1. Daphne done did good
Faithful readers might have noticed that I have been somewhat critical of many of the actions, words, votes from council member Daphne Tenorio, but Tuesday night she deftly and quite successfully shepherded the unanimous passage of an ordinance prohibiting Lehman High School students from parking in any of the streets in the subdivision on the side of Bunton Creek Drive opposite the school.
And in doing so she guided the city toward bringing some necessary relief of a problem the school district has dismally failed to address.
Tenorio accomplished this by altering her modus operandi in a significant, yet politically strategic manner. Instead of making this a personal crusade, something "I believe has to be done," she made it all about "they." She positioned herself simply as "the messenger" bringing forth to the council what the residents of that subdivision told her they wanted done. And she had the proof in her pocket.
Tenorio apparently organized a series of neighborhood gatherings, prompted discussions and ultimately votes in which those attending decided in a democratic fashion (1) on which streets they wanted parking limited and (2) on which side of those streets they wanted the restrictions enforced. And when Mayor Travis Mitchell wondered about a resident that may have too many cars in his household to fit in the driveway, Tenorio was able to tell him the residents thought about this, considered it and said they wanted all parking restricted during school hours anyway. So there.
But Tenorio was also wise enough to label these restrictions a "temporary fix," because they address the manifestation of a problem, but not the problem itself. The responsibility for a permanent solution lies with the school.
During debate on the topic we heard all kinds of "guesses" about why students don’t park on the school’s parking lot and many of those "guesses" made a lot of sense. They ranged from it’s quicker to get to after- school jobs if the jammed parking lot could be avoided to students didn’t want to pay or couldn’t afford the yearly fee to park on the student lot to the cars don’t meet the requirements the school has established for parking on the lot. All well and good. But why "guess"? Why doesn’t the school learn precisely why the student’s don’t park on the lot? Why doesn’t the school sit down with those student motorists who prefer to park offsite and ask them specifically to explain why they do so? And then why doesn’t the school empower the students themselves to come up with solutions? OK, it’s been way longer than a half a century since I was a high school student, but I’m willing to bet in all that time between then and now one thing has remained the same: these young adults don’t much care for older adults telling them how to live their lives. And give these students some credit: If we’ve learned one thing from the work performed on a regular basis by the Kyle Area Youth Advisory Committee, it’s that these students can identify and solve problems that directly affect them. Establish a study group comprised of the student body president, other student officers and, primarily, representatives of those students who have been parking off-campus, give them a deadline, and have them offer a series of solutions by that deadline. This method will also go a long way toward getting student buy-in of whatever solutions are developed.
2. Better than wishing on a star
Earlier this month, I referenced the city partnering with the Make-A-Wish foundation in an fund-raising campaign the goal of which was to build a roller hockey rink in Gregg-Clarke Park. City Manager Scott Sellers addressed the project in greater detail during Tuesday’s council meeting and much of what he said he can found here.
"This story is very touching," Sellers said Tuesday night. "My son is friends with Ash Crain and I’ve gotten to know Ash — he’s a fantastic young man. This wish would mean the world to him."
Sellers said the city’s current budget contained funds for a covered pavilion in the park, but decided to "re-purpose" those funds upon learning of Ash’s wish. Sellers cautioned, however, the cost of the hockey rink was "a little higher than we had in the budget — quite a bit higher," the total cost being in the neighborhood of $385,000. Sellers said that figure might change slightly between now and construction "but that’s a pretty good estimate."
Now for the great news:
"Up to this point with the city’s contribution and private donations we are, in just two weeks, down to less than $40,000 to raise for this wish," Sellers said, drawing some clearly audible "wows" from the audience.
I had also written earlier about Majestic Realty Company having a foundation which places grants within the communities it serves and mentioned the fact that this campaign drive might be "just the type of a project a corporate partner like the Majestic Realty Foundation would likely be a part of." So, following Tuesday’s meeting, I approached the city manager and asked that since the council had just earlier in the evening given the green light to Majestic Realty’s major economic development project, might he approach the company’s foundation and solicit a foundation. Sellers looked at me, smiled and said: "They have already made a contribution."
If anyone reading this wants to do the same, you can do so right here.
The Kyle Report
Thursday, June 21, 2018
Wednesday, June 20, 2018
A seismic geographical shift
Back in the mid-1980s, when I took a break from being on the reporting side of the news business and surrendered to what some of my colleagues referred to as "the dark side" (i.e., developing communication strategies for individuals, corporations, etc., during times of crises), one of my main clients was the Frito-Lay Corporation. The company, in one form or another, had its world headquarters in Dallas when it relocated there from Kansas City in the 1930s. At this time it was located in what was known as the Stemmons Business Corridor just west of the city-owned airport, Love Field.
I was shocked, therefore, when the company decided in the mid-‘80s to relocate to a completely isolated area of Collin County, in the northern reaches of what was then Plano’s ETJ, about halfway between McKinney on the east and Lewisville on the west, towns 25 miles from each other. If you go to Frito-Lay’s headquarters today, it’s difficult to imagine it was once "a completely isolated area." Known as the Legacy Park complex, it is now well within the city limits of Plano and is the location of the world headquarters of such companies as JC Penney, Dr Pepper/Snapple, Fed-Ex, PepsiCo, JP Morgan Chase, Pizza Hut, Toyota North America, Liberty Mutual Insurance Ericsson, Rent-A-Center and Boeing Global Services, in addition to Frito-Lay.
