everyone wants to hate? You wanna be the guy that everybody wants to hate? Well, my whole thing is many of us understand and I'll give you an education now that the taxes as their collector is actually not the entity that taxes, it's the tax on your property. It's actually just someone that collects it. But what I'm saying is I'm advocating for the appraisal district, which is the actual appraisal body, the one that assesses the land valuation and the home valuation. I'm saying that we have to go to the legislature. The tax system collector needs to be an advocate for citizens, to be a fiduciary for citizens, to where they can have an actual duty to the people who they're serving, the people who elected them. Because the appraisal district doesn't have an elected body. There's no one that, a lexical appraisal district, there's no one that they really answer to except for the counting. They've got that three day kind of notice policy. But what I'm saying is the tax assessor collector in concert with all the rest of the 253 tax assessor collectors across the state of Texas, we can go to the legislature and we can say, hey, this is not just an issue in my county. It's a common trend across all counties. Republican or Democrat to be quite frank. And it's an unsustainable issue. It's an unsustainable trend that we can't maintain. I'm gonna rewind just a little bit here. I kind of like how you said it. You were, maybe you were just like what you said. You were saying it's not, it cycles the economic future. What was that one? So I mean, the problem is that we've got children and it might be you as well that are burdened already by student loans. I mean, my children suffer from that. And couple that with the recession, we are looking at a future that they won't be able to own homes. And it's kind of, we're starting to, the idea of the have and have nots, a permanent class of tenants and landlords and the landlords being fewer and the tenants being most people that can't afford homes. Well, an anecdote to that is, and many of you I've shared this with before, but my own personal property taxes in tax year 17 to 18 went up 49.6%. It's not sustainable. And there's no, under no jurisdiction, under no premise, can you possibly justify a 50% increase in one year? There's just literally no way, there's no way to justify that. And so any way you looked at it, it's not sustainable. And so I'm running to go, I'm putting everything that I'm doing on the line to go, let's make this right. We can make this right. There are different strategies. I was talking to Mr. Bernardo here today, found us on Facebook and we were talking about, putting certain caps on it, once you decide you wanna do Airbnb and then you have to pay market rate. There's different strategies that we could talk about. But my thing is, it just needs to be right. It just needs to feel right. It needs to feel fair. I think everyone can agree that the current system is not fair. So how many of you have ever protested or have that problem where your taxes have gone up? How many of you who own home that you've actually seen your taxes go up? How many of you have been down to protest? Yeah, I think we're dealing with an even more informed group. And so I mean, for the camera, a lot of more probably about half the room raised their hand for the protest part. And to that point, I think that's kind of ridiculous, that the burden is on the taxpayer to fight for what the county is telling you to do. You know, I do federal taxes on a day-to-day basis, especially we do about, we're at about 50 returns a day from January, from the second week of January, all the way from April 15th, we'll do 50 to 80 returns a day. And you know, the federal government has this right. One of the things that they do have right is we follow our taxes every year. And if they think that you're wrong, that's when the burden is on you. The burden is on them. And then when they think you're wrong, that's when they issue you out a letter. Well, on the county level, we say, here's your tax bill. If you think we're wrong, prove that we're wrong. And so it's a backward system. And that's what I'm hoping to force to change with a small mechanism and using economics to just go, if we make that appeals process easier, more people will do it. And then the overload that the abraded district will experience will literally force them to reevaluate the way that they even do valuations for homes. But with that, again, I don't want to make this a huge property tax thing. We do want to talk about private tax. That is one thing that we are able to talk about, but I want to really take your questions about, give you a question about the tax assessor collective, all these questions about the specifics of what we're going to do. Yes ma'am, Melda, thanks for being here today. Yes, I have a question. You mentioned earlier about the increase, the high increase, almost half of the percentage in a year's time span. Yeah. What is the cause of that? What could be the cause of that? Is Yassi appraisal? Are some of