Big Jolly Politics

politics in Harris County and Texas

Shoreacres shenanigans

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City of Shoreacres graphic

First it was former Mayor Dolly Aorns putting out a letter that skewed the facts of Shoreacres’ financial situation. Now it is current Mayor (and soon to be former) Matt Webber doing the same. Sometimes you just have to shake your head and wonder what universe people are living in because it isn’t reality.

If you were one of the “lucky” ones to receive Webber’s letter, you already know what I’m talking about. If not, then click here to read a desperate attempt to bankrupt the city. Don’t ask me for the reason why they want to bankrupt the city, I’ve been trying to tell people how to stop it.

I could pick this thing apart in a hundred ways but why? Voters either know the truth by now or they don’t. Fact: the person that wrote this letter, Mayor Matt Webber, proposed a budget that would have spent all but $15,000 of our $954,000 in liquid reserves this year. That is a FACT, as you can read for yourself if you care to. No spin, no hyperbole, no rhetoric. FACT.

In the letter, he includes a table that he says the city paid for which justifies the current salary of the City Administrator. Problem is that the table was never presented to the public or to council in an open meeting. Plus Webber asserts that this study was commissioned by former Mayor Arons before she resigned but given to someone in the city in June 2013. I guess that the “someone” would have been Webber himself because Arons resigned from council on May 28, 2013. Read about it. Oh, and about that salary? Council under Arons approved it in December, 2012, so why the so-called study in June 2013?

Webber gets quotes from former Mayor Jayo Washington, former Mayor Dolly Arons, and former Alderman Richard Adams. I find it interesting that each of those people voted for deficit budgets. I think Jayo is a good guy but he hasn’t been to a council meeting in a couple of years. I also find it interesting that in her letter trying to scare voters into voting for the status quo, Arons said that the current City Administrator was responsible for $7 million in grants from various agencies but in this one, she upped the figure to $9 million. I’m guessing that if the election wasn’t being held Saturday, we might be up to $20 million soon!

As far as I can tell, David Stall isn’t on the ballot Saturday. We are electing a new mayor and council. There are stark differences between the two mayoral candidates. There are stark differences between one candidate for council, Paul Croas, and the other three. I urge any citizen to contact each candidate and find out what they stand for and why. For what it is worth, only one of the four candidates I interviewed even brought up David Stall and that was Richard Adams. Richard told me that he wanted to investigate the allegations that Stall was “doing bad things” and that he wanted to review the policy of buying new vehicles every two years. In this letter, he credits Stall for the two year policy. You know, because every other city and law enforcement agency in Harris County is stupid to keep their cars so long.

And when you ask them about the budget, think about the fact (FACT) that Mayor Webber and David Stall proposed spending all of Shoreacres reserves this year. And they did this knowing full well that we would be insolvent if we did so. That isn’t rhetoric, that is fact (FACT). Listen to David Stall in HIS OWN WORDS:

If you look at the big picture and you put both of the funds together, you can see that the combined growth of the budgets is 3.9% and you can see that the contribution from the reserve fund is $846,000. As we look forward, that is not a sustainable number even if we come in under budget. We have in reserve just slightly more than $1.7 million, so if we were to spend all of the money in this budget, which we historically have not done, but if we were, and if our revenues were to come in at or below, we would only have one more year that we could have this kind of deficits and fund it from the reserves.

That is a transcription of what he said in the audio link above. The $1.7 million he mentioned includes four CD’s and checking account balances. In reality, we have less than a million in liquid reserves, which would have been liquidated this year if his and Webber’s budget would have been adopted. Fortunately, council cut that in half. Unfortunately, council cut that in half and refused to fix the problem. The only member of council that tried to fix the problem this year was Alderman Nancy Schnell. FACT.

Look folks, all I can do is give you information. I can’t tell you how to vote. I can only hope that you do your due diligence and vote on merit and not on popularity.

Learn about the candidates here:

2014 Municipal Election: Shoreacres Mayor, Ron Hoskins

2014 Municipal Election: Shoreacres Alderman, Paul Croas

2014 Municipal Election: Shoreacres Alderman, Neil Moyer

2014 Municipal Election: Shoreacres Alderman, Richard Adams

2014 Municipal Election: Shoreacres Alderman, Richard Adams

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As they say, all politics is local. Unfortunately, voters and media rarely pay attention to local elections for a variety of reasons. This year, I asked each candidate running for election in Shoreacres if they would like to participate in an “interview” so that citizens would know more about who is running. Four of the six took advantage of the opportunity. Richard Adams is running for the position of Alderman.

