Clapp Park Pool, 4500 Avenue U
If the proposed city budget presented Monday becomes the city budget, property taxes will go up $47 per year for the average home, Godeke Library will be fine and Clapp Park pool will get a temporary band aid.
Patching the pool for $325,000 comes with a warning from City Manager Jarrett Atkinson. Lubbock recently opened three splash pads but has municipal pools. All closed due to age and malfunction. Only Clapp has any hope for revival.
“I personally don’t have confidence that you’ll keep that pool open for very long if we do this,” Atkinson said.
The equipment at Clapp can be fixed. That’s not the problem. The pool was constructed in two halves with a joint in the middle. It failed.
“The pool loses water. It’s been losing water,” Atkinson said.
“We have no way to say that this is a good use of those dollars, because that [joint] could last for several years, or it could last for none. We could basically be out there pumping water into it as fast as it’s coming out.” Atkinson said.
A new pool would cost $8 million, Kalee Robinson, park development superintendent, told LubbockLights.com in January.
Godeke Library became controversial when Adam Hernandez, former candidate for mayor, claimed it would be forced to close if the Council refused to renew the lease which comes due on September 1, saying he felt Mayor Mark McBrayer did not consider it a priority.
The proposed budget includes enough money to cover a more expensive lease.
A tax increase
Even though the tax rate is proposed to go down, homeowners on average will end up paying more because of increasing valuations from the Lubbock County Appraisal District (up 5.2 percent on average).
Mayor Mark McBrayer and Councilman David Glasheen both expressed an interest in the “no new revenue” tax rate during a July 18 Council meeting. But early on, that’s not what Atkinson proposed.
- This year’s rate: 48.0164 cents.
- No new revenue rate: 46.6749 cents per hundred dollars of taxable value
- Atkinson’s proposal: 47.7402 cents.
- Average taxable home value last year: $211, 258
- Average taxable home value this year: $222,230
- Property tax revenue: 6.5 percent increase (roughly half is from new construction)
- Total property value in Lubbock: $27.8 billion
The higher tax appraisals would have cost the average homeowner more than $53 in the coming year, but lowering the rate brings it back down to $47.
The tax bill just for the city – not including the county, schools and other local governments – will be a little more than $1,000.
McBrayer is on record saying, “I recently read that the burden on homeowners … – which includes mortgages, insurance, property taxes – is at the highest level since 1984. I don’t believe we can continue to put on our citizens, or at least our average citizen, a heavier tax burden until that situation is changed.”
There will be a public hearing September 3 at 2 p.m. at Citizens Tower. The tax rate and budget will be finalized on September 10.
If the council pushed for the “no new revenue” rate, it would drop the tax by more than a penny and every penny represents $2.3 million of city revenue.
The proposed budget is just short of $943 million – a decrease of more than 3 percent. Most of the decrease is from Lubbock Power and Light acting only as a distribution system and not purchasing power for its customer base.
Godeke’s lease on life
The preliminary budget sets aside $4.4 million for libraries – an increase of 1.1 percent. Some of that increase is to continue leasing space at 5024 Frankford Avenue for Godeke Library.
The lease goes up more than $12,000 according to public records uncovered Monday by LubbockLights.com.
Right after Atkinson revealed his plan to fund the lease, Councilman Tim Collins asked him to repeat for clarification.
“You said it, but I wanted to be very clear. You have budgeted a renewal for the Godeke branch,” Collins said.
Atkinson answered, “We have.”
A 2019 lease agreement cost the city $123,600 for the first three years and $148,320 for the last two years of a five-year term. The term expires in less than a month, but the city can exercise an option in the lease for five more years.
- Option period, years 1 and 2: $160,680
- Option period, years 3 and 4: $173,040
- Option period, year 5 (final year): $185,400
During the discussion Monday, Mayor Pro-Tem Christy Martinez Garcia asked Atkinson if the city’s hotel occupancy tax can be used for “quality of life” projects such as libraries. The tax can only be used for certain things by state law.
Atkinson promised to get back to the Council with an answer for that and a long list of other questions.
Collins previously stated his public support for Godeke.
While none of the councilmembers spoke against Godeke, either Monday or during a council meeting on July 18, there was talk of holding the line on property tax revenue and making public safety the highest priority.
Pool’s troubled waters
The Council previously asked Atkinson to make Lubbock’s remaining municipal pool a priority.
Collins said in the July 18 Council meeting, “I can assure you there are people in our community that are anxious about not having a swimming pool.”
Martinez-Garcia said, “I want to see swimming pools.”
She also wanted to see improvements to parks and other quality of life issues during the July 18 meeting.
McBrayer said, “As far as pools are concerned, that’s all we’re looking at for a budget item for our pool this year is to try to get Clapp back up and operational by next summer.”
Glasheen in the July meeting was skeptical of a band-aid approach, saying, “It’d be a bit like putting a new engine and new transmission in a beat-up old car. We might be better off spending that money in a different way. So that would be a reservation that I have.”
Councilmember Jennifer Wilson said, “I don’t think anybody up on this council hates swimming pools or hates children.”
But she also wondered if the solution is asking voters to approve a bond issue for new pools.
Also in that July meeting, Atkinson was asked if the leak in the pool at Clapp Park could be fixed. Monday, he had a more precise answer.
“I was asked. ‘Well, does this give us five years, 10 years. a year?’ I may not have answered as well as I could,” Atkinson said.
The pool is two halves of a shell.
“The complete and total unknown is how long we can make the repair to the joint in that shell last,” Atkinson said. “That joint’s over 70 years old.”
The anticipated $325,000 repair bill comes from a capital improvement project. In other words, there’s money in reserve, so it has little or no immediate impact on the tax rate. That’s not to say it’s a great idea.
“We have no way to say that this is a good use of those dollars,” Atkinson said.
No decisions were made Monday, which was the first in a series of budget workshops between the City Council and the city staff.
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