No Property Taxes, No Cameras, No Thanks

This piece represents the opinion of the author based on the facts presented below.

I have been publicly planning a video interview series for Italy's upcoming city council election. The format is straightforward: each candidate sits down individually, answers the same set of nine questions, and the interviews are published as videos for the entire community to watch. Candidates don't get to hear each other's answers. The questions have been published on this website since February for full transparency. Every candidate gets the same preparation time, the same questions, and the same fair shot. The process is overseen by the Watchtower consulting team and designed to give voters an honest look at who is running for office.

I announced this weeks ago. The community knows about it.

On March 26th, the S.M. Dunlap Library in Italy posted an announcement on the Italy Talk Facebook group. They're hosting a "Meet Your Candidates" evening on Thursday, April 9th at 7 PM. Here are the rules:

• Questions must be submitted by March 31st via a Google Form
• Only the "top 5" questions will be presented to candidates
• There will be no question and answer session
• No filming or recording of the evening's activities will be permitted

So let me get this straight. I'm offering a video interview series where every answer is preserved on camera, available for the entire community to review, and every candidate gets the same fair shot. And instead of supporting that, or at the very least coexisting with it, the library is hosting an event where they pick five questions, the candidates answer them in front of a room, nobody gets to record it, and if you weren't there, tough luck.

How is that more transparent than what I'm already doing?

The "Private" Question

In a follow-up comment, Tina Sims Cline wrote that the library is "in fact, a private library" and receives "no public funding, so the issue of restrictions doesn't really apply."

I looked up the property tax records on ellistaxes.com. The property at W 300 Main St, Italy, TX 76651, is owned by "DUNLAP S M LIBRARY." It has a 2025 market value of $201,172. The total property tax bill across every taxing entity (Ellis County, Italy ISD, City of Italy, and the ESD) is $0.00.

Zero dollars. On a property worth over two hundred thousand dollars.

I'm not a tax attorney. But I know that private entities in Texas generally pay property taxes. A zero-dollar property tax bill on a $200K property sure looks like a property tax exemption, and property tax exemptions typically come from some form of public benefit classification. If the library is truly private with no public connection, I'd be curious to understand how that exemption works.

You can't claim you're private when it's convenient and enjoy a property tax exemption at the same time without someone asking questions. That's our job.

The Pattern

On February 17th, I wrote an article called "Leaving Italy, Not the Fight." It was about shutting down ITXN, the nonprofit I built with three other people to improve civic engagement in Italy. We closed it because the consistent message from this community was that our involvement wasn't welcome.

The city refused to let us use city hall for a candidate forum. They quoted us $200 to $250 to rent the community center, plus a $75 deposit. For an event that benefits their own election. I even offered to pay for a police officer to provide security. None of that mattered.

When I said I was leaving Italy, I meant it. I took ITXN's mission and expanded it. Today, the Watchtower team is actively working in nine small Texas cities across multiple counties. We've built relationships with city officials, police departments, and community leaders in most of those cities. We have law enforcement agencies endorsing our work. We have citizens reaching out to us asking for help.

Italy is the only city that consistently cannot figure out how to have a working relationship with us. Or, for that matter, with its own residents.

I don't think this is about the library. I think this is a reflection of how Italy has been governed for the last thirty years. A culture of control, of deciding who gets to participate and on what terms, of treating transparency as a threat rather than a tool. Every time someone tries to bring accountability to this community, the doors close a little tighter.

What Happens Now

I'm canceling the Italy candidate interview videos.

Let that sink in. The one person in this community who has consistently shown up, done the work, built the tools, and offered every resource at his disposal to help Italy's voters make informed decisions just got pushed out. Again. By his own community. Again.

Watchtower is committed to consulting with and empowering cities that actually want to work with us. Italy has made it clear, over and over and over, that it does not. So we're done asking.

We're taking our candidate interview series to Seven Points instead. On Tuesday, March 24th, Seven Points held one of the most emotional but productive council meetings I've ever attended. People in that room had personal differences. Real ones. And they sat across from each other and found a way to conduct business anyway. That's what leadership looks like. That's what a community looks like when it decides to move forward instead of circling the same drain for three decades.

I'll be publishing an article about that meeting later today. It's a story you'll want to remember, because it's proof that small Texas cities can actually get it right when the people in charge care more about progress than control.

Italy had every opportunity. We came with open hands. We offered civic engagement through ITXN. We offered professional candidate interviews. We offered to work alongside the city, not against it. We published the questions in advance. We designed a process that was more fair, more transparent, and more accessible than anything this community has ever been offered. And the response, every single time, has been some version of "no thanks, we'll handle it ourselves behind closed doors."

Fine. Handle it yourselves.

But here's what won't change: the investigative journalism. The public records requests. The hard questions. The published findings. We extended professional courtesy to Italy because we genuinely wanted to help. That courtesy is officially withdrawn. From now on, Italy gets the same treatment as any other city under investigation. No advance notice. No friendly conversations. No offers to collaborate. Just the work.

You had a team of professionals offering to strengthen your community for free. You had a journalist willing to give your candidates a fair, transparent platform. You had people who cared enough to keep showing up even after being arrested, removed from meetings, blocked on social media, and charged money to host events that benefit your own elections.

And you chose a closed-door forum at a property-tax-exempt library where nobody is allowed to bring a camera.

Good luck with that, Italy. You're going to need it.