Trent Ashby Addresses Grapeland Noon Lions
By Greg Ritchie
Messenger Reporter
GRAPELAND – State Representative Trent Ashby was the guest of honor at the Grapeland Noon Lions Club meeting Thursday, Nov. 2. Ashby joined the Lions to go over the propositions on the ballot for the upcoming elections and take questions about the effects of some of the propositions on the local community.
Ashby had been in the area just a couple of weeks earlier at the Peanut Festival and reminded the group it was in Grapeland where he first announced he was running for state representative. He noted he was an avid reader of The Messenger, which allows him to keep up with local events.
“I read The Messenger regularly so I keep up with you guys,” Ashby, a Lion himself, told the group. “I want y’all to know how much I appreciate what you do and it’s not lost on me and certainly not lost on people. We’re blessed to call this area home and thankful for all you do to make this place better”
Ashby recollected how busy this year has been for the Texas Legislature, which meets every two years – something he didn’t expect when he decided to run for office.
“I remember a number of years ago when I first threw my hand in the ring to be your state representative. My wife, Nikki said, ‘Well, Trent, we’ve got little kids and you’ve got a full time job. So how are we going to do this?’ I said, ‘Honey, it’s only 140 days every two years.’ Well, let me tell you – this is a full time job. We have been in Austin this entire year for at least part of every month except for June. This has really been a busy year for the Texas Legislature and we accomplished a lot and we’ve got more work to do.”
Grapeland Noon Lions Club President Velda Green had provided the group with a list of the 14 propositions on the Texas ballot, which Ashby was eager to go over and explain both the meaning of each and their intended effect. Ashby himself sponsored some of the proposed propositions, some of which he said he had tried many years to get passed.
He pointed out the legislature voted to use much of a surplus in the state budget to help suffering taxpayers with property taxes. The amendment to the Texas constitution (Prop. 4 on the ballot) would use $18 billion of the surplus to give a homestead exemption of up to $100,000 on property tax bills.
Ashby also called out proposition nine, which would provide a cost of living increase for retired Texas teachers.
“It’s been 19 years since our retired teachers have had an increase in their cost of living adjustment or ‘COLA’. And I have been fighting for that since I first got elected,” Ashby said. “I am so pleased we were able to take a portion of that surplus and provide our retired teachers with a much deserved cost of living adjustment.”
Ashby further explained proposition one, which would allow residents the right to farm, noting this was mainly for suburban areas where growing cities were placing city-style restrictions on areas which still include extensive farmland.
Proposition Eight would provide $5 billion for a broadband fund to improve broadband internet access to rural areas, a bill Ashby wrote.
“Many of the 34 school districts I represent and frankly, all of them in Houston County are in the same boat – we do not have access to reliable high speed broadband internet. This is something that rural members, like myself, are very acutely aware of,” Ashby explained. “One of the lessons COVID taught us is how important internet access is, especially when it comes to our education system, our health care, when you want to apply for a job. In higher education, a lot of the classes are online. Broadband is no longer a luxury – it is absolutely a necessity.”
Ashby complained that many of the Texas propositions are written by Austin lawyers and sometimes difficult for voters to interpret, but Ashby has teamed up with other colleagues to propose that lawmakers themselves write the language that will appear on the ballots so voters can have a better idea of what the measure means, rather than the usual “legalese.”
The border crisis came up as well, as Ashby pointed out the state is forced to spend more than $5 billion dollars to try and secure the border, which he said, should be a federal issue.
“I went down there two weeks ago on a trip with DPS to get on the ground, firsthand. Ladies and gentlemen, last month, and the preceding month, we apprehended over 200,000 migrants in each of those months. That’s over 400,000 – and that’s the people we know of and apprehended on our southern border,” Ashby said. “And as you all know, what happens on the Rio Grande doesn’t stop on the Rio Grande. We feel it right here in Houston County. We feel it all across the state. It is an expensive endeavor and it’s the federal government who has the constitutional authority and responsibility to deal with this issue. They’re not. So, we as a state have had to step up and every year we spend more of our taxpayer dollars in Texas on a federal issue, but we have to. We’re doing this not just to secure the state of Texas, but really the country.”
Voting on the 14 proposals is set for Tuesday, Nov. 7. Stay tuned to The Messenger online and in our next edition for the latest election results.
Greg Ritchie can be reached at [email protected]