Basically the intersection of Legacy Drive and the extended Dallas North Tollway is the center of business activity in Plano, Texas, and that intersection is located about 20 miles northwest of downtown Plano, which has become little more than an intriguing curiosity piece. (The only thing that gives downtown Plano any relevance is a DART rail station located there, around which has sprung up a mixed-use development with commercial on the ground floor and residential on floors two through five. These residences are occupied by those who, for the most park, work to the south in Richardson’s Telecom Corridor or closer to downtown Dallas.)
I was thinking about that last night — along with the fates of other suburban downtown areas — during the City Council meeting when I saw steps being taken to radically shift Kyle’s commercial/residential hub. I don’t see Kohlers Crossing becoming another Legacy Drive, nor do I see FM1626 becoming another Dallas North Tollway, but I do see Kyle’s center of gravity shifting to the intersection of those two roadways. I see Kohlers Crossing — between Jack C. Hays Trail and I-35 becoming Kyle’s commercial center and the areas that will provide the housing for the workers that will soon be coming to this area will be of two types: Multi-family along two streets, Cromwell (which will be by the end of this year if it isn’t already the most densely populated residential street in Kyle) which flanks 1626 on the west and Kyle Crossing, a perfect place for more vertical mixed-use residential developments , which, of course, is located on 1626's east flank. The single family residential areas providing homes with the easiest access to this commercial hub will be located, for the most part, in what is now Kyle’s ETJ along and just off of Windy Hill Road.
I came to this realization after the council unanimously approved without debate but with much enthusiasm an economic development agreement with Majestic Realty Company to construct a business park consisting of two buildings totaling a half-million square feet on the southwest corner of Kohlers and Kyle Crossing. (The unanimous support was pleasing to see, but what was unexpected was the report the council received which said Majestic expects to be able to begin leasing spaces in these buildings by the end of this year).
The second was a much longer presentation from City Manager Scott Sellers concerning a development agreement for a 244-acre, 1,025-lot master-planned single-family residential community called the Trails at Windy Hill, located near the intersection of Windy Hill and Mathias Lane, just to the southeast of the Shadow Creek MUD. The development will be somewhat unusual in that it will consist of a number of different lot widths mixed together.
"Most often development will come forward with what I call a pod or an area of the same lot widths," Sellers said. "They’ll offer different models within those pods but typically you’ll have a section of 40s, 50s, 60s, 70s, 80s — those are widths of lot frontages. In this case, we negotiated something a little different, a little creative."
Basically, this development sheds the pod concept and, instead, will contain , according to Sellers, "a mixture on each street on different product types on different lot widths," with 10 percent of the lots being 60-foot widths, 51 percent as 50-foot widths and the remaining 39 percent as 40-foot widths, with each home being at least 1,200 square feet. ‘Streets are being reduced to 50 feet of right-of-way with 28 feet of pavement curb-to-curb which does trigger parking on one side only," Sellers said.
Because the development is currently located in Kyle’s ETJ, maintenance of the roads will be the responsibility of Hays County until Kyle annexes the area. The developer, Sellers said, is paying for a dedicated right-turn lane from Windy Hill to Mathias. Sellers said he expects most of the Trails at Windy Hill residents attempting to drive to Austin will go north on Windy Hill to 2001 and not take Windy Hill back to I-35. However, residents working at the Kohlers Crossing commercial hub will most likely use that latter route. Regardless, Sellers said, Hays County is working with the Texas Department of Transportation "to improve" Windy Hill Road.
Sellers noted that the Windy Hill bridge, located between Purple Mountain Avenue and Indian Paintbrush, was one of the hardest hit areas of Kyle during the Halloween floods of two years go. "As you recall, the road deck was lifted up off of that bridge structure and washed away," rendering Windy Hill Road impassible. The city and the county collectively made temporary fixes to the road to make it operational again, all the while realizing a more permanent fix was needed to make sure, in Sellers’ words, "we wouldn’t suffer the same fate we did in two prior events." The city manager said after working with FEMA for 18 months to secure funding for the permanent bridge repair/replacement, the federal agency told the city the project did not qualify for funds. The estimated cost for repair on that stretch of Windy Hill, Sellers said, is $3.8 million, with the Texas General Land Office being willing to pay for only $1.8 million of it.
"That left the city staff scratching our heads wondering where we were going to find another $2 million to finish the improvements to Windy Hill," Sellers said, adding time was a factor since the GLO’s offer of $1.8 million was only on the table for two years.
"Working with the developer on this agreement, they have pledged to cover that gap for the city," Sellers announced last night. The developer will make this happen by being incorporated into the Shadow Creek MUD which has its own wastewater package plant. (The city doesn’t offer water or wastewater services to this area as of yet.)
