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HomeMy WebLinkAbout2024-08-13 Euless Articles TAD just changed how often Tarrant County homes are appraised for taxes BY NOAH ALCALA BACH AND CODY COPELAND nalcala@star-telegram.com, ccopeland@star-telegram.com Tarrant County homeowners will see big changes to their property tax bills. On Monday, the Tarrant Appraisal District voted 5-3 to change the frequency of property valuations from yearly to every other year. The vote followed the failure of a motion from the board’s three newly elected members to change appraisals to every three years. They had hoped to begin delivering on this and other campaign promises but appeared to meet opposition from the board’s appointed members. The newly elected board members are Callie Rigney, former mayor pro tem of Colleyville; Eric Morris, a former Haltom City council member; and Matt Bryant, a real estate investor and former Southlake-Carroll school board president. All three were endorsed by Tarrant County Judge Tim O’Hare. The board also approved a 5% “threshold” on recalculated appraisals. This threshold sets a soft limit on appraisal increases, but it can be exceeded up to 10% as long as the appraisal district shows clear evidence that a home’s value is higher. Rigney, Morris and Bryant had initially pushed for a 5% annual cap, but the language was changed to “threshold” after the board met in executive session with their lawyer for nearly four hours. Morris declined to comment after Monday’s session. Rigney and Bryant did not respond to requests for comment. Even though they did not get everything they wanted, the reforms started by the newly elected members will make significant impacts on how property taxes are collected in Tarrant County, according to Chuck Kelley, who ran for Bryant’s place on the board. Cities benefit from automatic annual increases in property taxes, using them to pay for fire, police, sewer and other services residents need. Without that guaranteed increase in tax revenue, they will have to raise taxes, Kelley said. “The ripple effects of what happened up there today have not even begun to become apparent, but every city out there that takes advantage of that automatic increase every year is now in jeopardy,” he said. If cities are forced to raise taxes higher than the caps that are set on them, they’ll have to put the issue to a vote, he added. “Voters will vote them down, so the first thing they do is threaten to cut fire and police to create the fear that if I don’t vote for the tax rate increase, I may not be safe,” Kelley said. Before the election of the new board members in May, chief appraiser Joe Don Bobbit t told the Star-Telegram that state law prohibited the board from capping or limiting appraised values at 5%. The law caps annual increases at 10%. When the Texas House considered changing the law last year to lower the cap to 5% as part of a tax relief package, experts told the Texas Tribune that local governments and school districts could raise their tax rates to offset the lower property values. Public comments at Monday’s TAD meeting were divided, with some saying the moves are needed to provide much needed tax relief as home values skyrocket. Others feared the changes will hurt school districts and shift the tax burden from homeowners to renters in apartments and other multi-family units. “Property owners, we need relief,” said Arlington resident Lucila Seri. “This is craziness. Our property values are going up 10% every year.” Seri worked as campaign manager for John O’Shea, who lost his Republican primary race for U.S. Congressional District 12 to John Goldman in May. “Clearly, there’s problems in the ways that we are appraising,” she said. “The law says that you can appraise an increase up to 10% for residential. Doesn’t mean that you have to go to the full 10%.” Fort Worth real estate broker Chandler Crouch commended the TAD board members for attempting to reform property taxes in the county, but said that the proposed changes could have unintended consequences. “I don’t know that these are the right decisions,” he said. “I think that every three years is dangerous. Every two years is a lot safer.” Crouch argued that the three-year plan would put appraisals out of sync with school districts’ biennial property value studies, thus leading to a loss of funding. “Homeowners have been getting screwed by this appraisal system for years,” Crouch told the Star-Telegram in an interview. “We’re jumping for joy that they’re trying to come up with a solution. The real question is, how is it going to affect school funding, and what are the unintended consequences of this?” Representatives of the Azle, White Settlement and Birdville school districts echoed those fears in public comments, saying the reforms would affect their abilities to meet their bond debt requirements. Several board members expressed similar concerns about the reforms’ effects to school districts. Crowley-based property tax consultant Ryan Ray accused the board of “picking winners and losers” by shifting the tax burden away from neighborhoods that are increasing in value and placing it on neighborhoods that aren’t increasing as rapidly, or that are decreasing in value. Several property tax experts told