Cooke County Citizens for Better Government

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We believe North Central Texas College provides an excellent education and is an asset to Cooke County.  We would like to be supporters of NCTC. We don't believe the largest tax bond in Cooke County history is warranted and justified.  Hopefully the NCTC family is willing to accept that we can oppose the bond without thinking we are negative on NCTC.
 
The NCTC bond for $30+ million was defeated again November 8, 2011 by a vote of 1941 voters against and 1832 for.
 
We would like to Thank the Cooke County Voters who were willing to look beyond the exaggerations & personal attacks, to Objectively Review the Facts, and Vote in the recent NCTC Bond Election.
 
We hope that NCTC will accept the result and will of the voter.   We understand this is not the result the administration and board wanted but it is time to accept that Enough is Enough, as they and their supporters like to say, and move on.  NCTC is an asset to the community.  We hope and pray that NCTC is ready to look at lower cost alternatives and work with the people opposed to the bond to continue to provide a quality education at a low cost to the community.  We know of no one that does not think that the Health Sciences facilities and equipment shouldn't be improved.  Where we disagree is how much it should cost and who should pay for it.  Please see the link below for the unofficial results obtained from NCTC's web site.
 
The previous NCTC $32.5 Million dollar bond election to go an additional $32.5 million in debt was defeated Saturday, May 14th.  The bond was defeated by a vote of 1689 against and 1387 for.
 
Dr. Hadlock and the NCTC Board think the voters didn't understand and made a bad decision so they wanted to give us another chance to approve a $30.7 million bond for essentially the same projects November 8, 2011.  
 
Did our vote count this time?  How many times are they going to ask us to reconsider?  How divisive are these repeated elections to Cooke County?
 

NCTC Unofficial Bond Election Results Nov 8, 2011

Link to Lower Cost Alternatives to the Bond

Tax Impact of NCTC Bond may be Higher than NCTC Told You

NCTC - 16 reasons to vote NO on NCTC $30.7 Million Bond

Apparently NCTC doesn't believe the US constitutional prohibition against double jeopardy should apply to tax bonds.  Technically they are right.  They can keep bringing the bond up for a vote every six months.  Have you noticed the new Vote for NCTC signs have no date on them unlike the old ones that had the election date on them?  
 
The NCTC Board voted 6-0 Tuesday, August 23rd with Dave Flusche absent to call another bond election on November 8th.   Our understanding is it includes all the construction in the previous package but reflects a slight reduction in the architect's construction cost estimate and assumes that the cost of $500,000 in temporary portable buildings can be covered with reserve funds.
 
There was a lot of talk at the NCTC Board Meetings about changing the message they put out.  So far the primary change to the message seems to be to try to discredit those who were willing to take the risk of publicly opposing the bond issue.  When people wonder why more people don't publicly come out against something like a bond issue but show up to vote it down, just look at how those who did come out publicly against it are treated by the college and their favorite newspapers.
 
Dr. Hadlock wanted a second chance to better inform the voters.  Where is the NCTC Business Plan that shows how many more students NCTC will serve and graduate?  How much more revenue will these new facilities generate?  Instead of presenting a business plan like NCTC would need to provide if borrowing from a bank, they are running ads about former and current students, asking us to invest in their future.  In reality, we are being asked to mortgage their future since they will be paying on the bond for most of their working life, if they don't move away to escape the high cumulative tax rate of Cooke County.
 
Dr. Hadlocksaid the opponents to the bond misled the voters and the voters didn't understand the real needs of the college.  There was one Letter to the Editor in the Lindsay Letter and Muenster Enterprise with a couple factual errors.  We didn't put that letter out and agree it was inaccurate.  We did our best to provide accurate and correct information to the public.
 
Dr. Hadlock objected to another anonymous letter we hadn't seen because it compared him to President Obama as two peas in a pod. 
 
He also questioned the bar chart ad Steve Gaylord, (webmaster of www.cookecitizens.org), ran in the Gainesville Register adding the average Cooke County Taxes paid per Cooke County Student to tuition to show a total cost of attending NCTC.  According to an NCTC document, it appears the college feels that when we compare costs we should only add college taxes for the average home to tuition while the student is attending NCTC.  Does that mean NCTC will give everyone a waiver on their NCTC property taxes if they don't have a student in attendance??  We think not.  Who is doing the misleading??
 
This seems to fall short of Dr. Hadlock's statement in the Lindsay Letter: “What I am most disappointed about is that many voters may have been swayed by a lot of misinformation and outright untruths that were put out through the media and other means in the final days leading up to the election.”  Was that a lot of misinformation as asserted by Dr. Hadlock?  See the link"Hadlock Questions Opp. Integrity" for more information.
 
WE CAN'T AFFORD TO NEARLY DOUBLE OUR NCTC PROPERTY TAXES FOR THE NEXT 25-30 YEARS.

See link: Hadlock Questions Opponents Integrity and questions their Information Requests

We believe our Elected Officials of Cooke County should be of the highest ethical standards.  They should embrace the conservative philosophies of  Strong Law Enforcement & Families, Low Taxes & Modern, Efficient Government, and encourage Economic Development while Preserving our Way of Life.
 
We further believe we are Taxed Enough Already.  Local Government agencies and officials should work to lower taxes to increase the attractiveness of the community to businesses considering moving in the area.  In most cases there is plenty of money to go around if they would limit public employee salaries when combined with benefits to what the private sector is paying .  Furthermore, we don't need any more monuments built for elected officials and public sector employees to work in.  We should focus on doing what is best for the County infrastructure and will have the most benefit for the County as a whole vs. a few privileged elected officials and administrators.
 
We believe in full disclosure.  We salute the County and College for publishing their Agenda packets before their meetings along with their proposed budgets and tax rate.  While we may not like everything we see, we would much rather see things out in the open vs. the secret bonus payments we learned about at the hospital ranging up to $45,000 a year.  We call on all Cooke County Government agencies to post their current and proposed budgets on the web plus the salaries and bonus plans of the top five employees in the organization.  
 
To demonstrate our commitment to integrity,   Steve Gaylord made an offer in 2008 regarding NCTC.  He offered to contribute $500 to the favorite charity of the first person who could prove he had knowingly and materially misrepresented a fact about NCTC in writing or a prepared statement.  Steve Gaylord renewed this offer this Fall at an NCTC Board Meeting, through November 8, 2011.  So far in more than three years, no one has applied. 
 
Lawyers & legal fees are excluded as there is no commitment to pay unlimited legal fees should there be a disagreement.  

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