Shoreacres City Council on Monday voted unanimously to propose adoption of a tax rate that will not exceed the city's effective rate $0.844381 per $100 valuation for 2012. (Correct)

The actual rate will be considered at a future council meeting, but the rate can equal or be lower than the effective rate. (Correct)

The effective rate is higher than the 2011 rate of $0.820125 per $100 valuation, but would not generate additional revenues for the city due to property value losses continuing from the impact of Hurricane Ike, according to City Administrator David Stall. (Correct)

The effective tax rate is the calculated rate the city would need to levy to draw revenues equal to the previous year.

Stall said demolitions of homes damaged from the storm continue.

“We’ve had about four homes demolished over the last 45 days,” Stall said.  “We continue to do a lot of demolition, and even though they were on the rolls for greatly decreased value, every time we demolish stuff it keeps going down.  The impact here is if we go with the effective tax rate, we expect to see a decrease in actual tax dollars of about $5,000 over what we had the prior year.”

The city council voted unanimously to postpone several items due to the absence of several council members, including:

Designation of a representative and alternate to the Houston-Galveston Area Council 2012 General Assembly

Possible action regarding the effective use of the city’s Connect 5, or Blackboard, telephone notification system

Possible action regarding the status and schedule of consideration of changes to zoning regulation of garages, creation of a new public use zoning district and modification of the zoning district map

The city council discussed, but took no action regarding the city’s mosquito control activities.  Mayor Dolly Arons provided an update on what activities the city is undertaking to control mosquito populations.

The city council took no action regarding the scheduling of public hearings on a property tax rate increase.  The item was not needed as no tax increase was proposed.

The city council met in executive session to discuss a professional services and employment agreement for Stall.  No action was taken on the item.

All other items were approved by unanimous vote.  Council members Steve Jones and Dana Woodruff were absent.  Agenda

During the public comment portion of the meeting, former council member Nancy Schnell addressed the council about her concerns regarding Council Member Connie Ramirez’ residency status in the city.  Ramirez’ home was damaged during Hurricane Ike.  Schnell also submitted her comments to Guidry News for posting in the Forum.  Click Here