The question, of course, is what appeal does this area have to potential homeowners to the extent that developers are willing to negotiate such a deal to establish homes in this area. One answer, of course, is availability, but there are plenty of other unoccupied areas in and around Kyle, especially to the south. But none that offer as direct an access to what is about to become Kyle’s commercial hub.
But there’s more to it than that because the same question can be asked of that hub. And the answer to that is simply that cities grow, they expand, northward. Look at the Dallas-Fort Worth area where all the major commercial growth took place to the north in places like Richardson, Garland, Plano, Frisco, Allen, etc. Here in the Austin area, the growth of communities like Round Rock, Cedar Park, Leander, Pflugerville et al have been far more pronounced than in Buda, Kyle, Dripping Springs. Why? Quite simply it’s because water flows to the south (the cowboys said it best: "Never drink downstream from the herd").
So all of this points to Kyle’s geographical center of gravity moving north from its current location near the intersection of Center and Front Street. I have been told by more than one source that federal officials now predict Kyle will top 100,000 in population within a quarter of a century, by the year 2040, to be exact. That’s two and a half times the current population. Expect the city to undergo that same type of transformation as was experienced by the communities of Collin County, and especially that area along Legacy Drive, during a less than 25-year period beginning in the mid-1980s. City government appears to already have outgrown the current City Hall and city leaders have already talked about developing a new government center located on Kohlers at or near the 1626 intersection.
What was it Bob Dylan wrote some 50 years ago? Oh yeah:
Come gather 'round people
Wherever you roam
And admit that the waters
Around you have grown
And accept it that soon
You'll be drenched to the bone.
If your time to you
Is worth savin'
Then you better start swimmin'
Or you'll sink like a stone
For the times they are a-changin'.
I was shocked, therefore, when the company decided in the mid-‘80s to relocate to a completely isolated area of Collin County, in the northern reaches of what was then Plano’s ETJ, about halfway between McKinney on the east and Lewisville on the west, towns 25 miles from each other. If you go to Frito-Lay’s headquarters today, it’s difficult to imagine it was once "a completely isolated area." Known as the Legacy Park complex, it is now well within the city limits of Plano and is the location of the world headquarters of such companies as JC Penney, Dr Pepper/Snapple, Fed-Ex, PepsiCo, JP Morgan Chase, Pizza Hut, Toyota North America, Liberty Mutual Insurance Ericsson, Rent-A-Center and Boeing Global Services, in addition to Frito-Lay.
Basically the intersection of Legacy Drive and the extended Dallas North Tollway is the center of business activity in Plano, Texas, and that intersection is located about 20 miles northwest of downtown Plano, which has become little more than an intriguing curiosity piece. (The only thing that gives downtown Plano any relevance is a DART rail station located there, around which has sprung up a mixed-use development with commercial on the ground floor and residential on floors two through five. These residences are occupied by those who, for the most park, work to the south in Richardson’s Telecom Corridor or closer to downtown Dallas.)
I was thinking about that last night — along with the fates of other suburban downtown areas — during the City Council meeting when I saw steps being taken to radically shift Kyle’s commercial/residential hub. I don’t see Kohlers Crossing becoming another Legacy Drive, nor do I see FM1626 becoming another Dallas North Tollway, but I do see Kyle’s center of gravity shifting to the intersection of those two roadways. I see Kohlers Crossing — between Jack C. Hays Trail and I-35 becoming Kyle’s commercial center and the areas that will provide the housing for the workers that will soon be coming to this area will be of two types: Multi-family along two streets, Cromwell (which will be by the end of this year if it isn’t already the most densely populated residential street in Kyle) which flanks 1626 on the west and Kyle Crossing, a perfect place for more vertical mixed-use residential developments , which, of course, is located on 1626's east flank. The single family residential areas providing homes with the easiest access to this commercial hub will be located, for the most part, in what is now Kyle’s ETJ along and just off of Windy Hill Road.
I came to this realization after the council unanimously approved without debate but with much enthusiasm an economic development agreement with Majestic Realty Company to construct a business park consisting of two buildings totaling a half-million square feet on the southwest corner of Kohlers and Kyle Crossing. (The unanimous support was pleasing to see, but what was unexpected was the report the council received which said Majestic expects to be able to begin leasing spaces in these buildings by the end of this year).
The second was a much longer presentation from City Manager Scott Sellers concerning a development agreement for a 244-acre, 1,025-lot master-planned single-family residential community called the Trails at Windy Hill, located near the intersection of Windy Hill and Mathias Lane, just to the southeast of the Shadow Creek MUD. The development will be somewhat unusual in that it will consist of a number of different lot widths mixed together.
"Most often development will come forward with what I call a pod or an area of the same lot widths," Sellers said. "They’ll offer different models within those pods but typically you’ll have a section of 40s, 50s, 60s, 70s, 80s — those are widths of lot frontages. In this case, we negotiated something a little different, a little creative."
Basically, this development sheds the pod concept and, instead, will contain , according to Sellers, "a mixture on each street on different product types on different lot widths," with 10 percent of the lots being 60-foot widths, 51 percent as 50-foot widths and the remaining 39 percent as 40-foot widths, with each home being at least 1,200 square feet. ‘Streets are being reduced to 50 feet of right-of-way with 28 feet of pavement curb-to-curb which does trigger parking on one side only," Sellers said.
