ESD-1 and the Willow Park Fire Department

There are 2 propositions on the November 8 ballot:

PARKER COUNTY EMERGENCY SERVICES DISTRICT NO. 1 PROPOSITION A 
"Adding a tract of land located in the City of Willow Park, Texas, and adjacent territory to Parker County Emergency Services District No. 1."

PARKER COUNTY EMERGENCY SERVICES DISTRICT NO. 1 PROPOSITION B 
“The tract of land located in the City of Willow Park, Texas, and adjacent territory, assuming its proportionate share of the outstanding debts and taxes of the Parker County Emergency Services District No. 1, if it is added to the District."
 
A vote for Proposition A means you are in favor of adding the ESD 1 Property Tax rate to property in Willow Park and the Willow Park ETJ. That rate is currently $100 per $100,000 of valuation.

A vote for Proposition B means you are in favor of Willow Park property owners becoming responsible for current established ESD-1 debt.

The ESD obtained authority to create this ballot initiative by being presented with a petition signed by less than 60 Willow Park registered voters. One should note that 10% of the petitioners were elected City officials and their spouses. Of special interest is that four of the original signees have since signed affidavits asserting their retraction of their original petition once they learned more of the details.

There is no mutually agreed plan between the ESD-1 Board and the Willow Park City Council documenting:

If you live in the current ESD 1 (outside Willow Park), you need to consider the following before voting to annex the Willow Park Fire Dept jurisdiction: The City claims current annual expense for the Willow Park Fire Dept is $1.4 million. The ESD will get approximately $800K from the new tax on Willow Park property. However, there is no explanation of how the ESD will maintain service levels due to that $600,000 shortfall. Ignoring this financial shortfall, we are told the ESD pay scale is higher than that for the WPFD so the personal will likely get raises.

At the same time Willow Park officials talk about lowering the city’s property tax rate, they talk about how to spend the money they will save from not funding the WPFD. The city would have to lower the city tax rate by 0.10 to offset the implementation of the new ESD tax and we do not believe they will reduce it that much meaning there will be a net increase of your overall property tax rate. Note for seniors: if your taxes have been frozen you are not likely to benefit from City of Willow Park lowering the tax rate a little. Every property owner in Willow Park will see the new ESD tax imposed.

Willow Park citizens may well wonder what plan there is for use of the $6 million public service building recently put in service if ESD 1 assumes control of the WPFD assets.  

As Council Member Greg Runnebaum posted publicly, we will have to vote to approve this measure before the City and ESD 1 can start negotiating the details. Kind of like Nancy Pelosi’s “Pass the bill so that you can find out what is in it!” Greg and his wife both signed the petition to enable this initiative.

Keep our Willow Park Fire Department

Citizens of Willow Park and it’s Extra Territorial Jurisdiction. Early voting beings 10/24/2022. On the ballot is a question to transfer our Fire Department to an Emergency Service District (ESD). It is a BAD DEAL for all. Citizens over 65 who have their taxes frozen and also those in the ETJ (Extra Territorial Jurisdiction) will have to pay 10 cents per one-hundred dollars of their current evaluation. It’s a BAD DEAL for everyone. Currently there is no signed agreement with the city only generalities have been discussed regarding the ESD absorption of debt on the city’s assets. Those assets include the Public Safety Building and Fire Trucks. Comments by the city administrator is if they don’t take the Public Safety Building it could be converted to a city hall. This begs two questions; At what cost and where does the Fire Department go? Additionally, no one will commit to improving our ISO rating which affects everyone’s insurance rate. It’s a BAD DEAL for everyone. Vote NO!