the reasonings behind that? Yeah, that particular piece of land is about five minutes this way, seven, eight, two, one, six, one, three, three, Ali Bay Drive, right on the back end of Olmas Park walking trails. And if you ask the appraisal district, they'll say land values in that area went up and demand exceeded supply. And my response to that is I don't care. There's literally, you could say that all day and it sounds great. There's nothing back to justify it though. So that's what the answer to your question, because I call, I call an app. And then really quick, I'm gonna segway just a little bit back to your point. Cynthia was explaining how it's the poorer that actually there are effective and it hurts the most. And if we actually, if you could call the appraisal district right now, we did it because we were generating and developing a white paper on this. Precinct, if you specifically look at precinct one and two, these are the precincts that are experiencing the hardest brunt of this valuation increase. And the tax assessor collector right now gets to throw up his hands and go, not my problem. And he's right. It's not his problem, but I'm running to make it my problem. You can do something with the bully pulpit that is that office. And that's just not happening right now. But I'm also saying, just to give you a small anecdote, we've got about six people lined up to profile right now. These are people who are quite literally being taxed out of their homes. Think about they paid off their homes that they bought 15, 20 years ago now. And now it's 2020 and they're living on fixed income of $24,000 to $30,000 a year. And their tax goes $5,000. So we're looking, exactly. We're looking at 20 to 30% of their entire annual income just being eaten up by the tax. I really like the way that your colleagues said it. It's a permanent tenant landlord relationship with the government. And it's ridiculous. And you know, people like my neighbor Danny is shutting off his air conditioner. He's got window units. He goes without air conditioning in the summer because he's trying to save money for his tax bill. He's now working two jobs, one of them in Houston, back and forth on the bus. And this isn't to better his life. It's not to buy anything. It is to simply pay his taxes. Just to pay the taxes on a home that he has already paid for. Yeah, this sentiment, yeah. Yes, this sentiment we've heard so many times where we're not gonna do, that's really drastic. Probably not even. It's not unusual. Yeah, not unusual or uncommon. But I've heard, yeah, we don't do cable anymore because we have to make that cut to be able to afford the taxes. Bobby, you got a question? Yeah, so I guess my thing is, and I'm actually wrong with my thinking here, but you said you wanna put in some type of engineering mechanism that's going to make property values not be assessed so high, right? So what happens when you do that, and all these homeowners who buy these inflated prices are now upside down because let's say about 200,000 dollars a home, and for some reason now properties are getting assessed at 130. Now that person's property is assessed at 130, but it paid 200 for it, so now you're putting people upside down, so how do you come back? Like I said, correct me if I'm wrong. This is just, I guess a point that I thought of. So you're saying the market value of the home? Yeah, yeah, because if every other home is gonna reset, right, and all the other homes are gonna start starting to get assessed, all the homes for sale? I appreciate your faith in me to be able to do it that quickly. Okay. That's what I said, I don't know if the thinking is wrong. Yeah, no, and I wouldn't say that you're thinking it's wrong. I would say hit that a courage, it would happen over a greater period of time. We're still dealing with government here folks, and nothing happened overnight, but no, but not to discount that particular sentiment, but I do believe though my anecdote is not a fair one, to add an example, but that should be uncommon. But even somebody who's in their 15th year of their 30 year note, they bought at this inflated price, let's say it took 15 years to do this, and now their house hasn't appreciated it all really, because houses are getting assessed. No, we don't figure, I'm a realtor, we don't look at tax values to figure the market value. No, no, I know comparables, I understand that, but the banks, when they land on, when they, when they don't look at tax valuators, they look at the appraised value, or the appraised, they run an appraiser, not from the tax predictor. So, oh. And that's an education for all, so that's well, okay, yeah, so I do real estate investing, and I buy an Oklahoma-based land on the tax system. Not here, not on the tax. And I guess, I mean, I guess kind of like, just from a finance and technical standpoint, I would say, looks like it's time to be fine. Yeah, but, I mean, but that's kind of, I would probably venture to say, outside of kind of the realm of this, my job as a tax assessor collector is to do right by