Specifics on District Community Building - Ethics Policy - LPAA

At the 11/16/10 Board meeting, the architect of the District Building, Mr. Mosely, presented all the design plans. In a nutshell, the building will be about 7000 square feet with a parking lot of 100 spaces and 8 designated handicapped spaces.  The building will be multi-functional and ADA compliant (meaning it is built to accommodate people with disabilities) having two offices, two conference rooms (24'x16' for one and 18'x12' for the other) and a large 50'x50' space complete with a stage (22'x15') and dressing room (8'x16') with A/V booth. The large room can be divided into four separate meeting areas, each with its own ceiling fan, and hold up to 330 people comfortably if left without dividers. A/C has been designed to function in just the part of the building being used, in order to save energy.

In addition, a fully equipped kitchen (21'x21') will be built right off the main room. There will be work tables and a grill in addition to all the appliances. The outside of the building will be made of brick and steel, with a metal roof, along with acoustical tile ceiling.  President Smalls said that the proposed building will act as a command center in case of emergency and is built to withstand hurricane weather. She was less clear on the specifics of what the command center activties might entail, and who might benefit directly by such a use.

$1.3 million has been earmarked for the construction and maintenance of the building, which comes primarily from already issued bonds. The rest comes from a $500 fee paid by the developers for each water tap installed and a $2500 fee for each commercial acre developed. Perhaps the building will be ready for use sometime in 2011 - but definitely by 2012.


Mr. Mosely will be handling the bid process, and stated it would take another 6 weeks or so to get all the necessary permits from the state and county before publishing the request for bids.  Because of the poor quality of the soil on which the foundation will rest, it will require building up that area. In case you haven't seen the sign marking the spot, the construction site is near the curve of Fellows Road  right across from Tom Bass Park II - the golf course section.

At the 11/2/10 meeting, an ethics policy that I introduced was not well received. The other members of the Board requested that the District's attorney, Chris Richardson, create an alternative policy that would quote the relative ethics laws from the state of Texas and the District Board's intention to abide by them. The one that Chris prepared will be discussed and voted on at the 12/7/10 meeting. I will have more to say about this after the next meeting.


Also at the 12/7/10 meeting will be a discussion of a Limited Purpose Annexation Agreement (LPAA) with the city of Houston. Under such an agreement, we would get to vote for 'District D' City Council races and in all other City elections (mayoral, council members-at-large, ballot proposals, etc.) but would not be paying city taxes nor receiving city services (i.e. security through HPD, emergency responders like firefighters or EMTs, garbage pickup or the other kinds of services that the District already provides). We would have to abide by City ordinances as well. Why would we want such an LPAA?


Now that we have a few commercial enterprises in the District (recent Jack in the Box on Cullen, soon-to-come Exxon/Sonic, and existing PODs facility) we can get a 50% cut of the city sales tax by entering into an LPAA. That additional revenue stream is the up side - in addition to having voting power and representation in City Council meetings. The down side, depending on your viewpoint, would be having to abide by Houston ordinances (for example, no fireworks) and that full annexation would not be allowed for a period of 30 years.

Security Report For October 1-31, 2010

This is the first monthly report from Constable 7 May Walker since we contracted with her office to provide 3 deputies. It's hard to read, but if you'll click on each table you can then print it out and see the details of the report. The contracted deputies spent 99% of their time patrolling WCID89 (although the contract only requires them to stay within the District 70% of the time) and response times for dispatched calls were on average 3-5 minutes. Quite an improvement over the Sheriff's Department. Thanks again to the security liaisons in the Brunswick neighborhoods who made this happen!

I, for one, certainly appreciate Deputy Minneweather giving so many verbal warnings rather than writing citations for all those traffic violations. But folks, beware of your driving. We're being patrolled :--)

Ethics Policy & District Community Building on 11/16/10 Agenda

After several attempts to get the Board of Directors to consider a written Code of Ethics policy for WCID#89, a draft that I developed was discussed at the last meeting. President Smalls and Director Watson were not impressed with my efforts, and requested that the District's attorney create one instead. We will be discussing it at the next meeting 11/16/10 at 11:30AM.  Please note the address for this and all meetings is the new office location of the District's law firm,

Strawn & Richardson, P.C.

6750 West Loop South, Suite 250

Bellaire, Texas  77401-4111

This is in the Frost Bank building. Free parking is available.

Also on the agenda is a presentation by the architect on the District Community Building. President Smalls had stated that the bidding process was ready to move forward on construction of the building at the 10/19/10 meeting. I requested that the Board be presented with the design and be given more information about the purpose/use of the building before requests for bids were sent out. 

The original annexation agreement between 308 Furman, Ltd. and WCID#89, dated 4/9/2002 (I finally know how  the developer got that name - 308 acres near Furman Street. Cute, huh?) noted an estimate of $300,000 to be used on the "community center" which was to have parking capacity for 132 vehicles and might also include a basketball court, tennis court, and/or jogging trail. The $300,000 was to be provided by a $500 fee for each lot sold in the Brunswick neighborhoods, and $2500 for each acre sold out of commercial reserve acreage. 

There were apparently changes made to the original concept for the community center along the way. One of these changes included the funding for construction, because one of the bonds issued by WCID#89 over the past 8 years has an $800,000 earmark for the District building. We should know more about the other changes when the presentation is made at the next meeting.