Because the development is currently located in Kyle’s ETJ, maintenance of the roads will be the responsibility of Hays County until Kyle annexes the area. The developer, Sellers said, is paying for a dedicated right-turn lane from Windy Hill to Mathias. Sellers said he expects most of the Trails at Windy Hill residents attempting to drive to Austin will go north on Windy Hill to 2001 and not take Windy Hill back to I-35. However, residents working at the Kohlers Crossing commercial hub will most likely use that latter route. Regardless, Sellers said, Hays County is working with the Texas Department of Transportation "to improve" Windy Hill Road.
Sellers noted that the Windy Hill bridge, located between Purple Mountain Avenue and Indian Paintbrush, was one of the hardest hit areas of Kyle during the Halloween floods of two years go. "As you recall, the road deck was lifted up off of that bridge structure and washed away," rendering Windy Hill Road impassible. The city and the county collectively made temporary fixes to the road to make it operational again, all the while realizing a more permanent fix was needed to make sure, in Sellers’ words, "we wouldn’t suffer the same fate we did in two prior events." The city manager said after working with FEMA for 18 months to secure funding for the permanent bridge repair/replacement, the federal agency told the city the project did not qualify for funds. The estimated cost for repair on that stretch of Windy Hill, Sellers said, is $3.8 million, with the Texas General Land Office being willing to pay for only $1.8 million of it.
"That left the city staff scratching our heads wondering where we were going to find another $2 million to finish the improvements to Windy Hill," Sellers said, adding time was a factor since the GLO’s offer of $1.8 million was only on the table for two years.
"Working with the developer on this agreement, they have pledged to cover that gap for the city," Sellers announced last night. The developer will make this happen by being incorporated into the Shadow Creek MUD which has its own wastewater package plant. (The city doesn’t offer water or wastewater services to this area as of yet.)
The question, of course, is what appeal does this area have to potential homeowners to the extent that developers are willing to negotiate such a deal to establish homes in this area. One answer, of course, is availability, but there are plenty of other unoccupied areas in and around Kyle, especially to the south. But none that offer as direct an access to what is about to become Kyle’s commercial hub.
But there’s more to it than that because the same question can be asked of that hub. And the answer to that is simply that cities grow, they expand, northward. Look at the Dallas-Fort Worth area where all the major commercial growth took place to the north in places like Richardson, Garland, Plano, Frisco, Allen, etc. Here in the Austin area, the growth of communities like Round Rock, Cedar Park, Leander, Pflugerville et al have been far more pronounced than in Buda, Kyle, Dripping Springs. Why? Quite simply it’s because water flows to the south (the cowboys said it best: "Never drink downstream from the herd").
So all of this points to Kyle’s geographical center of gravity moving north from its current location near the intersection of Center and Front Street. I have been told by more than one source that federal officials now predict Kyle will top 100,000 in population within a quarter of a century, by the year 2040, to be exact. That’s two and a half times the current population. Expect the city to undergo that same type of transformation as was experienced by the communities of Collin County, and especially that area along Legacy Drive, during a less than 25-year period beginning in the mid-1980s. City government appears to already have outgrown the current City Hall and city leaders have already talked about developing a new government center located on Kohlers at or near the 1626 intersection.
What was it Bob Dylan wrote some 50 years ago? Oh yeah:
Come gather 'round people
Wherever you roam
And admit that the waters
Around you have grown
And accept it that soon
You'll be drenched to the bone.
If your time to you
Is worth savin'
Then you better start swimmin'
Or you'll sink like a stone
For the times they are a-changin'.
Tuesday, June 19, 2018
Short course: Tax Abatements 101
In response to an article I wrote about an economic development project that should be approved by the City Council without much disagreement tonight, a David C. Crowell wrote on Facebook: "How much more will the actual taxpayers be on the hook for because of this tax break for an absentee landlord?"
Semi-legitimate question that deserves a wider response than one simply posted on Facebook (although, obviously, this reply will appear there as well).
The short answer is zero. Nothing. Nada. Zilch. But the question deserves a more detailed response than that so let me see if I can provide that detail while, at the same time, reducing this down to its simplest terms.
Let’s say you are the owner of an undeveloped piece of land and your current property tax bill on that land is $10,000. But now you’ve decided to develop that land into some kind of commercial/industrial usage and you know you are going to need basic city services on that property like water lines, wastewater lines, probably even effluent water lines and other utilities and the new infrastructure required on the property is going to cost a hefty bundle. So you go to the city to discuss it and the city hits you with the fact that it isn’t going to pay for it. "That’s going to be up to you," the city tells you. "But you can recoup your investment with the lease payments you receive from whatever tenants lease the facilities you are providing. And since this is a triple freeport area you should have no trouble attracting tenants willing to pay premium rates.