the citizen and the taxpayer, and if I could make your taxes lower than I've done my job. Okay. Not to skirt the question, but, yes ma'am. But I have a very valid point about you, the tax assessor collector, yeah, collected taxes, you don't, put the amount on the taxes. So, my question is, what things would you do to change the tax office? Yeah, so, one of the first things, so I want a fair, smart, and transparent, so when it comes to changing it, I'd like to focus kind of on the center one, the smart, because I believe it affects the other two. So, when I say smart office, an anecdote that I've shared with many people is the fact that I tried to get a transaction done with the tax assessor's collector's office. It took me about six trips there and wasted a grand total of, if I really had to know, no exaggeration at all, probably about eight hours, an entire day, an entire eight hours, you know, driving and so forth and so on. First time I went, I went to the Nakadoshas office and said, oh, we don't handle that transaction here, you've got to go downtown. Went downtown, they said, oh, you didn't have this signature. Went back to go get the signature, went back now, oh, well, now there's this other form where you need to get this signature from. Well, oh, okay, well, now you've got to go get, it reinspected over here for this, all this foolishness where, had I been able to go online, I'd have been able to just get kind of a list together, prepare all my documents and take it in and go, and really every other business operates like that. I hate when, and somebody I think kind of, we were talking about earlier and they said customer, and that's one of my pet peeves, I do not believe governments have customers. Governments have citizens, okay? I could show you on my phone right now, a screenshot, I have three of them, every time I call the county office, it rings for about 40 minutes. What? With no exact, try tomorrow on your, oh well, not tomorrow, Sunday, try Monday, and all seriousness, you'll see that, it just kind of keeps ringing, kind of keeps ringing, kind of keeps ringing. If I was a customer, okay, I would have hung up probably 90 seconds in, and called, if there was a bank, I would just call another bank at that point. We're not able to do that. So it's less about customer service, and it's about, and it sounds like semantics, it really does, that's a Cynthia Spillman word, semantics. He was listening. I was, I was. But it's not, it's about citizen service, because when you view the people that you're serving as citizens, then you treat them as such. It's your duty to serve these people, you have an obligation to them, it's the highest order. So, does that answer your question? I mean, well, I guess it's found on it. Making a lot of things online, I posted a live video, there was a gentleman in front of me, I was at the Bandera substation, and he got a ticket, and they said, oh sir, you're in the wrong place, you've gotta take it downtown. And because that had happened to me about two trips prior, I was like, man, I said, let me just talk to this guy. Turned out this guy's from out, not even out of town, he's out of state. He's coming from North Dakota or something like that, trying to transact on behalf of his mother, and it was his third attempt. And so, had that information been online, he could have saved a lot of time, a lot of effort, and then just to kind of end up that note, when I was finally able to get my transaction completed, yes, it took an hour, and that's its own topic of conversation, but, and I was sharing this with Javier, you fill out that document, and then you hand it over to the clerk, and what does the clerk do? They just typed it in an online form. They type it in an online form, you stand there while they type it in an online form. What am I saying with that? That could have been done at home. I know it's long lines, tedious lines. Long, tedious lines. I have a question. Yes, ma'am. As far as if they went to, you know, to protest their taxes, were all successful? Oh, that's, oh yeah, that's it. Thank you, let's take that poll. So for the ones who went to protest their taxes out of those, how many were successful? Actually, so let's do the initial, how many would you go protest? So we have one, two, three, four, five, six, seven, and then how many were successful? Okay, one, two, three, four, five. Yeah, and what a success. If they load it, was it in a, okay, let me ask you this. Let's get a little bit more specific. Did you feel like it was fair you protested? Did you feel like you were at a fair valuation, or did the county just give you a little bit of a kickback to getting it out of their face? The county was fair to leading taxes for about five, six years. Okay. We stated the same deal. Uh-huh. But you're going to send an example, six to three thousand. Yeah. After five years, a hundred and eighteen thousand. Okay. Okay, after five, six years, we hadn't been taxed annually. So I said, well, we're taxed. They said, oh, wow, okay. Went in challenge. They dropped it to one o'clock. Got it. Well, and can I speak to that? I've got a staff to make everybody real mad. You all ready for it? So it's called, in business, we call it margin. I don't know what they call it in government fraud. I don't know. But there was a study done back in 2017 that demonstrated that valuations are overinflated at the tune of about 18%. So even when you do go protest your taxes and you get, you know, a 10% kickback in your area, well, the delta is still 8% over value. And like I said, in business, we call it margin. I don't know what we call it when it's government fraud. And yes. Right after that, like years later, you said 30% 40% up. Yep. Year over year, 30%, 40%. That's incredible. And that's an example. 