Why cities over a certain age see an increase in their tax rates. It has been noted in the current City Council race that Richardson's tax rate has increased noticeably in the last 20-30 years. The suggestion is that this increase is solely the result of increasing City spending which may be unnecessary. Last spring, Richardson resident Frank Yeh wrote an essay about the 2010 bond program, in which he noted that in terms of infrastructure replacement (in this case, Proposition 1 which was about streets, traffic control, and drainage programs), the question is not if you are going to sell bonds to replace infrastructure, but when. In this course of this brief essay, he made the point that cities that reach a certain age have to increase their tax rates in order to finance the replacement of their infrastructure that has reached the end of its useful life. RumorCheck believes that since Richardson is passing from “young” to “middle aged” in terms of infrastructure, that the citizens of Richardson would benefit from reading this essay that explains why all cities eventually hit the point of having to raise tax rates to fund infrastructure replacement. Please note that this essay does not constitute an endorsement by Mr. Yeh on any particular bond program nor provides an opinion on the amount of debt that the City should carry. To see the essay, please click here. William J. 'Bill' McCalpin Richardson, Texas