"But, we actually really want this development to happen," the city tells you, "so we’re willing to make you a deal." And the deal they offer you is a five-year, TIF-based (TIF being the acronym for tax increment financing) property tax abatement nearly identical to the one on tonight’s council agenda. Here’s how it works:
Because of the development you place on this project, the value of that land appreciates to an extent that your property tax bill the following year is $25,000, a $15,000 increase on the year before. The city’s offer is that if you pay that $25,000 tax bill on time, it will give you the $15,000 difference back, as long as all the buildings you placed on the property are vacant. However, if, say, 30 percent of those buildings have been leased, that $15,000 will be reduced by that 30 percent, so your rebate will be $10,500. In each of the five years of this deal, that percentage of the rebate drops another 20 percent (yet all the while the city will continue to receive at least the $10,000 in property taxes it would have had the property never been developed). So in Year two of the agreement, if the property tax bill would normally have ballooned to $40,000 and now you have 80 percent of the buildings leased, you would receive a rebate of $4,800 (80 percent of the $40,000 minus the original $10,000 and then 20 percent of that total).
You are being repaid for the remainder of your original infrastructure investment from the lease payments you are getting as a result of your development being so attractive to potential lease holders due to the triple freeport exemption. It’s important to note here that you, as the owner and the developer of the land, are not entitled to this exemption. That is a tax exemption based not on land value, but on inventory value. So it is only of use to those who would want to lease one of the facilities on your property. For example, I have a company that manufactures smart phones. I import all the parts needed to manufacture the phone, assemble them and then ship the phones to the companies that will eventually sell them to the public. Triple freeport exemption means the (1) county, (2), the school district and (3) the city exempts me from having to pay property tax on those parts as long as they leave my facility inside a smart phone within 175 days from the day I receive them. I think you can see why someone like a smart-phone manufacturer or really any kind of a distribution center would seek out locations with this triple-freeport exemptions. And that's what makes your development so appealing to potential occupants and increases the likelihood it will be a success.
But I don’t want anyone to just take my word on how this process works so I ran this whole thing by Assistant City Manager James Earp, the guru the city selects to negotiate and draft economic development agreements. He was kind enough to take some time out of what I believe is a vacation cruise he’s taking in the Gulf of Mexico to read all the above and then tell me "the way you describe it seems sound."
So there’s that.
Semi-legitimate question that deserves a wider response than one simply posted on Facebook (although, obviously, this reply will appear there as well).
The short answer is zero. Nothing. Nada. Zilch. But the question deserves a more detailed response than that so let me see if I can provide that detail while, at the same time, reducing this down to its simplest terms.
Let’s say you are the owner of an undeveloped piece of land and your current property tax bill on that land is $10,000. But now you’ve decided to develop that land into some kind of commercial/industrial usage and you know you are going to need basic city services on that property like water lines, wastewater lines, probably even effluent water lines and other utilities and the new infrastructure required on the property is going to cost a hefty bundle. So you go to the city to discuss it and the city hits you with the fact that it isn’t going to pay for it. "That’s going to be up to you," the city tells you. "But you can recoup your investment with the lease payments you receive from whatever tenants lease the facilities you are providing. And since this is a triple freeport area you should have no trouble attracting tenants willing to pay premium rates.
"But, we actually really want this development to happen," the city tells you, "so we’re willing to make you a deal." And the deal they offer you is a five-year, TIF-based (TIF being the acronym for tax increment financing) property tax abatement nearly identical to the one on tonight’s council agenda. Here’s how it works:
Because of the development you place on this project, the value of that land appreciates to an extent that your property tax bill the following year is $25,000, a $15,000 increase on the year before. The city’s offer is that if you pay that $25,000 tax bill on time, it will give you the $15,000 difference back, as long as all the buildings you placed on the property are vacant. However, if, say, 30 percent of those buildings have been leased, that $15,000 will be reduced by that 30 percent, so your rebate will be $10,500. In each of the five years of this deal, that percentage of the rebate drops another 20 percent (yet all the while the city will continue to receive at least the $10,000 in property taxes it would have had the property never been developed). So in Year two of the agreement, if the property tax bill would normally have ballooned to $40,000 and now you have 80 percent of the buildings leased, you would receive a rebate of $4,800 (80 percent of the $40,000 minus the original $10,000 and then 20 percent of that total).
You are being repaid for the remainder of your original infrastructure investment from the lease payments you are getting as a result of your development being so attractive to potential lease holders due to the triple freeport exemption. It’s important to note here that you, as the owner and the developer of the land, are not entitled to this exemption. That is a tax exemption based not on land value, but on inventory value. So it is only of use to those who would want to lease one of the facilities on your property. For example, I have a company that manufactures smart phones. I import all the parts needed to manufacture the phone, assemble them and then ship the phones to the companies that will eventually sell them to the public. Triple freeport exemption means the (1) county, (2), the school district and (3) the city exempts me from having to pay property tax on those parts as long as they leave my facility inside a smart phone within 175 days from the day I receive them. I think you can see why someone like a smart-phone manufacturer or really any kind of a distribution center would seek out locations with this triple-freeport exemptions. And that's what makes your development so appealing to potential occupants and increases the likelihood it will be a success.