2016, as I was, not 63. Yeah. 2019, 2019. Oh, that's a good question. Yeah. I think that's why they're homesteaded. Yeah. I mean, it's funny to do. Do you all have a homestead? Does everybody have a homestead exemption? Thank you. I appreciate you bringing up that point. And I saw your hand. I do want to, again, talk to you about, it all goes back to smart, which I believe affects fair and transparent. But to the home, to all the exemptions, really. Okay. The county's smart folks. Okay. And the county's got a lot going on, but the county has a lot of information as well. And I would ascertain that the county has a lot of information to make your homestead automatic, which I believe it should be. Well, yes and no. Yeah. Because being in the business, okay. Yeah. Yeah. You know, we have to make sure that when people buy that house, that they are going to be living in that house. Yes. The county doesn't really have a way of knowing that somebody's living in that house unless they're smart. Pardon? Yeah, other than mailing address, they don't. Yeah. And I just sent out notices to my people who bought houses last year with the form and filled in what I needed to fill in for them to make sure that they're filing that exemption. But yeah, maybe just like voting could be automatically registered when you get your driver's license. And I know what I'm saying. But it is a little more complicated in house buying because there are people who buy a lot of houses. Okay. I bet the county knows how old you are, though. Well, they probably do. And the county can know how much you pay for your house. Unfortunately, as, I mean, we are a non-disclosure state, but they do have people who are in the county that are realtors and they do have access to that. Because when you go in to protest, you can see that they have our reports there. And so they can do that. But you also cannot. And to your point, when I say automatic, what I'm getting at is it should be simplified. Okay. So when I say, for example, a check of a box, are you living in this house? You know? It's a simple form that you fill out one time only. It really is not that difficult to do more. And you only fill it out one time. And it's there for it. Why don't people do it? I don't, because they don't, no, you cannot do it until the January after you've lived in the house. So if you buy your house in May, October, whatever month, you cannot fill that out until January. So that's the part that ought to be changed. You should be able to get that form and fill it out at closing. You should be able to fill it out. Same, so same with the senior citizen and same with disability and veterans exemptions. I really do feel like those can be automatic, but again, the point is to simplify that process. And again, when you take the approach of being an advocate and what's the second one, a fiduciary to taxpayers and citizens, you go, okay, how can I inform them and make them aware of these simpler forms? And mail them out or get to gather the email, get to shoot them an email so they can be aware of this, put out a PSA, the comptroller has PSAs all over the billboards right now. The county can do the same thing. Yeah, unfortunately, what I've found though is that they don't even have the new owners on the BCAD records. We have it on a different record, some of them are not even on the BCAD record until after January. It takes a long time for them to do it. For a little while, but again, the simple way would be for it to happen at closing because the closer tells them you do this. And I always say, and I'm gonna tell you in January. Well, you're hired. This is what I'm gonna remember in January. Hired once I get an office, yes ma'am. So I'm gonna speak first quickly to Lynn's point, also in the business don't have plenty of experience, but I'm gonna disagree and side with you in the sense that neither system is perfect. So there's gonna be exceptions to the rule on either side. And Cynthia knows this as Neighborhoods Week like this where it's always our burden. I would, and so this is what I would say. Flip it to the other side. Yes, there are things that will fall through the crack. People will take advantage, they always do. But still of slipping of the burden. And so I would agree. I think her compromise is also good. And again, as Cynthia and I have