Mayors Report, July 14, 2009

Hi everyone,

My first year has been very interesting, to say the least: from a hurricane (Ike) in Sept 08, to snow in December 08, to flood in April 09, to drought in July 09, not to mention the economic crisis our whole country is experiencing. It seems there are new surprises every week!

The good part is that there are some great folks in League City, doing great things-things to be very proud of! As I practice my mantra of "Keep your eye on the ball, " I am ever reminded that you are the "ball;" it is you that we are working for--to provide you with the solid foundation (good infrastructure, good water system, good road system) from which you can do your great things and make all of us proud.

Our invocation was given by Pastor Daniel Diaz de Leon Sr. of Faith Assembly of God, with all Council persons in attendance except Jim Nelson.

It was my pleasure to recognize the American Legion Post #554 Baseball Team who will be participating in the American Legion All State Baseball Tournament coming up. These young folks are some of the great folks I mentioned above! My thanks to Councilman Baron for bringing the team to our attention and making sure that we recognized them.

Fifteen citizens spoke in Citizens Request for Hearing, about various subjects: for the dog park, against the dog park, the proposed Palomino Road Bridge, and drainage issues. One citizen brought pictures to show the progress being done on Benson Gully which should help that area tremendouusly. He paid kudos to the city crews who worked so hard to clear the debris and brush.

Because of the number of folks in the audience about the Dog Park, Items 15. A & B were moved up. Councilman Paulissen made a motion not to fund the Dog Park, which was seconded by Councilman Phalen. After some discussion about our attention needing to be focused on infrastructure, water, and other urgencies, a vote was taken, with the count being 4-2. Sanborn and Baron voted yes.

Item 15.B was a request to allow me to enter into a contract with a professional engineering firm to determine the current operating condition and needed improvements to the League City Water Plant on Hwy 3 in Webster. Paul Lopez, a Supervisor in our Water Production Department spoke, telling us that the City had purchased the land on the corner of Hwy 3 and Magnolia in 2000 for $175,000, and the structures on the property were included by the Gulf Coast Waste Authority. Paul said that the City did some design work on the structure to bring it online with our water system. The Water Production Department has tried numerous times to start the system; however it failed each time. To date, we have spent more than a million dollars on the Plant, and have achieved nothing!

For all of you citizens, this is what I have been told by a group of our own Water Production employees, who requested to see me about the Plant. I arranged a meeting with them on July 9th, at 10 am. After that meeting, I immediately scheduled a bigger meeting at 3:30 which included 3 Water Supervisors, our acting City Administrator Mr. Jahns, City Attorney Arnold Polanco, Chief Jez, and Mayor Pro Paulissen to sit in with us. The consensus was that it is imperative that we should hire an engineering firm quickly to address this plant. This is a five year old problem that has just come out, being necessitated by the drought conditions and our use of water. Thanks to our hardworking employees, we now know about the situation and must take IMMEDIATE action to fix it. Thankfully, this is exactly what the supplemental Agenda is for, and we added this matter to it. Council was shocked that they had not known about this situation before.

I will be sending out an update with regards to where swe are with the Webster water production plant as I receive the information. Thanks to our Water Production personnel for bringing the situation to my attention!

Paul Lopez said that his employees have worked 271 overtime hours in the last two weeks, and that our water system would get some relief if this Plant could become functional ASAP! Motion to approve was made by Councilman Paulissen, seconded by Councilperson Sanborn, and passed 6-0. I have instructed our City Engineer Jack Murphy to get an engineer out THIS week.

In the Mayor's comments, I welcomed our new Interim Administrator, Marcus Jahns, and announced that he will begin a search for an Interim Public Works Director.

In Old Business, Council voted 6-0 to approve a resolution authorizing publication of Notice of Intention to issue Certificates of Obligation for the 518 Bypass. Motion was made by Paulissen, seconded by Councilman Phalen. This is the beginning of the Bypass, everyone! Engineer Murphy said, in response to a question, that the bridge over Robinsons Gully will have 16 feet mean tide clearance.

Director of General Services, Travis Doughty, asked Council to make a commitment that the City would provide a land site for a Regional Household Hazardous Waste Collection Site. He is preparing an application for a $600,000 grant from Houston Galveston Area Council. the motion to make this commitment was made by Councilperson Sanborn, seconded by Councilman Barber, and passed 6-0.

It has been proposed that we create a Comprehensive Plan Task Force to plan a revision of our Comprehensive Plan. Although several Councilmen said that they didn't think we were quite ready to bring in a consultant yet, nevertheless the vote to create the committee was 6-0. Motion by Councilman Baron, second by Councilman Lee.

The only item that came from Executive Session was that the Council instructed City Attorney Arnold Polanco to have a meeting with Scott Freudenburg, President of the Glen Cove HOA, regarding Cypress Bay issues.

Thank you to the folks who came to the meeting--it's always good to see you out there.

Just remember, as we continue to discover things that have been done in past administrations, that you elected me to change the way the City was going, and I am working on that EVERY day.

Thank you for your wonderful support! Do a raindance for a nice steady rain!

Toni Randall
Mayor
League City

Shades of Watergate

It appears that the tapes for the past park board meeting have disappeared. How coincidental that such a thing should occur. So that you know this is not a “grassy knoll” statement I have included the actual response to the freedom of information act requesting a copy of the tapes. The person who usually takes care of these matters and has done a great job in doing so over the many years should not be blamed for this situation. It appears that someone, who may have made some remarks during the meeting, did not want the public to know what was said and could have intentionally removed the two tapes in question. Hmmmm I wonder who that could have been?