But I don’t want anyone to just take my word on how this process works so I ran this whole thing by Assistant City Manager James Earp, the guru the city selects to negotiate and draft economic development agreements. He was kind enough to take some time out of what I believe is a vacation cruise he’s taking in the Gulf of Mexico to read all the above and then tell me "the way you describe it seems sound."
So there’s that.
Saturday, June 16, 2018
Boom like that
 |
| Majestic Realty's Lewisville development |
The mushroom cloud might not be visible to the naked eye, but it’s there, rising in the sky near the southwest corner of Kyle Crossing and Kohler Crossing. If all goes according to plan, that will become the site of a half-million square feet of primarily logistics-based office/industrial/warehouse space — arguably the most significant economic development project the city has witnessed in at least the last half decade.
The City Council will consider and, if its members are thinking clearly and with the best interests of the city firmly implanted in their minds, will approve a set of economic incentives to allow the project to move forward. The city is nowhere close to giving away the store on this deal. Quite the opposite, in fact; this is an excellent deal from the city’s point of view. As I interpret this, the city will be giving the developer a limited property tax abatement for five years, beginning from the time "the developer completes and receives a certificate of occupancy for the project," which, of course, will be after the two-building project is built on the campus. The abatement decreases by 20 percent in each of the five years and only applies to the unleased portion of the project. "By way of example," the agreement states, "if in year one the developer leases 50 percent of the rentable square footage of the buildings on the property, then the incentive payment will be reduced by 50 percent."
These kind tax abatements makes sense because the city doesn’t really loose any money on the deal. No matter what, the city is going to continue to receive the property tax on that land based on its current valuation whether or not it is developed. The rebates come from increased valuations caused by the development. And, in this case, within five years, or even less if the project is fully leased before that, the city will collecting property taxes on land with a significantly higher valuation without having to rebate a single cent.
This is also wonderful news for homeowners who will now have a major business development sharing the city’s overall property tax burden.
"I could not be happier to bring this latest project before the council for a vote," Mayor Travis Mitchell said today. "Jobs are coming to Kyle."
The other piece of good news in all of this is the identity of the developer, Majestic Realty Company, a privately-held outfit that’s been successfully doing business longer than the overwhelming majority of Kyle residents have even been alive. Majestic Realty was founded by Edward P. Roski in 1948 and to give you some idea of its stability, its current chairman is the founder’s son, Edward P. Roski Jr.
"Like my father, I have always believed in the importance of investing in, and being active members of, every community in which Majestic is located," according to a letter signed by the current president and chairman of the board on the company’s website. "This core philosophy remains an integral value, impacting how we do business. Our business model of maintaining ownership of all our properties creates a vested interest for us that each one is a long term success and it also requires that we help build sustainable communities. Likewise we build long term relationships with our tenants and financial partners, helping our tenants address their real estate needs as their businesses expand across the nation. Beyond building environmentally friendly projects which create jobs close to our population centers and generating revenue for their cities, our Majestic Realty Foundation works closely with local organizations to help improve the quality of life for the at risk and underserved." (I’ll get back to that Foundation below.)
Majestic is currently involved in development projects in 10 states, but considering only its Texas projects will give you some idea of the company’s breadth and scope. It’s largest Texas project is a 215-acre master planned business park that is designed, upon completion, to total more than 3.2 million square feet of Class A warehouse and distribution facilities in seven buildings along State Highway 121 in Lewisville, just five miles from the DFW International Airport. As will be the case in Kyle, the tenants in this project will be able to take advantage of triple freeport exemptions. It’s second largest deal is a 320-acre master planned business park on I-35W just south of Fort Worth that includes 1,344,000 square feet of industrial space. It is also developing a project called Port Grande, a 1,952-acre master planned logistics park situated along the U.S.-Mexico border adjacent to IH 35 in Laredo. From what I can tell, the Kyle project will be the fourth largest of the six developments Majestic has in Texas.
"Our agreement with Majestic Realty is another step in Kyle’s quest to be an employer-friendly city," Mayor Mitchell said. "We started a few years back by targeting the light industrial industry — in earnest. To accomplish this, the city worked with the school district to become a triple-freeport tax exempt community. Since the district’s vote last year, we have gone from zero to nearly one million square feet of speculative industrial space. It’s a phenomenal exclamation point recognizing the validity of our efforts to become a triple-freeport tax exempt community. I could not be happier to bring this latest project before the council for a vote. And I remain grateful to Hays CISD for their trust in our team. Jobs are coming to Kyle."
This development could have more benefits than the ones that immediately draw your attention, i.e., two logistic centers totaling 500,000 square feet. In 2002, the company launched that aforementioned Majestic Realty Foundation, which, the company brags, has "placed grants totaling more than $10 million in hundreds of programs, organizations and communities throughout the country." The company is also a member of the U.S., Green Building Council and recipient’s of the EPA’s Environmental Justice Achievement Award. "Majestic Realty Co. has built a strong foundation and evolving expertise in green building and environmentally responsible design and service delivery," according to a corporate statement. "We are committed to a fully-integrated approach with not only the capability to build green, but implementation of a corporate philosophy which encourages sustainable practices."