learned, sometimes you have to incrementally step into things. Yeah, of course. And so a compromise position or something that helps that maybe doesn't take it all the way to here. We've got a plant of stake to set a goal. But yes, absolutely. And it helps bring people along when you don't just go from here all the way to the other side or set up it, it's either this or it's a that. That's problematic. Yeah, fair point. My question to you is, when you talk about fairness, so give me an example of what you would do to advocate for something for it to be more fair. So I guess it's more of a sentiment. Like so far as possible, I think we can all agree that my property taxes going up down the street here, 50% in one year, doesn't make sense and is in no way fair. Okay, so there again, if everybody is going up that, where is the unfairness? I've played a little bit careful to advocate. Now, I agree it causes a burden that causes some other problems, but I guess my bigger point would be, so if assessing values based on the comparables as the market is rising and things are selling for more, makes the system unfair, how would you assess that? We have to change the system. So how would you, what is your answer? The favorite one that I've kind of hodge podged put together with a lot of due diligence that I've done is doing it at, essentially being it at the transfer, meaning you tax on the sale or the purchase price and then it essentially locks in your valuation until it's transferred to another individual. You can either take market rate at that point or the sale of the home, Jebus Hyde. That's like Prop 13 in California though. Well, they do it in California. Except they now for a 2% per annum. Yeah, every year. It's not the same, it's not the same. And that has been very beneficial from a cost savings standpoint. There are those that would argue that it has heard the state from a revenue standpoint. Well, here's the thing. Again, my duty is to the taxpayer and citizen, but the other item, and this is now completely outside of the jurisdiction, but people on the extreme end would completely do away with property taxes and have a flat 13% consumption tax. I don't know if that's palatable to Texas citizens. To be completely honest, when I look at that, I feel like when I travel other states, and I kind of realize that many of our military members will be able to understand, well, you go to Pennsylvania and you relook at 6%, you're like, oh, wow, a 2% break is nice. 8.25% of the tax regime I was born and raised under, and then you go somewhere else and you're like, oh, okay, 5%, sales tax is not bad. Of course, you're making up for it in income tax, so forth and so on. What I'm getting at is, I think there's a balance, but my duty is to the taxpayer and citizen, we can do a better job. It's not my job to manage county spending. That's commissioner's support. Obviously, the tax list collector just has its own set budget right now, about $16 million. But what I'm getting at is, my duty is to the taxpayer and citizen. Of course. So going back to fairness, what I think is incredibly unfair in the court system is that the commercial properties do not pay their fair share, and that has been an uproar. Get more specific with that. So, big box stores, big box stores like Lowe's, and lots of big stores. We're saying the exemptions and the rebates? First of all, they fight, they litigate, and so Bear County spends a ton of money fighting those litigations, and they often win, and so their properties are lowered, and they have this dark store thing that they do, so they will compare one store to another store where that store is dark, not operating, and use that as an argument for valuation. And as Lynn pointed out, we are a non-disclosure state, and that works really well with commercial properties because they're not sold through the multiple listing service. Everything's disclosed to one another. But the multiple listing service requires of its broker members that they post the sales price. So I, as a private citizen homeowner who puts in my contract that I want to exercise the non-disclosure agreement, was told by my agent, I can't do that. I don't know. We don't report that to the state. No, I'm not saying that it's required by the MLS, and as you said earlier there, the county has access. Well, the county only has access to it because there are people at the county who are realtors, but they don't go in for all of that to get it. They just, I think, use it. Another way that it's unfair is unequal comparable. So you've got rolling Oaks Mall, you've got the quarries using rolling Oaks Mall as a comparable, and rolling Oaks Mall is a much, it doesn't, you know, it's not nearly as crowded, or it's valuable as the quarry. And J. W. Marriott, that's the big one to look at, because the J. W. Marriott is taxed the same as some of the smaller hotels. That's the problem. Yes, sir. It says that they love the idea of online opportunities to follow your information, but what about those who don't have access to the internet? How