Voters A 'No Show' For Proposed Utility District In Denton County
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DENTON (CBSDFW.COM) - An election in Denton County to create a utility district and fund it with hundreds of millions of dollars in bonds drew attention when voters didn't showed up at the Denton County polls. It also shed light on an election practice allowing a handful of people to control hundreds of millions of dollars in bonds and the taxes used to repay them.
The ballot was to create an area called the Alpha Ranch Water Control and Improvement District. It asked to voters to approve hundreds of millions of dollars to build roads, sewage and utilities. But the project only sits partially in Denton County and no one in that area was registered to vote.
"The Alpha ranch district exists in Denton County in the county so we have to have a ballot available in case someone comes and claims they live in the district they get to vote," Denton County Elections Administrator Lannie Noble explained.
While not a single person showed up to vote for the utility district in Denton County, the project spans two counties and four people showed up in Wise County and elected to create the district and fund it with $399 million worth of bond debt. It may seem unusual, but the creation of utility districts by just a handful of voters is fairly common.
"I've been in Denton county for a year and we've had some kind of municipal district for every general election," Noble said.
The law allows developers to set up the election for undeveloped property that only a couple of people, maybe even the developer, lives on. They get to vote for the bonds, develop the property and then tax the people who move in to pay off the debt.
It happened four times in Denton County in just this election with four or fewer votes on each ballot.
"It's allowing people to hold elections to raise money to do developments," Noble said. "And that's up to the people making decisions whether that's a good thing or a bad thing."
Denton County ballots show a handful of people decided to issue bonds for nearly $900 million and set the tax rates to pay the debt off.
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