Background

richard adams
Richard Adams

Richard was born in Huntsville, AL where his father worked in the space program. When NASA opened up in Webster, the family moved to Dickinson. Richard graduated from Dickinson High School and then from Sam Houston State with a B.F.A. in Advertising and a Minor in Music. His passion is music and he sings and play the guitar at his church, Clear Lake Presbyterian, as well as a couple of other area churches. He and his wife Gaylen were married in 2005, moved to Shoreacres in 2006, and are expecting their first grandchild this year.

Professional Life

After graduating from Sam Houston State, Richard went to work at NASA for two years, where he set up museum displays from various NASA projects around the world. After that, he briefly worked at an advertising agency in the Galleria area of Houston. For the past 33 years, he has worked at the University of Houston-Clear Lake and is currently the Director of Operations.

Political Experience

Richard has been involved in many aspects of the political arena through his volunteer work on various boards and committees, including his homeowner’s association board. He ran successfully for Alderman in Shoreacres in 2007, 2009, and 2011, serving as Mayor Pro-Tem in his last term. He was unsuccessful in his bid for a fourth term in 2013. He was responsible for securing a grant and participation from LyondellBasell for Global Care Day in freshening up Circle Park and the City Hall Gazebo.

Issues

Richard is a “people” person and as such is disappointed in the way council meetings are run. He told me that he would like council to respect the citizens that show up at meetings and that citizens should respect the council. The meetings get chaotic at times, with a lot of crosstalk and he would like them to be run more professionally.

He said that he keeps hearing that the city is going bankrupt and he’d like to find out more about that by digging into the budget and going to the budget workshop meetings this year to find out what is going on and how to save money. He wants to do long-term planning, i.e., 1, 2, 5, 10 year plans, something that was started in his last term of office but has not moved forward under the new council.

His top priority is EMS, Fire, Dispatch, and Police, to have the best response and protection that we can. He would also like to study the current policy of replacing vehicles every two years.

One of the things that he wants to return to is having representatives from the city attend the various emergency planning meetings around the area. Having a presence at these meetings reminds people that the city of Shoreacres exists and helps in obtaining outside help when we need it.

Richard wants to increase the visibility of the community to potential home buyers by reaching out to real estate professionals touting the “country” like atmosphere, fishing, birding, boating, and other nature activities. He would create a marketing package to do this, as well as updating the city’s website. He thinks that an updated website can be a major tool in luring people to take a look at the city and if they do, they will be sold on it.

As for the current financial problems, Richard thinks that we are “coming back” and that property tax revenues will increase with new building and appraisal increases, and he will approach the budget with an optimistic mind and try to save money where he can. He wants to learn from the past and seek better solutions in the future. I would urge all Shoreacres voters to contact Richard directly to discuss his candidacy.

Contact Information

Email: [email protected]

Election Information

Early Voting starts Monday, 4/28 and ends Tuesday, 5/6 at City Hall. Complete information on the city website by clicking here.

 

Shoreacres City Council report for 7-8-13

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AKA “watching newly elected council members break their campaign promises”. Once again, I know that most of you don’t care about the politics of my little city. And I promise that if I decide to keep doing this, I’ll create a separate website or something. But for now, just skip this or read it to get a glimpse of small town politics.

Resident Gerry Victor objected to the minutes from the May 28th meeting because he didn’t think they reflected his comments accurately. I listened to the recording this morning and then read the minutes he is referring to and they seemed accurate enough to me. Heck, I was happy just to see the minutes – of the last seven meetings, that is the only one with minutes available.  After his objection to those minutes, he talked about the reserve fund and urged the council not to use it but to save it for a rainy day. He’s a good watchdog over this account and that is very valuable. As he finished his remarks, he gave instructions to the city secretary about how his remarks should be characterized in the minutes. Kinda funny.

