City blocks commercial tax break Bill

Businesses in the city of Columbus will not get a tax break under the recent "Property in Transit" legislation, House Bill 621. The bill exempts goods, mainly inventory, that are stored in a location that is not owned by the owner of the goods and are transferred from that location to another location within 175 days.

Following a short presentation by Bill Mitchell, chief appraiser for the Colorado County Appraisal District, Columbus City Council members unanimously voted against the legislation. In other words, tangible personal property in transit which would otherwise be exempt under HB 621, will now be subject to applicable taxes.

The bill is similar to the Freeport Exemption, said Mitchell, but has a potentially larger impact. According to Mitchell, the goods may be in the location for the purposes of assembling, storing, manufacturing, processing or fabricating purposes. Certain goods excluded from the exemption are oil, natural gas, petroleum products, aircraft, dealer's motor vehicle inventory, dealer's vessel and outboard motor inventory, dealer's heavy equipment inventory, or retail manufactured housing inventory. Mitchell pointed out that in order to take advantage of the new law, property owners may transfer ownership of goods or facilities in which goods are stored, manufactured and/or processed to legal entities with different ownership.

As required under state law, a public hearing took place regarding the legislation. There were no public comments.

During the city manager's report, David Meisell gave an update on several projects which have been completed including the Cardinal Hill well, seal coating project along various streets within the city limits and the auger replacement at the city's sewer plant.

He also informed council members of communication with the Texas Department of Transportation regarding the Interstate 10 widening project. According to the TxDOT letter, construction is scheduled to begin in February 2008. The proposed project will add an additional lane, in each direction, to I-10 including the widening of bridges and roadbeds along I-10 by 20 feet.

Other items in Meisell's report included an update on the Houston-Galveston Area Council energy purchasing corporation, river status, sales tax update and Texas Municipal Retirement System update.

No action was taken on several other agenda items, in which there was some discussion. One of the items that brought lengthy discussion was parking issues at 700 Milam in front of an apartment complex. Council members and Meisell expressed concerns that angle parking in front of the complex distorted the line of sight for drivers along Milam and Malleck streets. However, Meisell said he spoke with the apartment owner and vehicles have been parallel parking lately, which he said makes a tremendous difference. A slide show was presented which demonstrated the difference in line of sight along the street when cars are angle parked versus parallel parked.

Council member Chuck Rankin agreed with Meisell, stating he also thought angle parking was problematic.

Council agreed that the angle parking problem seems to have taken care of itself for now so no action was taken. However, council members did agree that a close watch would be kept on the situation.

No action was taken following the August police report. Chief Danny Jackson reported the following: 162 citations including 30 traffic, 109 warnings, 10 curfew violations and 13 criminal citations; 31 arrests; 215 calls for service and an average response time of two minutes.

No action was taken regarding approval of a fireworks display permit for Columbus ISD homecoming. Council members said they did not have a problem with the proposal following a presentation by Tom Bargas and gave Meisell the go ahead to pursue authorization of the permit.

In other business council: