Big Jolly Politics

politics in Harris County and Texas

Shoreacres, Texas First Annual Youth Saltwater Tournament

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The Shoreacres, Texas First Annual Youth Saltwater Tournament will be held this Saturday.

Shoreacres Fishing Tournament Poster

They have some great prizes, including a Shimano Curado Baitcaster reel for the high school division. There will be lots of other prizes, including other reels, gift cards, cash, and trophies. There will also be a concession stand to purchase brisket, pizza, drinks, etc.

The tournament check in starts at 7:00 am Saturday and weigh-in begins at 2:00 pm Saturday.

They are taking registrations through today. If you know of anyone that might want to participate, please share this with them. To register, call Kim Sanford at 512-351-5324.

This will be a great event to show off the City of Shoreacres waterfront and community spirit. If you are an elected official for our area or represent one, you should call and donate something!

 

Shoreacres City Council Meeting 5-11-15

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There was a decent turnout for last night’s council meeting. A couple of proclamations started the meeting off.

3.0 Special Presentations

3.1 Recognition of National Police Week:

Mayor Rick Moses and Police Chief Troy Harrison recognize National Police Week.
Mayor Rick Moses and Police Chief Troy Harrison recognize National Police Week.

3.2 Recognition of Motorcycle Safety Awareness Month:

Mayor Rick Moses recognizing Motorcycle Safety Awareness Month.
Mayor Rick Moses recognizing Motorcycle Safety Awareness Month.

After that, the meeting descended into the abyss of sleazy, bottom feeding politics of personal destruction. I’m not going to say much about it except that some people in the city, particularly current and former leaders, are unhappy with the results of the election and chose to strike out at one of the winners with a very personal attack.

I was very disappointed with the way Mayor Rick Moses allowed a citizen to disrespect a duly elected current Alderman in a public, official City Council meeting. The citizen had copies of information that she wanted Council to have. She passed out copies to the Mayor and four of the five Alderman. As she approached the fifth Alderman, Nancy Schnell, she dismissed her with a backhanded wave, telling Alderman Schnell she didn’t need copies. Mayor Moses should have stepped in immediately and stopped that nonsense and required the citizen to give a copy of the material to Alderman Schnell or instructed each of the Aldermen to give their copies back to the citizen and move on. Instead, he did nothing and let the citizen proceed. Very sad to see that happen and the Mayor should apologize to Alderman Schell and to every citizen that attended the meeting.

There will be a new council seated on May 26th. Hopefully the politics of personal destruction will die the quick death it needs to but after 20 years of observing and reporting on politics, I doubt that is going to happen. Some people just seem to like crawling in the gutter. For the rest of us, let’s move forward and make the city the best city on the Gulf Coast.

(Note: cross posted to www.ShoreacresTX.US)

 

Shoreacres budget workshop 8-6-2014

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City of Shoreacres graphic

It’s been a bit since I’ve written about my little city on the bay but I have been paying attention to what is going on. I wanted to let the new council settle in before I started commenting about them. They’ve been in office about three months now so I think it is time to get back to business.

The council held a budget workshop last night and it was a refreshing change from last year. New Mayor Rick Moses wasted no time in letting council know that he was not giving them a pie in the sky budget to start cutting. Rather, he told council that he tried to make the hard choices himself and now it was their job to review it and make whatever changes they deemed necessary. Even though he presented a deficit budget, it was a far cry from the last mayor’s million dollar deficit.

The big picture numbers are:

[table id=34 /]

Although the proposed budget deficit of $446538.06 is far below last year’s starting point, I think there needs to be more cuts made. Whether or not council wants to cut more remains to be seen. One of the reasons that I attended the workshop was to get a feel for the body language of the members to see if any of them are interested in forcing more cuts. I didn’t get the impression that this council was prepared to do that but that’s just an impression. Perhaps as they study the proposed budget over the next week some of them will find ways to lower that deficit.

Personally, I think that the revenue estimate from property taxes is too conservative. Most of you know about the large, across the board increases by HCAD this year. The city’s revenue forecast is for an increase of 5.2{997ab4c1e65fa660c64e6dfea23d436a73c89d6254ad3ae72f887cf583448986}. I haven’t looked at all of the property in the city, perhaps they are correct but on my street alone the value increases are in the 10{997ab4c1e65fa660c64e6dfea23d436a73c89d6254ad3ae72f887cf583448986} cap range. As far as I can tell, I was the only one to protest my values, so those are going to be locked in. Add in new building and homes that have finally come back online after the hurricane and I think there is a real possibility of moving the city’s number up by $25-30k, which might not seem like much but is another 3{997ab4c1e65fa660c64e6dfea23d436a73c89d6254ad3ae72f887cf583448986} or so.

While the workshop was going on, Harris County Tax Assessor Collector Mike Sullivan stopped by and offered to answer any questions about the appraisal process and the certified tax roll. Now that is customer service.

The next budget workshop is scheduled for Tuesday, August 12th at 6:00 pm.

Click here to download or view the details of the proposed budget.

 

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

Shoreacres Budget Facts

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City of Shoreacres graphic

It is election season in Shoreacres and I think it is important for voters to know the facts, which is why I offered to interview each of the candidates running. Four of the six candidates participated and I appreciate them taking the time to sit and talk about the issues in Shoreacres.

The biggest concern that my wife and I have for this election is the looming crisis for the city’s budget. And it most certainly is a crisis. I wrote extensively about it during the last budget season and would urge every voter in Shoreacres to go back and read these articles so that you will be informed about the issue and able to question candidates about it:

We are in trouble, there is no other way to describe our current financial situation. At the current rate of deficit spending, our liquid reserves will be gone in a little over two years, and cashing in the city’s four CD’s after that would give us another six months. Those are facts, not spin, not rhetoric. Facts.

You may have received a flyer in the mail paid for by two candidates running together, Richard Adams and Neil Moyer. The flyer was written by former Mayor Dolly Arons. The intent of the flyer seems to be to paint a rosy picture of the city’s finances. If that is the intent, it simply isn’t true. The city’s finances are a mess and anyone that doesn’t acknowledge that is not acknowledging reality.

Ms. Arons states in the flyer that “Some people are perpetuating rumors that the city is insolvent.” I suppose that depends on the definition of insolvent, so let’s see what that definition is.

1
a (1) : unable to pay debts as they fall due in the usual course of business (2) : having liabilities in excess of a reasonable market value of assets held
b : insufficient to pay all debts <an insolvent estate>
c : not up to a normal standard or complement : impoverished
2
: relating to or for the relief of insolvents

I’ll leave it to you to decide if she is correct. She freely admits that the city has limited revenues and that we will be unable to repair our aging water and sewer infrastructure without grant money from outside the city. Is that being able to pay our debts? Do we want to be known as a city constantly begging other taxing entities to bail us out? The Detroit of small Texas cities?

Take a look at the city’s current financial situation as detailed in the information packet for the council meeting held this past Monday. Although the format makes it difficult to find the information, it is there. Even with employees quitting and not being replaced, we are still going to have to use roughly $415,000 from the liquid reserves to pay our bills through September. And then we will have to float the city’s finances with the reserve fund until the next round of property tax payments are disbursed.

We are in a dire situation folks. Don’t let the rhetoric of a campaign fool you. Contact each candidate running and ask them tough questions and don’t let them get away with platitudes or pretending that there isn’t a problem. Then use facts to make your decision and vote for the candidates that you are comfortable with.

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.