Should the City Move Election Day?

As far back as I can remember, elections have been held in May in League City. However, there is a recommendation by the League City Charter Review Committee to move the city election to the November ballot with other state and federal elections.

A recent state law, and language in the City Charter, would now allow the City Council to move election day by ordinance. This means that this years election could be moved to the November ballot if City Council approves a proposed ordinance during the month of January.

If approved, citizens of League City would be able to vote at any Galveston County election site. The efficiencies of combining our municipal election with federal, state and county elections could save tax payers thousands of dollars per election as well as increasing voter participation by making it much more convenient and easy for voters to participate. If approved, voters would no longer face the frustration of going from election site to election site trying to find their correct voting location.

There are some Council persons who don't support this measure and have publicly stated their apprehension about this proposed change. Councilmen Becker and O'Keeffe went on the record during yesterdays Council workshop with the Charter Review Committee saying that they were not certain they would be supporting this ordinance to change the municipal election from May to November.

Mr. Becker said that he was not certain that uninformed voters would be a benefit to the election process in League City. Mr. Becker said that he was of the opinion that the current approximately 2000 voters were informed on the issues, but if 18,000 voters were to participate, he was not certain they would be educated on the issues that surround an election. I am anxious to hear what your thoughts are on this issue.

MERRY CHRISTMAS !!

Merry Christmas to all !!

To track Santa click here !

Policy, Personal or Political ?

Good morning to all ! I saw this in the daily news today and would like to know what your thoughts are on this subject. In my opinion this is not about the police department. I think Officer Arena did what he thought he needed to do and followed the proper procedure to do it. I am talking about the people who are not personally involved but used the issue to pursue their “objective” . Do you think there is still a small but vocal group dictating what happens in our city ? If so who could they be, how could they be able to do this and why would they? Is this good for our city or is it back to square one with personal political payback?

Thanksgiving Blessings

Here is a little background from History.com on Thanksgiving. Living in the U.S.A. we have plenty to be thankful for. I am thankful for God, Counrty, family and friends.

Thanksgiving at the Mallios house will have about 18 or so family members and will include all the traditional items as well as a few that may not be. Family, football and food, thank you God for blessing our family, city,nation and the Houston Texans.

May you all have a safe and Happy Thanksgiving.

The Smoking Gun Hidden Was Hidden In Plain Sight All Along.

Interesting new developments as the Glen Cove bridge lawsuit grinds slowly towards trial.

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:

Attachment 1

Attachment 2

Attachment 3

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.

Traitors ? Really ?

I received an email that was voicing an opinion about the confederate emblem for the license plates. In this opinion the writer states “Why would the State of Texas honor people who were traitors to the United States of America?” Traitors ? Really ? Traitors ? But, I guess by the true definition of the word what the 13 colonies did was treasonous as well as Sam Houston and the fighters of the Alamo and San Jacinto. So we are all traitors? As you can tell I take exception to the term “Traitors” as so broadly applied to the confederate army. I believe that the Sons of the Confederate Veterans license plate honors those who fought for what they believed in. So why wouldn’t the state of Texas honor it’s war heroes? This is a matter of fact and History……. Of course in my opinion.

Fact is it will become an option because there are presently 18 states that have this option available. In most of those cases the courts appeared to have sided for the option to be available.

Thoughts ?

Liberal or Conservative Chopper or Hugger?

The oak tree on the corner of FM 518 and Louisiana Ave. (61 inches round and over 100 years old) is in the way of the widening of Louisiana Ave. (click here for facebook page) Council will decide what the fate of the Ghirardi oak will be at the council meeting on Tuesday. (Click here to see news article) So what are the options.
Option one: Moving the Compton oak to the Water Smart Park.

Cost: About $292,000 which would come from dedicated park fees.

Option two: Shift the Louisiana Avenue project west and create a pocket park around the Compton oak.

Cost: At least $267,000 and the money would come out of the city’s general fund reserves.

Option three: Cut the Compton oak down and replace it with new oaks according to the city’s tree preservation plan.

Cost: About $27,500 from the city’s general fund reserves.
So are you a liberal if you want to save the tree ? (spending tax payer money that could be used for other projects) or are you a conservative if you want to chop it down? (saving taxpayer money and selling off the wood to make up the amount spent to cut it? ) Is it possible to be both? (according to all the campaign material over the last few years it is not)
Our elected officials use the terms “Liberal” (tree hugger) and “conservative” (tree chopper) in city campaign materials so let us see what they consider the definition of the terms are.
Thoughts?

Changing the form of government again?

In a recommendation to the Charter revision committee, according to information I have received, our mayor has requested the committee to see “If the voters wanted to go back to a strong mayor or full-time mayor” Any thoughts ?

And so The Galveston County Daily News catches up with our city blog. Read this in today's paper.

New League City Drilling ordinance, is it enough to Protect Citizens against the haszards of Urban Drilling?

A new Drilling ordinance in League City was just passed. Council chose to approve a 600 foot minimum buffer for wells to habitable structures, instead of the widely used 1000 foot or more buffer. City of South Lake questions and answers web page about their drilling ordinance and application procedures No matter how you look at it, urban drilling of oil wells in residential communities is incompatible.

Some cities have decided that 500 feet was too close and raised their setback to a 1500 foot buffer between habitable structures and oil wells. Flower mound just raised their oil well setback to 1500 feet.Flower Mound Texas information on Oil Drilling. Why do you suppose League City wants to learn things the hard way?

League City government is not effectively using the tools available to it to maximize the protection to its citizens from invasive industrial uses next to and in residential areas. Therefore our Government and our representatives are failing us as a community. The problem starts with some of our leadership that does not stand up for the best interest of the residential (voting) sector of the population.

I cannot imagine why council would not want approve a more restrictive 1000 foot minimum distance for drilling a well next to homes, churches and schools. As Councilman Phalen said the distance for well drilling could have been adjusted downward when necessary. I certainly don’t understand the comment by a council person that said “A 1,000-foot setback would require a well be in the middle of an approximately 70-acre site — something Becker said would be hard to accomplish” It does not sound that hard to accomplish to me! We are talking about urban drilling here, it is not supposed to be made easy to do. Maybe someone can explain it to me? I would think that if someone is going to drill into the ground and extract minerals for a profit in an urban area, the surrounding property owners should be afforded some reasonable protections.

99% of the residences of League City have surface rights ownership only, with no mineral interests. Without mineral rights, surface owners have a limited ability to restrict drilling. The surface owner's have only have the ordinances of the city such as zoning and the drilling ordinance as the mechanisms to restrict drilling on or near their property. Last Tuesday’s vote fell short of giving the citizens a reasonable measure of protection from chemical and fire hazard, noise, vibration, and intrusion into their quiet enjoyment of their property. I suppose some people want to treat League City, an incorporated residential metro-plex, the same as undeveloped property near Odessa or the Barnett Shale.


Don't get me wrong, I am not against drilling oil wells. I just don't believe that we should allow the drilling of oil wells with the least restrictive conditions allowed under the law right in the middle of the largest city in Galveston County.

This Link is a publication with many good thoughts about best practices for urban drilling.
Best Practices for Oil Well Drilling in Texas


Below, is some interesting reading on the health effects of an oil well fire issued by the Department of Defense.

Oil Well Fires


Southlake Oil and Gas Drilling 411 video

Mr. Campbell's link

Mr. Morgan Campbell listed this link on the last thread. I guess he would like it to be a thread of it's own. It is an interesting story.

http://seabreezenews.com/issue/Page_01c.pdf