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Drought Contingency Plan & LPAA

Did you know that this year's drought is not the worst one in Texas history? Check this out. As a direct result of the drought from the 1950s, the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality (TCEQ) was created. TCEQ requires all water suppliers to have drought contingency plans in place. These plans are staged according to the current conditions. We are in stage one (voluntary compliance) while Houston is in stage two (mandatory compliance) of their plan. Across the state, 418 water providers have mandatory restrictions and 268 have voluntary restrictions currently activated.

I tell you all this because at the September 20th meeting the Board will be revising our contingency plan. The current plan was written in 2007 and needs to be updated to reflect the current state of the District. For example, none of the Brunswick neighborhoods are mentioned in the existing plan. In addition, it's quite possible that the Board will take a vote on moving to stage two of our plan - mandatory compliance. You may have seen some of the signs around the neighborhood. TCEQ requires that when a drought contingency plan has been activated. If you've seen these signs you've probably noticed that there are strips hiding other information. Those strips will be removed when we go to stage two of our plan.

If you want to voice a concern about the contingency plan, please be sure to get to the 9/20/11 meeting at 11:30AM when Public Comments are entertained. If you want to see what the Board is doing to the current contingency plan, be prepared to stay through the rest of the meeting. Meetings are held at the office of Strawn & Richardson in the Frost Bank Building. This is near the corner of Bellaire and the West Loop South. The actual address is:
6750 West Loop South, Suite 250
Bellaire TX 77401

The Board voted 3-2 last week to pursue a Limited Purpose Annexation Agreement (LPAA) with the city of Houston. Under such an agreement, we can get a 50% cut of the city sales tax. That additional revenue stream is the up side. 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. AK Babers, Arthur Washington and I all voted for the LPAA. Sharyn Smalls and Byron Watson voted against.

National Preparedness Month

Hello again. It's been a long time since I updated the blog. Sorry about that. I had surgery in June and have been recuperating over the summer. I didn't make any of the District Board meetings during my recovery, but will be returning tomorrow and will give you an update on what the Board did in my absence.

Wanted to take this opportunity to give you some information about National Preparedness Month (NPM).


NPM falls on the tenth anniversary of the 9/11 terrorist attacks, inspiring this year’s theme of “A Time to Remember, A Time to Prepare.” For Harris County residents, the past decade brings to mind Tropical Storm Allison and Hurricanes Rita and Ike, the most devastating hurricanes to hit the Texas coast since 1900. But, NPM also recalls the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina when Harris County sheltered 230,000 people driven from their homes in New Orleans.

NPM is sponsored by the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) which works with thousands of government, corporate and non-profit organizations to promote public emergency preparedness.
For disaster preparedness tips and more information on how you and your family can be prepared, please visit http://www.readyharris.org/ or http://www.ready.gov/ .

Hurricane Preparedness and the Latest on the District Building

Sharyn Smalls, the president of WCID89, has arranged for representatives from Harris County's Office of Emergency Management to come to Morningside Place and educate District residents about hurricane preparedness. She also has arranged a viewing of the huge generator that will keep the water ON in case we have a named storm come through our part of Texas this hurricane season. Please join us on Saturday, June 4th at 11AM at the water tank located at S. President's Drive and the feeder road of Beltway 8 to get ready for hurricane season .


Construction of the District Building was delayed because the County determined the drainage on Fellows Road was insufficient. Our engineer, Troy Bordelon, offered a solution. Something called a "STORMTROOPER" device that would allow the proper drainage and the County has accepted this as adequate. Now, bidding process should commence within a month and construction should start by September (assuming it's a tame hurricane season) and if all goes according to plan we'll have a nice new building for the new year.

Burn Ban in Effect Through July

Didn't make it to the first meeting of the month, but was able to make the 2nd one. There's not anything new to report other than a constiuent whose back yard fence abuts Scott Street is having some issues with the maintenance of the grassy area undermining his fence. I took his concern to the Board because I wasn't sure if the Water District, HOA, or Harris County was responsible. Our engineer is looking into the matter.