the Star-Telegram last week that a 5% appraisal cap would be a disincentive to move. The appraisal district sets property appraisals and administers exemptions for tax purposes. Baby Dolls, a North Texas strip club, destroyed in fire Story by Matt Kyle, The Dallas Morning News Baby Dolls, a Fort Worth strip club, was destroyed in a fire Wednesday morning, the city fire department said in a social media post. Firefighters received a call of a structure fire in the 3600 block of State Highway 157 about 9 a.m., according to a post on the Fort Worth Fire Department’s Facebook account. When firefighters from Fort Worth and Euless arrived on scene, they found heavy fire and smoke coming from the Baby Dolls building. Fire crews saw the back wall of the building was compromised. Shortly after, the wall collapsed. “Thankfully, there were no firefighters in the structure when the building collapsed and the business was closed,” the post said. The Fort Worth fire department said no injuries have been reported. The club appears to be near the border of Euless and Fort Worth, but is listed on the Tarrant Appraisal District website as a Fort Worth property. The cause of the fire is under investigation. ©2024 The Dallas Morning News. Visit dallasnews.com. Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC. Grand Prairie woman re-arrested in alleged attempted drowning of 2 children A Muslim advocacy group is calling for the incident to be investigated as a hate crime By Julia James 4:03 PM on Jul 2, 2024 Advocates and lawmakers are applauding the move by local law enforcement to rearrest a North Texas woman accused of attempting to drown two children in a Euless swimming pool. Elizabeth Wolf, 42, is accused of “making racial statements” before grabbing a 6 -year- old boy and trying to drown his 3-year-old sister in May at the family’s apartment complex pool, police said last month. Wolf, of Grand Prairie, was originally arrested on a public intoxication charge. The charges were raised to attempted capital murder and injury to a child and she was released from the Tarrant County jail on a $40,000 bond. Her bond for the attempted capital murder charge was raised at a hearing Thursday to $1 million, leading to her rearrest. The Texas chapter of the Council on American-Islamic Relations said the American Muslim community was “temporarily relieved.” “We thank local and the federal law enforcement for the rearrest and the progress in the case investigation,” Shaimaa Zayan, Austin operations manager for the group, sa id in statement. “We also appreciate the potential social services that were discussed with the family last week as they navigate their life after this traumatic event.” The group previously called on federal and local law enforcement to investigate the case as a hate crime. It said in its initial statement that Wolf approached the children’s mother, who is Palestinian and was wearing a hijab, about speaking Arabic before allegedly pulling the children into the pool. Wolf has been identified in court docume nts as white and Asian or Pacific Islander. “Our community continues to suffer the trauma and harm caused by Mrs. Wolf’s actions, and we hope the Tarrant County District Attorney’s office prosecutes this individual to the fullest extent possible,” said state Rep. Salman Bhojani from District 92. Fiery 3-car crash kills 1 driver, injures 2 on Texas 121 in Euless early Thursday morning BY LILLIE DAVIDSON JUNE 27, 2024 12:29 PM One person is dead and two more are injured after a fiery three -vehicle crash on Texas 121 on Thursday morning, officials with the Euless Police Department said in a statement. According to the statement, witnesses described seeing a Chevrolet SUV travel ing at high speeds and weaving through traffic. The driver of the Chevrolet attempted to pass on the inside shoulder and hit a disabled pickup truck that was parked there, witnesses said. The Chevrolet then hit a Mazda and became engulfed in flames, po lice said. The unidentified driver of the Chevrolet was pronounced dead at the scene. The occupant of the disabled pickup truck was taken to Baylor Grapevine hospital with non-life-threatening injuries, and the driver of the Mazda was evaluated at the scene by paramedics. The accident temporarily shut down traffic in the northbound lanes of the highway between Cheek-Sparger and Glade roads. Woman in stable condition after being shot in Euless apartment; no arrests made yet BY NICOLE LOPEZ UPDATED AUGUST 04, 2024 6:33 AM A woman is in stable condition after being shot in an apartment in Euless on Saturday, according to police. Mahoning Matters Authorities are investigating after a woman was shot in an apartment on Saturda y morning, according to Euless police. No arrests have been made. Around 10 a.m. Saturday, officers responded to a shooting in the area of 300 Vine Street. Upon arrival, officers found a 46-year-old woman who had been shot in the abdomen, according to police. Witnesses told police that a suspect ran into an apartment. The apartment was checked by a SWAT team, NETCAST, but the suspect was not found at the scene. The woman was taken to Baylor Grapevine Hospital by Euless fire department medics. She is in stable condition, police said. The suspect is still at large. Police are continuing to investigate. 