Resident Mike Wheeler wants to add culverts to Circle Park. He said that after the recent road improvements, the ditches are too deep to drive a vehicle through, noting that the only parking now is in front of the restrooms and tennis court. I suspect he’ll get his way, see below.

Resident Darlene Bay wants to add a dollar or two fee to our monthly water bills for park improvements. A resident on South Country Club stood up and said forget that, the ditches haven’t been mowed, let’s focus on priorities. Obviously I objected to any additional fees during my remarks to council. What is it with people thinking that “oh, it’s only a dollar or two a month, skip a soda and you’ll never miss the money”? It’s my money and I’ll darn sure miss it! If you want to form a group to donate time and money to improve the park, have at it and I’ll donate more than a dollar. Or two.

And then it was my turn. The wife and I went on vacation to Arkansas a couple of weeks ago. Although we do have an alarm system, the city provides a “vacation watch” service – call the police chief, tell him the dates you will be out, and the police will make an extra effort to watch your house. Heck, they even pull up in the driveway and walk around the perimeter just to make sure. Try that in your big city! So my comments were to thank them for the effort – it really does add to your peace of mind.

After citizen comments, we heard from the city administrator, police chief, and public works director. That last one is new and is there as a result of council demanding to hear from the employee rather than have an overview from the city administrator about the activities in public works. Talk about a yawner. I’m guessing that council will eventually decide that details about ditch mowing, water line repair, and overall maintenance aren’t really worth an extra 15-20 minutes of each meeting. The overview from the city administrator suffices nicely.

And then the fun started. While I was on vacation, I missed the last meeting of council (hey, it is only the second one I’ve missed this year!). At that meeting, council decided to appoint Alderman Matt Webber as Mayor. Not sure why as I wasn’t there. Anyway, it opened up a slot for an appointment to his old slot. I noticed the itinerary item but didn’t think much about it before hand. Apparently I was the only one that didn’t think about it.

New Mayor Webber hasn’t gotten the hang of controlling meetings, so it was a bit chaotic. The one thing that ticked me off was that he clearly stated that after council nominations, nominees would get to speak to council/citizens, take questions from them, and after each nominee was finished, he would then take comments from the citizens. Except he didn’t because new council member Nancy Schnell, who ran on a platform of listening to the citizens, decided she’d heard enough and “called the question”, cutting off any further comments from citizens. So I and others that had waited to speak were shut out. So much for campaign promises. I suppose that “listening to the voters” means “listening if I’m not in a hurry to leave” or “listening if I agree with you” or “listening if I haven’t made up my mind”. Whatever. I sent her a text message asking why she changed but haven’t received a reply.

The first nomination came from Alderman Rick Moses, who nominated Paul Croas, a relative newcomer to the community. The second came from Alderman Steve Jones, who told us that he had heard from many citizens and they wanted experience and someone that had run in the recent election. So his nominee was Richard Adams, a long time citizen and previous alderman. The third nominee came from Alderman Bo Bunker, who said that he too had heard from citizens and that he was nominating Mike Wheeler (see above).

Paul Croas addresses the Shoreacres City Council and citizens.
Paul Croas addresses the Shoreacres City Council and citizens.

Although new to the community, Croas lived next door in La Porte, so he knows the community, he is obviously well qualified, and he would add a professional voice to the council. He reviewed his work history, both from his time in the Army and with the Harris County Sheriff’s Department. Several people spoke on his behalf, talking about him being a good neighbor since moving in, etc. And his wife also spoke for him, always a good sign. 😉 Maybe I’ll help him when he runs for Mayor next year.

Adams gave a brief bio, highlighting his community work. Then a whole bunch of folks stood up and vouched for him – easily the majority of the room. They pointed to his experience on council and the lack of experience of the new council, saying that it would benefit the city greatly to have a voice with experience on the council.

Then the weird started. Gerry Victor (see above) complained that it looked like a setup to him and that it was “obvious” that “people” had come prepared for this and that Adams had coordinated with people to get them to testify. If Adams had done this, I wasn’t aware of it and if Schell hadn’t cut off citizen comments, I would have added my voice to his supporters. The irony was that the guy he was supporting, Croas, was the only one prepared with a written speech about why he should be appointed.  This went on for a bit until Webber finally got control back.

Finally, Wheeler was allowed to speak.  He talked about his involvement with his neighbors and stressed the small town community feel that he wanted.

One resident asked the same question for all three men: how do you feel about big government intruding in our lives? Fortunately, each man wants to limit government interference, so that was a relief.

After Wheeler’s turn at the plate, Schnell made her move and cut off citizen comments. Council went round and round for a while, Moses sticking with Croas, Jones sticking with Adams, and Schnell joining Bunker in voting for Wheeler. After several rounds of this, Moses finally said “Aye” to Wheeler and thus your new alderman is Mike Wheeler.

I’ll take you back to the June 10th meeting in which Moses made this comment:

Moses gave another emotional speech claiming that 98% of the room was in favor of naming the building after French, then said that he was there to listen to the people and the people that show up at council meetings are the citizens that need to be listened to.

Like Schnell, I guess Moses means he’ll listen to the people that agree with him. The majority of citizens in the room, those that took the time to attend, were clearly in favor of adding Adams back to the council. My respect for Adams moved up a notch – there was no possible way that this council was going to name him but he stuck his neck out and stood up anyway. Kudos.

As I said earlier, so much for campaign promises. I see it time and time again – people run for office claiming to be “for the people” but when the rubber meets the road, they go their own way.

After that fiasco, I left. The next agenda item was naming a new Mayor Pro-Tem and that was a foregone conclusion – council gave that spot to Moses.

So there you have it. Like I said, I’m not sure if I’ll continue to write about our little city or not but if I do, I’ll probably set up a separate site so that people from across Texas don’t have to skip over these reports. As long as these guys don’t raise my taxes, or add a fee to the water bill, it’ll be fine. Politics is politics, be it small town or big state – don’t put your faith in a politician.

Shoreacres Mayor to new council – take this job and shove it

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Heh, she didn’t say it quite that way but at the end of last night’s Shoreacres City Council Meeting, in front of another standing room only crowd, Mayor Dolly Arons resigned from office. As I noted here, voters in Shoreacres overwhelmingly chose to go a new direction by ousting two incumbents and selecting three new council members. Here is her statement of resignation:

Mayor Dolly Arons
Mayor Dolly Arons

The results of the election indicated to me that the people of Shoreacres want to head in a different direction and you have a new council with new goals. And I understand that my presence here is interpreted to be a hindrance to the achievement of those goals. So I am hereby resigning the position of Mayor. Matt will never talk to me again, I know that, but I will be here for you. I do believe that Matt can help reunite the city and take us in the direction that the residents have indicated that they want to go. I ask that you put aside all your personal agendas and personal vendettas and reunite the city. Thank you very much.

I thought that the Mayor’s remarks were gracious and that she made the correct decision to resign. Small town politics can be very rough and tumble, dividing neighbor against neighbor, and I do think that a complete reset of the governance of the city can help restore the unity that somehow left us in the past couple of years. As with the outgoing council members, the Mayor has much to be proud of during her three years in that office, including the bulk of rebuilding after Hurricane Ike. I wish all politicians were as civic minded as Mayor Arons, in this case giving up her post after determining that it would be the best thing for the city. Well done, Mayor.

The “Matt” that she mentioned in her remarks is Matt Webber, who was elected Mayor-Pro-Tem shortly before she resigned. I do think that he has the ability to step in and unite the city in the interim before a new mayor is chosen. Texas Local Government Code 22 allows for the council to appoint a mayor or to schedule a special election. It will be interesting to see which route they chose. On the one hand, appointing a mayor can be done quickly and without cost. But a special election would allow the citizens to choose their mayor directly and that is always a good thing.

One item of interest that was brought up during the citizen comment period has to do with the financial condition of the city. Former Alderman Gerry Victor claimed that the city has spent roughly 32{997ab4c1e65fa660c64e6dfea23d436a73c89d6254ad3ae72f887cf583448986} of the city’s reserve fund (rainy day fund) over the past year and a half. I haven’t been able to confirm that and have reached out to Mr. Victor for clarification and hope to have something on that in the future. If true, this must be corrected immediately. We spent less than that amount out of the fund in the immediate aftermath of Hurricane Ike and there will be other emergencies in the future.