Harris County Commissioners Court has instituted a burn ban for all unincorporated areas of the County (yep, that's us!) for the next 90 days. That means no shooting of fireworks this 4th of July or you face heavy fines.

Meetings Will Remain Over the "Lunchtime" Hour

A couple from Morningside appeared at the District Meeting today to state their preference to keep the meeting schedule at 11:30AM. They said, as senior citizens, it would be difficult to drive to the attorney's office in the evening. Johanna Williams of Brunswick Lakes also attended and said she would like to have the meetings changed to the evening hours so that more people who couldn't take off work could be involved in having a say in how District business was conducted. Or at the very least be able to attend and watch the discussions and decisions being made by the Directors. Michelle Radcliffe, also of Brunswick Lakes, sent an e-mail message to me also supporting a change to the evening time, which I forwarded on to all the Board of Directors.

Director Smalls said that she did not want the meeting time to change and that the meeting time had been set over the lunch hour so that more people could attend. I moved that we change the meeting time to 6:30PM and AK Babers seconded my motion. It was then promptly voted down 2-3, with all the Morningside-resident Directors voting against. I suggested that we allow one meeting each month to be at lunch time and the other meeting to be in the evening. That also was voted down. Finally I suggested that we move the lunch time meeting to 1PM so that I could at least attend the entire meeting but Director Smalls said that would defeat the purpose of it being held at the lunch hour. I pointed out that we rarely had meetings that lasted just from 11:30-12:30 and she responded that "we used to have meetings that short all the time" implicating that the length of the meetings was due to the presence of AK and me on the Board. 


I was unsuccessful in getting any change at all to the meeting time, and although I may be late to many meetings, I will continue to attend. I can't speak for AK, but I gotta tell you...it's frustrating to serve on such a divided Board of Directors. And the divide is marked quite clearly by Beltway 8. The 3 who live on the south side of Beltway 8  vs. the 2 who live on the north side.

Brunswick Meadows currently has 896 occupied homes and 915 that are completely built (bought but not moved into yet) with 10 more homes under construction. In addition, the final sections of Brunswick Meadows are being developed for home construction - over 250 lots in all - for a potential of at least 1175 homeowners in Brunswick Meadows.

Brunswick Place has 268 occupied homes and 204 vacant lots where construction continues. Brunswick Lakes has 347 occupied homes and 18 vacant lots. No further home construction is planned in Brunswick Lakes. So, using the most conservative figures, the total number of homes within the District that are currently occupied on the north side of Beltway 8 is 1511.

Morningside I, which has 357 occupied homes, and Morningside II, which has 103 occupied homes, combined make up a whopping total of 460 homes within the District that are currently occupied on the south side of Beltway 8. Neither of the Morningside neighborhoods have any more development planned.

So, do you think it's fair that less than one-fourth of the population of the District has the majority voting power on the Board? I am so pleased that 4 people from the north side of the Beltway have talked of running for Director positions in the 2012 election. If even 1 of them should win a seat on the Board, the democratic concept of majority rule will be restored. In the meantime, AK and I will continue to be the vocal minority  and no matter how much the other Board members try to squelch our voices, we will continue to speak!

Want to Change the Board Meeting Time?

Because of my new job, I must attend Commissioners Court meetings. These often are the same day as our Board meetings. Commissioners Court meetings start at 10AM and usually are over by noon, but by the time I got out to the Bellaire location, I'd be over an hour late for the WCID #89 meetings. So, I requested that we consider changing our meeting time and it will be considered at the next meeting on March 15th.

If you would like to have meetings in the evenings, when it would be much easier for you to attend and have your voice heard -- or would just like to come and watch your elected officials in action -- PLEASE come to the next meeting at 11:30AM on March 15th. I've asked for this issue to be the first thing on the agenda following public comments so you can just make a quick appearance, state your preference, and depart.

The address where the WCID #89 Board holds 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.