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HPRA's New Web Initiative
HPRA is both and activitist and educational organization. Both roles require a lot of research and communication of information to the public. The problem in the past has been our inability to effectively publish and distribute the information we have collected. In fact we have It far more information than we have labor, money or tools to distribute our content.
HPRA has adopted this new open source web technology that provides enterprise class web tools make publishing our educational content easier.
We think you will see significant and immediate improvement. Since the purpose of this page is for visual demonstration of the soon to be started site please do not take all that is written here. Our publication will start out with more than this. What follows is off the existing site.
How your property tax rates have changed to support big government
* In 1984, the City of Houston tax rate on property was .30%.
In 2002, the City of Houston tax rate on property was .655%
* In 1984, the Houston Independent School District tax rate was 0.44%.
In 2002, the Houston Independent School District tax rate was 1.58.%
* I n 1984, the Houston Community College tax rate was .0138%.
In 2002, the Houston Community College tax rate was .081333%.
* In 1984, the Harris County tax rate was .29%.
In 2002, the Harris County tax rate was .64627%.
That means that if you live in the City of Houston, over the past 16-17 years, your annual property tax assessment rates have gone up from 1.0438 percent of the value of your house to 2.96 percent ! That means that if your live in a $100,000 house, you are now paying an extra $1,800 in property taxes per year over what you were paying less than 20 years ago.
The $808 million HISD bond issue that passed on November 5,2002 will raise your tax rate to 1.64% after 2004.
Why Rail?
Why do we support rail systems that almost never work? by Emory Bundy
Since the record of new rail systems in America is abysmal, it is puzzling why they enjoy so much support. The answer lies in a marriage between an idealistic desire to recapture features of the pre-automotive era, when sprawl and congestion did not so blight our lives, and cynical, old fashioned, pork barrel politics.
RailroadingAmerica.com: Are you tired of being fed a steady diet of fact free nonsense by The Houston Chronicle about the supposed benefits of light rail for Houston? Does reading The Chronicle's opinions about rail leave you feeling irregular ? Then HPRA has an antidote for you. Read this website, courtesy of Vic Vreeland, and find out what what it's really like to take a Municipal Carnival Ride on the Light Rail Express. Taking just one strong dose of Vic's website lasting from 15 minutes to 2 hours should bring lasting relief from that embarrassing constipation caused by overexposure to Chronicle editorials so that you too can feel regular again.