My question involves civil rights in the State of: Texas
I am debating if this belongs in th Civil rights or tax forum, hopefully I chose correctly.
We recieved a notice today that there is a meeting to recieve public feeback on the finalization of a project to place toll boths on the road in front of our neighborhood. (Given its a finalization, it sounds like this is already being done regardless of feedback and its the first public notification issued.) The problem with this is not adding a toll, but actually that this is a short road, about 2 to 4 miles, with several neighborhood entrances off of it that have no alternative acces routes in/out of the neighborhoods. Essentially, this is an oportunity to collect extra taxation from people that have no choice on whether or not to use the service because of where they live, making it a double property tax. This road has existed for years, but recently Texas has begun tolling existing roads with high neighborhood ocupancy to collect extra taxes. The roads chosen are short areas with dense upper-middle class neighborhoods. Because the residents already pay property tax, and there is no alternative route in/out of these neighborhoods, this seems very wrong. Especially so since the neighborhoods are clearly profiled based on income. It definitely touches on the controvercy of double taxation for the same service. I'm not clear on if this is illegal or just unethical though? unfortunately, I have a feeling it is just unethical, but I wanted a second opinion.
Thanks,
KBT
(And, yes, it is Gov. Perry that added these tolls. Good luck if you make that vote.)