The council will also decide whether to formally post notices of public hearings on the proposed annexation of four areas of land totaling nearly 260 acres, but that land growth of the city, designed primarily to ensure that the redesigned Highway 150 continues to be within the city’s limits, pales in comparison to the economic growth inherent in the Majestic project.
Also on the agenda, is the formal presentation of something I discussed following the last council meeting — the joint fundraising effort with the Make-a-Wish Foundation to pay for the construction of a roller hockey rink in Gregg-Clarke Park, just the type of a project a corporate partner like the Majestic Realty Foundation would likely be a part of.
Wednesday, June 13, 2018
Sales tax surplus takes a hit, but don’t worry
First the bad news: June’s sales tax collections were below forecasts. Not by much, mind you — under 2 percent — but still below. Now the good news: For the fiscal year so far, the city is in the black and, barring an economic collapse bordering on the catastrophic, appears to be heading for a year-ending surplus, unlike last year’s somewhat embarrassing showing.
The city collected $611,511.36 in sales taxes this month, a figure that is $10,665.64 or 1.71 percent below what the fiscal year budget anticipated, but $42,640.39 or 7.5 percent more than was collected during this same month last year. Those last two numbers are important because they provide a convincing argument that the city is not heading into any sort of cataclysmic economic event that would result in the city ending the year with a budget gap caused by problematic sales tax projections.
To date, the city has collected $162,739.35 more than projected in the current fiscal year budget. You can do the math yourself and if you do you can see for what the average monthly deficit would have to be in the final three months of this accounting period for the city to end with a deficit. And when you consider this was only the second month this fiscal year that collections fell below projections, you can easily see why I am optimistic the city will end this fiscal year in the black. Not only that, the only other time collections failed to meet forecasts — in February (a notoriously under-performing month in Kyle’s collections for reasons I guessed at back then) — the shortage was in the neighborhood of $36,000, a significant number, to be sure, but still $18,000 less than the city would have to average losing in July, August and September to erase the current surplus. That’s why I feel confident in predicting that’s not going to be the case, unlike 2017 when the city finished with a sales tax budget gap of $286,810.12. And even then, collections for the final three months were a minus $72,398.73, less than half of the current surplus.
In short, as far as sales tax collections go, the city is looking good.
The city collected $611,511.36 in sales taxes this month, a figure that is $10,665.64 or 1.71 percent below what the fiscal year budget anticipated, but $42,640.39 or 7.5 percent more than was collected during this same month last year. Those last two numbers are important because they provide a convincing argument that the city is not heading into any sort of cataclysmic economic event that would result in the city ending the year with a budget gap caused by problematic sales tax projections.
To date, the city has collected $162,739.35 more than projected in the current fiscal year budget. You can do the math yourself and if you do you can see for what the average monthly deficit would have to be in the final three months of this accounting period for the city to end with a deficit. And when you consider this was only the second month this fiscal year that collections fell below projections, you can easily see why I am optimistic the city will end this fiscal year in the black. Not only that, the only other time collections failed to meet forecasts — in February (a notoriously under-performing month in Kyle’s collections for reasons I guessed at back then) — the shortage was in the neighborhood of $36,000, a significant number, to be sure, but still $18,000 less than the city would have to average losing in July, August and September to erase the current surplus. That’s why I feel confident in predicting that’s not going to be the case, unlike 2017 when the city finished with a sales tax budget gap of $286,810.12. And even then, collections for the final three months were a minus $72,398.73, less than half of the current surplus.
In short, as far as sales tax collections go, the city is looking good.
Wednesday, June 6, 2018
A. Abuse of privilege; B. Council members can’t be trusted; C. Both
I’m not making this up. This actually happened. If you don’t believe me, go on line and check out the recording of last night’s City Council meeting.
It’s 11:27 p.m. The council files back to the dais following a two-hour, 11-minute secretive executive session outside the view of the public, and Mayor Travis Mitchell says: "There was no action taken during executive session. There will be action taken now. Council member Scheel." Then Council member Tracy Scheel says "Mayor, I would like to offer a motion to authorize the city manager to enter an agreement with the Make-A-Wish Foundation for fund raising and a license agreement related to park land improvements."
OK, I’ve been putting up with this crap for four years now, but this time it just seemed to me the City Council had jumped the shark. First of all, there’s the mayor’s falsehood, his outright lie. Look, I have all the respect in the world for Mayor Mitchell. I spotted him as a positive political influence before he even formally announced his intention to seek a council seat. I thought way back then he was the most qualified person to succeed Todd Webster as mayor of this city and I remember meeting quietly with him at a local coffee shop where I told him I was convinced Webster would not seek re-election and urged Mitchell to forego a potential run for council seat and instead put all his energies and resources immediately into a mayoral run. I was afraid if he ran for council and then a year later tried for the city’s top elected post, his opponents in the race would try to brand him as an opportunist. As it turned out, I completely over-estimated the political sophistication of those seeking elected office in Kyle and my concerns were unwarranted. Not only that, Mitchell is only the latest mayor to tell these kind of lies. Mayor Webster did it before him and I imagine other mayors did the same thing before that.
