Shoreacres City Council meeting 1-13-14

Monday’s meeting of the Shoreacres City Council had a few more attendees than the previous five or six. It wasn’t packed but most of the chairs were full. It was contentious and the atmosphere was charged but in the end, council voted exactly as expected.

6.0 Citizens Comments

Patrick Stanton – Patrick talked about Ordinance 2012-14 and presented his ideas for SMART goals that should have been developed to implement the ordinance. Click here to see his ideas.

Sarah Andrews – Sarah talked about a possible conflict of interest between the city attorney and the city administrator.

Paul Croas – Paul discussed the lack of proper procedure by the city in the hiring of Mike Massey as Interim Police Chief. He also made public several documents that he received pursuant to a Public Information Act request that showed the city administrator using a city email account to provide election information to the former mayor, as well as the city administrator monitoring Croas’ activities on Facebook, and an email from the city administrator to Croas’ employer about that Facebook activity. For more on this, go to the Cup of Joe in Shoreacres Facebook page. Click here to view his official grievance against City Administrator David Stall.

Darlene Bays – Darlene gave kudos to the Mayor for his note included in our water bills saying that he was now looking into the budget problems and wished he had done this during the budgeting process, she then talked about an incident in which there was damage to a city vehicle from a gun shot and that she has received conflicting information from the city and Harris County DA’s office on whether or not there was an open investigation into that. She also recommended that the city hire Troy Harrison as the permanent Police Chief.

7.0 Administrative Reports

City Administrator – David Stall reported that the transition to the La Porte Police Dispatch was very smooth. The transition to the Houston radio system is ongoing and the old radios will be used for public works. The Byway water line project is complete and the flow rates are  substantially up to homes as well as the extra fire hydrants. The water plant inspection was last week and everything is functional but the plant remains offline until a valve control is purchased and installed. He also talked about flood insurance rates.

Police Chief – Interim Chief Troy Harrison reported that there were no significant crimes in December – not one theft and not one burglary for the month. He was asked about the gun shot “injury” to the public works vehicle and stated that he investigated it, referred it to the Harris County District Attorney’s Office, no charges were pursued, and that he has closed the investigation. It should be noted here that in a response to a Public Information Act, the city informed Darlene Bay that the investigation was open and therefore the city would not provide information about the damaged vehicle.

Public Works – David Sutton reported on the increased flow rates from the Byway water line project. In response to a question from Alderman Schnell about repairs from the gun shot, Sutton replied that the city has used Crosby Paint and Body to repair several vehicles in the past.

8.0 Business

8.2 – City Attorney Dick Gregg told the council that there were no legal issues surrounding the hiring of Mike Massey. This was a very contentious issue, with several citizens, including myself, asking questions of Mr. Gregg. It would be impossible for me to capture the spirit of the discussion without writing a 10 page report, therefore I would suggest that you listen to the discussion and form your own opinion. I will say that I about fell out of my chair when Alderman Moses admonished the crowd to “come together” and that there were things he knew that we didn’t. I recall that it was less than a year ago that Moses was one of the “mob” and demanded the old council do what he wanted. If former Alderman Richard Adams hadn’t been there, I might have laughed; however, I doubt he would see the episode as humorous. Click here to listen to the discussion.

Click here to view the city’s response to my request for information on the hiring of the former interim police chief, who does not have an active peace officers license. It is absolutely incredulous that the city would hire anyone, but especially a police chief, with no background checks or reference checks whatsoever in his file. I have requested that the city go back and review their records to be certain that nothing was done to support the hiring of Mike Massey. The city paid him a total of $17,763.80 during his time on the job. For that we received one two page update, one boiler plate report, nothing at all in the way of hours worked, and two code violation letters sent to property owners.

8.3 – This agenda item was to approve an engineering firm to come up with a plan for redevelopment of the Miramar waterfront. Several citizens spoke against the resolution as is, preferring to start over versus using a 10 year old grant. The most impassioned of these was Gerry Victor – click here to view a copy of his speech. The council voted unanimously to contract with ARUP Texas to proceed as is.

8.4. – Council unanimously approved a new water line from water plant 1 to the intersection of Sunrise and Oakdale. Most of the money is from a grant but another $60k in deficit spending was added to the budget. Citizen Gerry Victor asked if the city would have the money to spend on it or would it come from the reserves. Stall deflected the question, saying that the city would have money because he has received a couple of large checks from the tax office. That doesn’t answer Victor’s question – the answer is obvious: without cuts in the budget, the money will come from the reserve fund. Which is okay for a much needed improvement like this but let’s be clear and transparent about how it is funded.

8.5 – Council unanimously approved designating the Houston Chronicle as the official newspaper. There are cheaper alternatives from local businesses but Stall claimed they weren’t viable because the city runs elections for a couple of entities and that requires the city to use the Chronicle.

So there’s your report. I’m happy to say that my yearlong commitment to attending these meetings is over and that I will be skipping a few here and there, especially during primary season. So maybe I won’t get as many evil stares from council members when I see them in the community!