LETTERS: No to lower property tax, they fund a well-functioning El Paso

Aug. 21, 2026, 6:02 a.m. MT

No to lower property tax, they fund a well-functioning El Paso

James Talarico is running for U. S. Senate; on his television ads he promises to lower property taxes.

Property taxes go to fund city government, police, county government, the sheriff department, county jail and hospital, community college, and EPISD, which at the last counting was $59 million, had to lay off teachers and staff. The sheriff says his department is short on personnel and equipment.

So Talarico is going to make the situation worse by cutting property tax that funds these entities.

I had rather have a well-functioning El Paso.

Jerry Jarvis

West El Paso

Crypto currency is not for me, I still trust banks

Reading in the newspaper about giving a charter to a group to create a trust to manage stablecoin, I decided to dig into the bitcoin, crypto world. Unfortunately, the only takeaway from this research left me feeling surer than ever that it is not for me.

Blockchains, which secure the ledger on who owns what, is not regulated by anyone. That means that you have no recourse to recover your bitcoin if someone steals your funds. There are a multitude of changes that have been made to the system that was created anonymously in 2008 to try to protect your investment, but they are all just proof that the system is too fallible.