'This is like somebody victimized my two-year- old'| Family upset after hidden camera captures alleged sexual assault of 46-year-old dementia patient The family says they placed the camera in Elizabeth's room because they feared she might be victimized. They say their worst fears proved to be true. Author: Tanya Eiserer Published: 5:06 PM CDT August 2, 2024 Updated: 5:06 PM CDT August 2, 2024 Facebook EULESS, Texas — The family worried Elizabeth might be a target for predators. She’s 46 with early onset dementia. “She has the mental capacity of a two-year-old,” her former husband, Manuel, told WFAA. Several months ago, the family placed a picture frame containing a hidden camera in Elizabeth’s room at Westpark Rehabilitation and Living Center in Euless. In the frame, they placed an old picture of Manuel and their two children. “Because she's young I knew that she would be a target,” Manuel said. I was hoping to be wrong, but turns out that I was right.” Manuel’s daughter routinely monitored the footage from the camera. On July 22, she saw what she believed to be a female nursing home employee sexually assaulting her mother the day before. She told her brother and father. “She couldn't believe what she saw,” Manuel said. Police have obtained an arrest warrant accusing that nursing home employee of aggravated sexual assault. “This is like somebody victimized my two-year-old,” Manuel said. “I've watched it fully once. It's just too hard. It just enrages me.” The nursing home did not respond to several requests for comment. The family’s attorney provided the video to WFAA. It shows the employee undressing Elizabeth and preparing to change her diaper. “Stand up,” she tells Elizabeth. “Stand up.” She walks her to the bed, puts her in it, and begins to change her. What happens next is what police say was a sexual assault. It goes on for several minutes. Afterward, she puts the diaper on Elizabeth and covers her with a blanket. “When you watch the video, there's really not much doubt,” said the family’s attorney, David Crowe. “It's one of the worst that we've seen.” Manuel, a long-haul truck driver, said he was out of state when his children told him about the video. He drove to the nursing home in his truck. He says he went to the nursing home facility, got Elizabeth, and then went to the nursing home administrator’s office. “I closed the door and called the law,” he said. He says patrol officers responded, watched the video and immediately called for a detective. He says authorities sent Elizabeth to John Peter Smith Hospital for a sexual assault exam. “They were really on top of their job,” he said of police. Manuel says that the nursing home initially wouldn’t give police the name of the employee and told police that they would have to subpoena it. He said the next day the detective told him that the nursing home had decided to provide police with the name of the employee. Crowe, the family's attorney, says that by Texas law, the most that the family could likely recover in a lawsuit is $250,000. That's the cap for non-economic damages. "It limits the exposure to nursing homes, which does not encourage the best of care in Texas nursing homes," Crowe said. Manuel, his daughter, his son, and his daughter-in-law are now taking care of Elizabeth. They’ve set up a GoFundMe to try to raise money to help with expenses. He says he and his children are not really equipped to care for Elizabeth, but they can’t bring themselves to put her in another nursing home. “I don’t know how anybody could ever trust anybody again,” he said. The family is working on getting in-home health care for Elizabeth. He believes that Elizabeth knows that something bad happened to her. He says she now gives him a hard time when he changes her or showers her. “She wasn’t like that before,” he said. When Manuel speaks of Elizabeth, he speaks wistfully of how they met at 17. “I was just cruising by her high school, and I saw her out there and it thought she was beautiful and it just went from there,” he said. “A year later, we already had a kid.” A year later, their son was born. Their daughter soon followed. “I wish I could go back to that time,” he says, sighing. They were married for more than 20 years. She worked as a school bus driver. Then Elizabeth began exhibiting signs of dementia in her early 40s. Elizabeth and many members of her family have developed early onset Alzheimer’s because they carry what’s known as the Jalisco mutation. First identified in 2006, people who carry the gene are descendants of a common ancestor from the state of Jalisco in Mexico. “Even though she's right here, we don't have her anymore,” Manuel said. “I love her. I take care of her as if she was my two-year-old.” Credit: WFAA Manuel bought Elizabeth a birthday cake. On a recent day, Elizabeth sat in a chair clutching her baby doll. She loves the Happy Birthday song. He’d bought her a birthday cake. “Every day is her birthday,” he says. He sat at the kitchen table. He lit the birthday candles and fed her cake and cookies. “She’s going downhill pretty fast,” he says taking a deep breath. “It’s hard. It’s really hard.” Elizabeth is the love of his life, and he’s determined to celebrate every remaining day with her.