From: "Diana Stapp"
Date: Wed, 15 Jul 2009 11:39:28 -0500
Subject: Application for Public Information #09-274
Dear Requestor:

The City of League City has received your Application for Public Information regarding “audio copy of the Parks Board meeting held on July 8, 2009” (#09-274)

The City has processed your request through the Parks Department. They advised they are unable to locate Tape 1 and 2 of the meeting. They were able to locate Tape 3 which was found still in the recorder. Do you want a copy of Tape 3? The recording was done on a microcassette recorder and the only available duplication is to play in real time onto a regular size cassette recorder. Let me know if you will want a copy of the one tape.

Please feel free to contact me if you should have any questions.

Diana Stapp, Records Supervisor
City Secretary's Office
281-554-1034
281-554-1035 (fax)

City of League City, 300 West Walker, League City, Texas 77573

Councilman Baron Barks

During last night's council meeting Neil Baron made a number of interesting comments during the dog park debate.

He proclaimed:
"The hundreds of petition signers I got"

I am hopeful someone will post a text of Baron's most memorable "dog park" comments.

Nonetheless, I applaud the citizens that spoke on both sides of the issue. In some cases the fuzzy logic was most entertaining. A gentleman spoke connecting the need for a dog park, pet waste, and Clear Lake clean water issues. I am glad someone else cares about Clear Lake water quality.

Does anyone else find it odd that a councilman would be a leader of a special interest group and use his elected position to advocate the group's special-use park?

Some have raised the question of a possible ethics issue. What do you think?

ps.

I did hear a good idea. A private organization could lease city land (or get private land donation) and operate the dog park by volunteer activities and donations. Why not?

The Jez Factor

Today’s Galveston County Daily news states “Jez has been fielding questions about the water supply because the city does not have a permanent city administrator, public works director or water superintendent.” It is now becoming apparent why the public works director took a job out of the country. But why is it that “The city could not immediately provide information late Monday about when it purchased the plant or how much has been spent trying to repair it.” Could it be that Mr. Jez forced the water superintendant, who has been with the city 25 years, to retire? Have we lost another long time city employee to the politics at city hall? Is it true that this employee had recommended voluntary water rationing weeks before the actual start date but was ignored because some in the administration were too busy planning Chris Reed’s going away party and the city employee’s party? So who pays for the problem? You got it …the Taxpayer.

Low pressure or no pressure?

Are you experiencing low pressure or no pressure from the water system? I’m not talking about water breaks, (3 in Newport in the past 6 days) which have been taken care of very quickly; I would like to know if you are having low pressure problems. I have received several emails regarding this problem and I am interested to know if this is an isolated incident or not. Tell me what you are experiencing.

Dog Daze

Directed by the president of the League city dog park association, city council member and council liaison to the parks board, the parks board voted to send a request for funding of a city dog park to our council. Ignoring a parks survey done by the city to set priorities as well as ignoring a phone survey taken only a few days ago that stated that out of 4873 Phone calls made to residence of Leaguer city, 1751 we hang up, 83 were wrong numbers or fax machines and only 201 voted for the park while 2778 voted against the park, the parks board rubberstamped the request. The total amount is not known but I have a spread sheet that says the total cost of phase 1 and 2 will be 377,000 dollars.

It is a disappointment that Council member Baron, who is the president of the League city dog park association, city council member and council liaison to the parks board, has made this a political pet pork barrel project for the chosen few that we must all pay for. Ethically, he should not be involved in this project as he is the president of the dog park association and his organization will directly benefit from it. All that talk about ethics during the campaign and all the citizens get is another special interest project.

A Developer’s Point of View About Dog Parks

I recently received this email. Clearly, it was widely circulated. I have NOT included email addresses.

The email originated from a local developer and list of recipients was lengthy. It was sent to all city council members, some to personal/business addresses and other to their city email address. It was sent personally to Neil Baron, Jim Nelson, The Halliseys, Tommy Cones, and Marc Edelman. The email was also sent to numerous individuals at the Galveston Daily News and many others I will not list.

I have respect for most personal emails. However, it is clear this is not a personal email. The entire text (without signature) follows:
________________________

League City imposes a $1,000 per lot Parks Fee for every building lot created by Developers. Looking around the City you can imagine how much money has been received from this requirement. This “Fee” was created to promote and build public parks for “ALL” League City residents to enjoy. This imposed fee is in addition to the required park areas that developers need to create within their projects as well. This administration and the past election cycle has demonized developers. But the fact is that Developers have improved the life styles of all League City residents. League City residents have a right to know that Developer money (and a lot more than $200,000) is sitting in this dedicated fund waiting to be used for Park areas only.

What is wasteful of our tax dollars (and something every League City resident should be deeply concerned with) is that fact that this Dog Park has already been researched, discussed, voted on and passed. Back tracking on this issue when City council and staff should be focused on flooding, traffic and other serious issues facing this City is the real waste of money, time and energy. The losers here will not be the “dogs”, it will be the people of League City.

Embarrassing for League City, yes but also down right disgraceful.
____________
end of email


My favorite comment is “But the fact is that Developers have improved the life styles of all League City residents.”

What do you think?

Mandatory water Rationing.

Starting July 2,2009 all League City Residence and businesses are required to comply with a mandatory restriction on outside water usage. Read all the details at the League City website or The Galveston County Daily News.