would we handle that? Yeah, absolutely, and I really love this question because I think it gets a little misinterpreted when I say, yeah, we're gonna move everything online. We will have it, but when we move things online, that becomes an extra option. But what I really want to kind of focus on and highlight here is when things get moved online, those who want to do things online will do them online, and that actually frees up more time, more, you know, more space for the people who want to go to the substance and to transact, they're able to do that. And so they're, by function, their wait times get shorter. You know, they're able to be serviced faster. And so I love that question, it's a great question, but it's not, for those who don't want to be online, you don't have to be, and I think, you know, we can create simpler ways for you to transact, but if you want to go into the substation, go into the substation, and you will be benefited by everyone, well, everyone else who's going online. Yeah. Let's see about access rate. Oh, that's a great one. So this past session, House Bill 3 and Senate Bill 2, we have what's called, there was a reduction of the rollback rate. We're going to get real technical real quick here, but long story short is the county couldn't rate, or excuse me, the city, we're not going to be able to raise your taxes past, it used to be 8%, now that's dropped to 3%. So if it goes past 3%, then they've got to take it to the voters for a vote. Prior to that, essentially everyone's got to get away scotch-free by raising their particular tax. You know, if you look at it, 6% to 7%, year over year is what we're looking at, and again, back to the fairness point, not fair, the state was right to do that, and furthermore, to the state, that's who we have to go to, and I want to be very, very clear. The reason why the tax system collector right now gets to go, throw up his hands and go, not my problem, is because it's not. It's not technically his problem, but you can use that office, you can use that office as a pulpit to essentially go to the state, coalesce with your other tax assessor collectors in major metro counties, and go to the state, because the state, the will, the political will, is there, we have a little bit of it there, it was demonstrated in this past session that they saw that it was getting out of control, and voters were talking to their state representatives, going, hey, this is an issue, and so we're starting to make a little bit of progress, but I think it's gonna take the tax assessor collectors who are the ears to the ground on the issue. Everybody already thinks that's where it happens, and so we might as well use that to advocate for the citizens that can stay public. We're at Texas, Texas is one of the highest private tax states in America. And because we don't have any tax. So to be fair, the response, the reason for that, because we don't have an income tax as a professional tax advisor who does income tax every day, who sees other state income tax, again, me personally, I really don't know, I like the way that, I prefer the system being the way that it is, then leveraging it over to an income tax, I think that installed another level of complexity that we don't need, and we've been under this tax regime, for our entire existence, if I'm not mistaken, I think it would be a... I looked at myself on the bill, and I stopped looking at all the taxes. I hate all whatever tax it is. I mean, it tolls about 15 to 20 dollars. Yeah, which is probably about, all the way up to 25% of your bill, if I had to guess. I know they don't need so much, they put tax on tobacco, alcohol, whatever, you know. And let me also to hone in on this point, if those were less or zeroed out, would you not feel that it was more fair, or that it was a better system for you? Great, but it's just I know it's a lot of families, who know, they cannot put the home. They're not living their home anymore, and it's because tax is high, kind of, you know, and being that I'm a homeowner, my house is in Harris County in Houston, and I'm living here, so I don't have my home city clinic anymore, but I do have one other institution on my farm. I say that to say I know, and being in San Antonio, I've noticed that renting an apartment is just like my house, it's just like my mortgage. Yeah, absolutely. I've noticed homes, they're building homes, all around San Antonio area, and they're so small, and they're valued, they want 200, 300,000 for a home. How much they are, at all, you know. I was just at an event with Cynthia, where the city was talking about developers' partnering with neighborhood associations, and how to kind of approach that, approach that, so that there's some parity with people. So I mean, you know, part of what we're struggling with is, you know, you can be like this forever, right, and you stay that way, or you can try to find common ground, you can try to listen, you know, I can play devil's advocate, not that I'm advocating for a position because I haven't researched enough, but