Joseph Jay Pastoriza

Joseph Jay Pastoriza (1857–1917) was a printer, real estate investor, and politician in Houston, Texas. He served both as Tax Commissioner and Mayor of Houston. Pastoriza holds the distinction of being the first Hispanic mayor of the city of Houston.

Early Life and Business Career

Joseph Jay Pastoriza was born in New Orleans, Louisiana on January 8, 1857. Both his parents were natives of Barcelona, Spain. His father died in 1858 shortly after bringing his infant son to Houston, Texas. Edward Daly adopted the child, but died in the Civil War in 1862.^[1]

Pastoriza attended Fitzgerald's Academy in Houston. As a seventeen-year-old, he apprenticed to a blacksmith by day and worked as a bookkeeper at night. By 1878, he entered the printing business, working as a business manager for a local newspaper. He was proprietor of Pastoriza Printing and Lithographing Company. He also represented some local businesses as Vice-President of the Houston Manufacturers Association.^[1]

Political Life

Late in 1901, Pastoriza mounted a petition drive in favor of municipal ownership of utilities, collecting 800-1000 signatures.^[2] Pastoriza joined the Houston Single Tax League, a Georgist organization founded in 1890. In 1903, he paid $350 for a lot at Cleburne and Caroline, south of the developed part of the city. He built a shoddy cabin on the land, which had two purposes. He donated the use of the structure to the league. It was also an object-lesson: he vowed to sell the property only if he were offered at least $5,000. If development were to reach his block, he predicted, neighboring improvements would augment the value of his property. He waited only eight years to find a buyer to make an offer to exceed Pastoriza's target price.^[1]

The log cabin object-lesson had been intended to illustrate a Georgist principle supporting the single land tax. First, Pastoriza made the most minimal investment in the lot, and his return on investments had been at least ten-fold. He asserted that he had reaped a windfall without adding significant to the lot or the neighborhood: growth caused the development frontier to expand, and the improvements to the other lots were creating value. So he reasoned that taxing land at a higher rate (and lowering the tax burden on improvements and personal property) would shift the tax burden to land speculators. These policies would also ease the burden on developers, which in turn, would stimulate construction in the city. Just eight years later, neighboring lots across the street from his $350 log cabin lot were selling for $4,750.^[1]

From 1906 to 1910, Pastoriza visited cities in Europe and the United States with an interest in understanding various municipal reforms. He successfully advocated for downtown Houston businesses to close at 6pm, a measure to control retail employees' work hours.^[1]

Pastoriza ran a successful campaign to be seated as a Commissioner for the City of Houston. He served as Houston Tax Commissioner from 1911 to 1917. During his first year in office, he promoted a property tax system he called the "Somers System of Equalization," named for William A. Somers, whom he had met in New York City in the late 1890s.^[1]

The Somers System based the value of land per square foot on the value of the front foot of land on the middle lots of the block. Pastoriza first tested the Somers System on some blocks in downtown Houston. Both city officials and property owners responded favorably. Next Pastoriza traveled to Denver to learn from officials who were implementing the Somers system in the Colorado city. He returned with a report on his experience, and City Council approved both the Somers System and the broader Houston Plan of Taxation in early 1912.^[1]

Pastoriza planned for broad implementation of the Somers System. He began creating a map, dividing Houston into thirty-five tax districts. Within each district, he performed a block-by-block valuation. He determined the value, "of a one-foot wide by one-hundred-foot deep segment in the center of every block."^[1] Property assessment in Houston by the Somers method increased valuations by $19 million in 1912, the first year of the program. The Somers method has two distributive effects: it increased the valuations of wealthy land owners and decreased the valuations of many homeowners. It also reduced the tax rates from $1.70 per $100 of valuation to $1.50 per $100, while increasing total revenue by $100,000 (total revenue in 1912 was about $2.2 million). Houston Mayor Horace Baldwin Rice characterized the new method as, "a very efficient system, just and equitable for all."^[1]

In July 1912, Pastoriza promoted his more general Houston Plan of Taxation. The city would assess land at seventy percent of value, property improvements and merchants' inventories at twenty-five percent of value, and most personal property would be exempt. During the first six months of 1912, Houston added 219 new buildings compared to the first six months of 1911.^[1]

Death

Pastoriza died of heart failure on July 9, 1917 at his home on Austin Street in Houston.^[3] At his death, he was not quite three months into his only term as Mayor of Houston. The year he died, he owned real estate valued near $75,000.^[1]

References

Other readings

• Pastoriza, J.J. (1915). "The Houston Plan of Taxation". JSTOR. 
• "Interesting People: J.J. Pastoriza" 75. American Magazine. 1913. 
• "Death of Joseph J. Pastoriza" 17. Land and Freedom. 1917. 
• "Why Pastoriza Built The Cabin". Retrieved November 21, 2014. 
• Young, Samuel Oliver. A thumb-nail history of the city of Houston, Texas, from its founding in 1836 to the year 1912, Book, 1912, p. 34-37; (http://texashistory.unt.edu/ark:/67531/metapth24649/ : accessed November 21, 2014), University of North Texas Libraries, The Portal to Texas History, http://texashistory.unt.edu; crediting UNT Libraries, Denton, Texas.