If there was ever any doubt that Kyle city government is comfortably in bed with developers that doubt was put to rest at Tuesday’s City Council meeting during a discussion concerning amending a development agreement.
Moments before the item was discussed, assistant city manager James Earp provided the council what he admitted was an incomplete development agreement that hadn’t undergone legal review and told the council, in effect, the developer really wants us to show we support him on this so let’s show that we do by supporting this agreement.
Council member Daphne Tenorio told Earp and her fellow council members to hold their horses here, this document was just dumped in our laps seconds before, even Earp admitted more changes to it were likely and we really should take some time to review it. Then Mayor Todd Webster came very, very close to doing exactly the right thing, but fumbled at the goal line.
The subject under discussion was amending the Crosswinds Development Agreement.
The city had negotiated an agreement with previous owners of the development. But since that time the development had been sold and the new owners were seeking changes to that original agreement. Those desired changes were the subject of Tuesday night’s discussion.
Earp unapologetically told the council the new owners "have reviewed the development agreement and requested some changes. I’m going to summarize those for you. I provided each of you at your seat a copy of the most recent draft although there’s already been a few changes to that. I will tell you the draft is about 95 to 99 percent complete. We’ve pretty much have reached terms on all the items and all the issues we’re talking you through tonight, but legal still has to do legal review of the contract.
"But we wanted to make sure council could stand behind the negotiation points before we put the final touches on the agreement and give the developer the assurance that his agreement will be approved with the conditions that they have asked for." Earp actually said that. I’m not making it up. And he continued:
"At the very least, you all could take action to approve these points and then we would need to come back at the next council meeting with the actual agreement that has been vetted by legal and has all the finalized language to the satisfaction of the developer."
But Tenorio objected.
"I have just been given this and I haven’t had a chance to read it and you want me to approve it?" Tenorio quizzed Earp. "That’s what you’re asking?"
Earp’s response was unbelievable, at least to me.
"That’s not what I am asking," he replied. "That’s what the developer is asking." That’s City of Kyle talk for whatever the developer wants, we should give it to him on a silver platter.
Mayor pro tem David Wilson, one of the leaders of the pro-developer contingent in Kyle, said why should the council even bother itself with changes to the agreement anyway. The city already approved an agreement with the previous owners. Council doesn’t need to understand or even be aware of these changes. It should just blindly plunge forward and approve these amendments as well.
These developers, Wilson said "are getting their mind around what they want to do and move forward. I for one can move ahead with the approval of the development agreement at this particular point. A lot of expense has gone into the development at this point so I’m not interested in delaying that."
But even Webster had to admit Tenorio had a reasonable concern. Not only should council members have adequate time to review a document before approving it, he suggested, it should be a document that is complete and has passed legal muster.
"I think the proper way to do this would be to move to direct staff to basically produce an agreement according to these terms and then bring it back," Webster said. "If we direct staff to do that, then we are not formally approving it until legal review does the same thing. …I don’t know how you can ask us to approve a development agreement that really isn’t finalized and hasn’t had legal review. So come back at the next meeting with a development agreement according to the terms with legal review. If council member Tenorio or anyone else has any concerns they have time to express them. This gives us the opportunity to walk down the middle here and give everyone what they need."
But then he blew it by asking "Is the developer OK with that?"
Of course, it could have been worse. Without Tenorio acting as the people’s watchdog on this, I’m betting this agreement would have been approved Tuesday night without anyone on the council taking the time to review it.
I don’t know if anyone out there remembers the television show The Man From U.N.C.L.E., a marvelous tongue-in-cheek approach to the Cold War spy genre. One of the episodes of that program was called "My Baby Wants Cinemascope Technicolor, My Baby Gets Cinemascope Technicolor." Substitute the word "Developer" for "My Baby" in that title, and you have the Kyle city motto.
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