you could say, at least with income tax, you are putting a tax on people who actually use something, and it lessens a burden on people who own property. For instance, if you're a dentist, an attorney, a doctor, and you have an office, you're leasing it, you're not paying any property taxes, and you're not paying income tax. And the problem is, is if everybody's not, not fairly, you know, participating in taxes, it's then people like you and I, and my neighbor, Danny, who has to carry that burden. That doesn't mean I'm advocating for an income tax, but it's, and so I think, the thing I like about you, Steven, is that you're part of that movement to try to find that common ground to help everyone. And I think it takes a lot of discussions like this one. It takes a lot of exploring because that's not easy. We're too used to just doing this. That's easy. It's harder finding solutions, and I congratulate that you're trying to do so. Thank you, Meal. Thank you. Do we have any other questions on the board? Yes, Meal. If you were to be elected in defense, Lou was speaking earlier, and I was mentioning, I think, by Cynthia, even her children, that aren't home buyers yet at this time. If there is within the age gap, age gap of 30 and 40-year-olds that aren't home buyers at this time, or that are having to leave their homes to move in with their parents, because it's becoming too much of a high increase, how would you, if you were to be elected, help eliminate that stress for those home buyers that are unable to do so because of these tax rates going up higher and higher? I don't, so I don't, and I wanna, I would like to answer a question. I don't know if I exactly understand it, but I'm gonna attempt to answer it anyway. I don't know that we really, I mean, I don't know when everyone, I know it's not, it wasn't for me. When I buy a home, when I was ascertaining purchasing a property, the taxes were not, was not at any consideration. It was just a purchase price. You know, that's kind of like, something that comes later, you know, or if you're getting like a mortgage or whatever, like I've seen it's kind of factored in, but- It goes back to what you were saying earlier. Yeah, it's got a moment. Like living in an apartment, it's the same price almost already. Well, the thing is, well, okay. Thank you, to that point, I mean, actually back to what Cynthia was saying as well, with the leasing. Oh, you absolutely pay property taxes in the form of, in the commercial world we call it triple nets. Which I know all too well, our non-profit operates three locations. We know triple nets very well. And so you, and so when they tell you to rent, that's really their profit. That's what they're getting at. Because you're gonna pay, you know, the common area maintenance rent and insurance and all like your jobs. So I guess what I'm getting at is, what I would kind of lean on and kind of just hone back to is the fact that, as a tax assessor collector, if I can be a fiduciary tax-efficient citizens and get your taxes lower, because it won't be, and in some cases, it may not be lower as a thing, but it will be fair. That would be kind of my approach to that. That goes back to what you were saying about there. Yes, yes, and I don't know it again. I don't know if I understood the question, but hopefully we dance around and answer it a little bit. And then there's, I think there is one more. Just on the job, because I've worked for the government. My husband is retired military, but I've heard military members who paid no taxes and other people feel like their taxes are much higher because they're a military family who paid zero tax. And so it comes to the issue of fairness, not so much that you don't want military, I mean, because we get a break on our taxes, but I mean, it just feels like everybody should pay something. Well. That's only for 100% disabled. For 100% disabled. And you won't find me on the stop saying, we need to take that away. Ever. Make sure to get that on camera. No, but to your point, and actually I'm really crazy, thank you so much for that question. I really want to kind of home back just to kind of spar over here a little bit. You are from Illinois who has a state income tax and we're completely off base now and the tax that's collected off of us. But I'm a tax nerd and I just kind of like. At about four minutes sir. Four minutes? The bell's gonna ring. The bell's gonna ring, okay. Just tell us about, you know, kind of what y'all, did you feel like, okay, with the state income tax for Illinois, maybe some of it was untaxed given y'all's military isolation. I'm not certain of the exact tax regime there, but, you know, to my understanding, Illinois, they, their income tax wasn't, you know, doing much for them over there, but I don't know if you're able to anecdotally speak to that at all. So, having moved here to Texas, we paid property and when I think about the income tax and because we got a break, my husband's retired military has a disability. So, he, we did get a break in our property tax, but our income