As I'm sure most are aware by now, there are many separate but related issues swirling around the infamous Glen Cove bridge fiasco; wrongful removal of the bridge itself, threats to take away or impede private water front property rights, denial of access to property owned by Glen Cove residents, construction of onerous fences adjacent to Marina del Sol residences, and a few others of varying relative importance to various parties.
As has also been discussed ad nauseam here for the past few years, the focus of the Smith et. al. lawsuit versus League City (the currently active of the various complaints) has been the Seminole road bridge removal due to being the primary issue in common to the Smith plaintiffs and the issue in which the proof of the city's misdeeds has been most readily obtainable from public records.
Many of the other related issues revolve around the old HL&P canal properties that were donated to the city circa 2005. Public Information Requests (PIR's) have revealed the original intent of the city was to accept these 8 sections of property for use in proposed traffic relief projects and construction of public waterways for community enhancement. It has long been shown as a matter of public record that these properties were accepted by the city on behalf of the public in December of 2005, but that at some subsequent time sections 6, 7, and 8 of these 8 canal properties were somehow conveyed into private ownership, which resulted in the various complaints previously mentioned. (For reference, sections 6 & 7 are between Marina del Sol and Cypress Bay and section 8 passes through Glen Cove.)
All of these problems (other than the bridge issues) would have clearly been avoided had the city retained ownership, so the obvious question all along has been how did these publicly accepted properties end up in private ownership. More specifically, was the city responsible for this re-appropriation of what was supposed to be public property? If so, then the city would certainly be culpable in such problems as the Marina del Sol fence and Glen Cove water access issues.
Much effort has been exerted for several years to discover the truth behind this central question. The obvious suspicion was that the city certainly had to have been involved in this redirection of property, but the city has strenuously blocked access to the public records necessary to prove what really happened, including denial or incomplete response to many PIR's and legal questions.
Observant readers may recall publication this past August by the Seabreeze of an article alleging that emails proving the truth of the city's involvement in this property transfer had in fact surfaced in private circulation: http://seabreezenews.com/back%20issues/1108-August_2011/Page_01c.pdf
While it generated some sensation at the time, without the emails themselves becoming public or being released into the hands of persons able to make them public, the actual proof remained elusive. Of course now that it was known that the truth was out there, various interested parties redoubled their efforts drag the proof into the light of day. Since the proof allegedly consisted of emails involving the city attorney, the city has continued to raise legal roadblocks against releasing the evidence (or in the case of one of my PIR's for example, going so far as to simply fail to respond).
The resulting public sensation raised sufficient doubts regarding the propriety of the city's actions that a citizen ethics complaint against the city attorney's actions was ultimately filed, independent of the Smith et. al. or Marina del Sol plaintiffs. This complaint has not been made public and rumors are swirling that city officials have made efforts to block its public release. However, it has apparently been circulating by private channels and having recently received a copy of it, I have now published it here. Word on the street is that the current phase in the ethics process is for an outside attorney to investigate, but that allegedly the attorney chosen has ties to the city attorney who the complaint is against. Can anyone shed light on this rumor? If true, it would certainly erode public confidence in the ethics investigation process.
Also around the time of the Seabreeze article, enough of the truth leaked out to draw a bit of attention to an obscure item from the June 13, 2006 city council agenda, namely item 10A that stated; "Consider and take action on amending provisions of real property donation to the City of League City by Texas Genco. (City Attorney)" [June 12, 2006 council agenda.]
No details of what this might mean where in the publicly accessible records, so new PIR's were filed. (Note that any public documents associated with this agenda item should have already been provided in response to a number of of previous PIR's filed by a number of different citizens that directly or indirectly referenced this issue.)
Then came the great Halloween Surprise of 2011. Another routine PIR for the public documents related to this agenda obscure agenda item was finally answered responsively.
And there, after all this time, hidden in the plain sight of the council agenda supporting documents of this obscure action over five years ago was the smoking gun:
-The city was openly complicit in the conveyance of the public properties of HL&P cooling canal sections 6, 7, & 8 into private ownership rather than the previously accepted public ownership.
In support of item 10A were the following three attachments:
As was long suspected, but until now unproven by public records, not just the removal of the bridge, but everything else related to this affair that has befallen the residents Glen Cove and Marina del Sol became possible because of actions deliberately taken by the city government.
Actions that were neither legal nor completely truthful. Remember that as of December 2005, these were public properties. The city can not dispose of public property for private benefit in obscure manners such as happened, if it can even do so at all. At a minimum, there should have been a public process of abandonment of property, which obviously never occurred. And as can be seen in attachment 1 above, the city attorney did not even truthfully describe this transaction to city council at the time of their re-decision. It was stated that these properties were to be conveyed to an adjacent property owner (which is necessary for abandonment), yet canal section 8 that runs through Glen Cove was not in fact adjacent to any property owned by the acquiring party and the true adjacent property owners were never given any notice of these actions.
The truth really was out there all along.
