EDITORIAL
Council efforts helping city grow

Mayor Phillip Spenrath and members of El Campo City Council should be commended for putting the necessity of annexation on the table and in front of the citizenry. The process should probably have started several years ago. But let's not look backwards; let's stay focused on moving forward.

It doesn't take a genius to look around to see what has been happening. Businesses and some of the nicest homes (can't say 'in town' because they aren't) are now locating outside the city limits. In fact, many are a stone's throw away.

This is not to jump on those folks. In reality, they built their homes not to avoid city taxes, but because they liked the area they built in. And businesses moved outside the city limits not so much to avoid city property and sales tax, but to take advantage of the increased exposure that U.S. 59 and Hwy. 71 provide.

But the fact of the matter is that a city must continue to add taxable property to its base or eventually find itself facing big problems.

Take a drive to the end of the highways running north and south and east and west in El Campo, then look for the city limits signs. Our city is packed into the confines of the current city limits like a can of sardines!

We must expand the size of our city to make sure we continue to have a strong and financially sound community.

Yes, there will be some growing pains, especially for those newly annexed. But City Council helped alleviate some of that pain by deciding to not pass along some $2,000 in meter and hookup-related fees to soon-to-be El Campo residents that could have been charged. That was the right thing to do.

We'll all pay slightly higher utility bills to help pay for the some $5.5 million expansion currently being considered. Estimates are $4 to $8 per month. But as new homes and businesses are brought into the new city limits, those property and sales taxes will help to pay down the investment in our city's growth.

Hopefully City Council will stick to its current plan and not "trim" any of the five targeted areas off. It's expensive today, but one thing is for sure ... it will be more expensive tomorrow. And the time is never good.

Thank you, City Council and city staff for taking the steps necessary to help El Campo grow and prosper in the years ahead.