Here is a photo of the outgoing council members after receiving awards for their service to the city:

Connie Ramirez, Dana Woodruff, Richard Adams
Connie Ramirez, Dana Woodruff, Richard Adams

 

Here is a photo of the incoming council members:

Bo Bunker, Nancy Schnell, Rick Moses
Bo Bunker, Nancy Schnell, Rick Moses

 

Shoreacres voters take new direction, ousting incumbent council members

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I rarely write about my little home city of Shoreacres because I live here and people get mighty upset when I say something they don’t agree with. But Saturday’s election is an example of what happens when incumbent politicians either do not listen to the citizens or are perceived as not listening to the citizens.

The way elections work in our city is that all seats are “at-large” and the top vote-getters for however many seats are on the ballot win. In Saturday’s elections, there were three seats on the ballot and nine candidates. Two of the candidates were long-time incumbents, Richard Adams and Dana Woodruff. The third incumbent, Connie Ramirez, chose not to seek re-election.

In the largest voter turnout since I moved here in 2001, the incumbents were blown out. The new council members are Rick Moses, Nancy Schnell, and Bo Bunker. Their election spells trouble for the Mayor, Dolly Arons, and long-time city administrator David Stall.

Financially, Shoreacres is doing “okay”, although there are many improvements that need to be made. We do not have a commercial base, so the financial burden for city services falls almost entirely on the property owners. As such, our tax rate is the highest in the area, by far. For example, we pay about 19{997ab4c1e65fa660c64e6dfea23d436a73c89d6254ad3ae72f887cf583448986} more in property taxes than our neighbors in La Porte, about 27{997ab4c1e65fa660c64e6dfea23d436a73c89d6254ad3ae72f887cf583448986} more than our Seabrook neighbors, and about 43{997ab4c1e65fa660c64e6dfea23d436a73c89d6254ad3ae72f887cf583448986} more than our neighbors in Pasadena. And services other cities take for granted do not exist (animal control) or are, in the case of our emergency medical response, third-rate. But we have traded that for the general peace and quiet of living in  a small town, neighbors helping neighbors, etc.

The issues were more of what I term “soft” issues. Typically, when citizens get angry and oust incumbents, there will be some controversy or another that people can focus on but in this case, it was more about the perceived “arrogance” of Mr. Stall and the lack of control that the outgoing council had on the management of the city. Stock answers to citizen complaints and inaction on even small requests are the norm and I guess the citizens just had enough of it. If you pay for the benefits of living in a small town, you want what you pay for.

So now we have a new council and I suspect there will be attempts made to replace Mr. Stall. At the very least, the new council will have him on a very short leash. The total council consists of the mayor and five aldermen. One of the two remaining aldermen, Matt Webber, has already shown signs of frustration with the way the city has been run and I suspect that he will side with the three newcomers. I hope that the new council elects Mr. Webber as the Mayor Pro-tem because he now has experience under his belt and has been the only council member that I’ve seen that comes prepared to meetings with notes and questions. So he gets my support for that job.  But best of luck to whomever they choose.

As for the new officeholders, candidates in big city elections could learn a lot about hard work from one of them, Nancy Schnell. Nancy earned my vote and my wife’s vote by working her tail off. She was the ONLY one of the nine candidates to actually ask us to vote for her. She worked tirelessly, visiting every single house in the city and asking for their vote. I know she did this because she showed me her map, where she had highlighted every house and had marks where the people had allowed her to put signs out. She was also at every council meeting but one this year, challenging council to listen to the citizens, to no avail. In addition, she put signs up all around the city on Friday night, signs that read simply “Vote Today”. Kudos to her for her hard work and helping to increase the turnout.

Although they lost the election, I think it is important to recognize Richard and Dana for the countless hours of volunteer work that they have put in for the citizens of Shoreacres over the years. They have much to be proud of, regardless of the perceptions or complaints from voters this year; they were at the helm and helped the city through the disaster of Hurricane Ike and the recovery efforts since then. Our property values are stabilized and even increasing now, we have new homes being built again, and our neighborhood is no longer a “buyers” market. So from this citizen to Richard and Dana, thank you.

And to Bo Bunker, Rick Moses, and Nancy Schnell, congratulations. Your work is just now beginning. And I’ll be watching you and expect that you will fulfill your campaign promises. Good luck!