tax and our property tax together in Illinois is less than what we paid in Texas. Okay, yeah. Yeah, I was truly just curious. Yeah. Okay, very well. So, thank you so much and isn't he wonderful. Thank you so much and thank you for all coming. This has been a really interesting afternoon. And thanks again to almost Perk and the Eatons for hosting us. Woo! And, uh... So, what's next? What's next? Oh, I need to pay you. Yes. So, February 18th is early voting. Please, please, please, please, please, make sure to announce it on Facebook, go out and vote. We are, and then we are actually hiring. This is a low ballot, low information race, folks. And this will be won, this race will be won. No one Googles who their tax, who they want their taxes to collect or to be. It's a low information, low ballot race. And so, the strategy and how this election will be won is on the way in. We're hiring up 20 station or poll watchers, station leaders, if you will, to work essentially eight to 10 hours a day. And, you know, bring one to two volunteers with them to be able to hand out voting paraphernalia, you know, have a vote pennington t-shirt on. That way people know, you know, who they can vote for and, you know, who aligns with what they think on property taxes and the tax assessor collector's office and what the tax assessor collector's office can do to benefit them on the way into the polls. And so, if you're interested in doing that, please talk to one of our campaign managers, Madeline Arndelas, and we also have a little text code where you can get involved. I think many of you have already texted because you got this information today, but thank you so much for that question. Yes, you know that. Oh, great question. Great, great, great. I only use some money, too. Okay, yeah, so, you can vote anywhere. You can, yeah, because of the new voting systems and the new voting machines that we have, you can actually vote anywhere. You do not have to go to any specific precinct. You just show up with, if you're already registered, your photo ID or your voter registration card, and you can vote anywhere. I see there's signs past 15-04, past 14, and then it's forward. We still got them rolling out. I'm going on a ride on Sunday. So, where, June? Yeah, I haven't seen them either, so that's why we're going on that ride, but yeah. I've been here a year and a half, and I transferred my voter registration from Harris County, Houston, Texas, to San Antonio. Just for you. And I've been utilizing the Bear County website for a lot of information because I want to try to get familiarized with how the processes of doing different things that I need to take care of for myself here, my car, and I did find my voting post. So, I did go there to vote, even though I was early voting. I took advantage of it because I wanted to know where I was going. And they do list all of early voting polling areas, but I want to find out where my, based on where I live, my address, where do I need to go, where do I need to get. That was the closest one to you, but let's say you're at work. You don't have to go to that one. Because of the new voting machines, you can vote in it. And I like the fact that they're opening up, you know, seven in the morning, so I see better. Yeah, eight to seven or something like that. Yes, ma'am? Yes, ma'am. I love this clientele, this information. You've heard that conversation you and I had about when you go to the ballot about the party issue? Do we need to talk about that a little bit? We can, we absolutely can. So, what my mom's talking about is, there's a lot of, I mean, I'll just be very, very afraid. And I'm happy to let everyone know, you know, there's a lot of people who, you know, they would not have voted in the primary other than to vote for me. Who traditionally may find themselves on the Democratic side of the ticket. But because we're in Texas, how we declare is if you want to see my name on the ballot, I'm running as a Republican, and I am a Republican. But you would need to declare and say, you know, I'm wanting to vote in the Republican Party. And that would exclude you from being able to vote in the Democratic primary in Texas for that cycle. That's how that works, yes. Yeah, that's what it's about. But in the general, you can vote. You can't be able to vote in the primary if that one is very fast, so you can't choose a vote. So, you actually declare at your time of voting. Right, yeah. Yeah, so when you show up to vote, it's kind of like, which ticket do you want? And at that point. Because it's just the primary. Yeah, just the primary. And then, so it's kind of like, imagine with the NFL or the NBA, you've got your semifinals where the parties run against each other. And then after that, that's when you get to see the R versus the D. That happens in November. And I think we are at a time, I really don't, I wanna, Aaron's been so gracious with this. Oh wow, more than gracious with this. And so I don't wanna, I'll say it more time, but thank you all again so much for coming out. I'll be back. Thank you.