Here’s the deal: Either Scheel completely blind sided every other member of the City Council by coming up on the spur of the moment this cockamamie notion for the city manager to enter into an agreement with the Make a Wish Foundation (Anyone out there crazy enough to wager that’s what really happened?); or, what is more likely, the council did, in fact, take action outside the public purview and decided the city manager should enter into such an agreement. In other words, the council took action in private, outside the view of the public, that should have been conducted in an open meeting. The council, once again, abused the concept of executive privilege that is a part of any executive session.
Like I said earlier, this is not the first time this has happened. In fact, it takes place with this council on a regular basis. I’ll get around to explaining my thoughts, my suspicions, on why this happens in a moment, but first I should explain why this episode became the proverbial straw that broke this camel’s back.
The Make-A-Wish Foundation is, to me, one of the all-time great feel-good stories and, boy, in this time in our nation’s history, we really need all the feel-good stories we can get.
Christopher James Greicius, a 7-year-old living in Arizona in the spring of 1980, had always wanted to be a police officer. But, by the spring of 1980, he was also being treated for leukemia. A U.S. Customs officer, Tommy Austin, befriended Chris and collaborated with officers of the Arizona Department of Public Safety on a plan to provide a special day for the youngster. Chris actually spent one day as a police officer. He received a custom-tailored police uniform. He rode in a police helicopter. He was formally, officially sworn in as the very first honorary Public Safety patrolman in the history of the state of Arizona. His wish to become a police officer was realized. Chris died soon after, but this episode became the foundation for the Make-A-Wish Foundation, which, to this day, still has its national headquarters in Phoenix, Ariz. The Make-A-Wish Foundation is a 501(c)(3) non-profit organization that arranges experiences described as "wishes" to children with life-threatening medical conditions.
But back to what happened last night. There’s the other part of this equation as it pertains to us here in Kyle which is, of course, a public park and the word "public" in this sentence can’t be stressed enough. Why is the council’s discussion and ultimately its decision to ask the city manager to enter into an agreement on this subject outside the public’s view? I posed that very question to City Attorney Paige Saenz.
"There are legal issues related to the contract," she told me.
OK. I’ll accept that. I don’t think the "legal issues" or the terms of any proposed contract should be discussed in public, but the overall process the council took to arrive at the decision that was made behind closed doors (the actions they took even though the mayor flatly stated "There was no action taken during executive session’) should be a part of the public discourse. And I know this has happened many times before, but this time the subject is the Make-A-Wish Foundation and a public park in Kyle and I expect citizens would want to know and have the right to know about discussions on those subjects, especially concerning their relationship to each other.
"I can’t speak to all of that," Saenz said. "Let me allow the city manager to respond to that."
So. I posed the same questions to City Manager Scott Sellers, another person for whom I have the utmost respect. In fact, I’ll go on the record as saying in my more than 50 years writing about and being involved in municipal governments around Texas, Scott Sellers is one of the best, if not the best, city administrator I have ever encountered. The City of Kyle has laid a solid foundation for its future and Scott Sellers has provided the leadership, the direction, to make sure this is the case.
But here’s what happened. When I told Sellers that, in my opinion, two subjects the public might be interested in were the Make-A-Wish Foundation and a public park, and then asked why those two subjects had to be discussed outside the public’s view, he said "There’s a contractual agreement with Make-A-Wish that we needed legal advice on."
Look, I’m not asking the city to reveal the actual terms of a potential contractual agreement. They shouldn’t, especially before all sides have agreed to it. But that’s just part of an overall story, the broader picture of which should be a part of the public discussion.
Let me give you an example of what I’m talking about that should be familiar to anyone following the national political scene. Both U.S. House and Senate have committees that have been investigating improprieties that occurred during the 2016 General Election. Some of the inquiries into those improprieties, i.e., some testimony from witnesses, have taken place in closed sessions. But the public has always been informed what the subject matter of those inquiries were going to be along with a general idea of what information the representatives hoped to glean from these closed sessions. Then, after the closed sessions are completed, the representatives have been very open about whether they felt all their concerns were addressed, all the questions were answered to their satisfaction and they provided this information without revealing the details of any classified information they were told behind the closed doors. Not only that, any discussions on whether to recall that witness or to summon additional witnesses based on what was learned in the closed session were always held in open session.
Here, in Kyle, that procedure is abused on a regular basis. As noted above, the council obviously discussed the pros and cons (if there were any) of asking the city manager to enter into negotiations with the Make-A-Wish Foundation and then decided (Was there a formal or even an informal vote on the question? If so, what was the breakdown of that vote? Those details should not be kept secret) that, yes, they wanted Sellers to enter into such negotiations. Such a discussion could be had without revealing any of the actual terms of a proposed contract.
Or could they? That brings me back to the subject I raised earlier, namely my suspicions on why this abuse of executive privilege happens so regularly. The only reason I can think of is this: The city staff just doesn’t trust the council’s ability to have a public discussion on matters such as this without disclosing privileged information. Going back to my example of the congressional committees, it’s important to note that, according to the Social Science Research Council, while 0.6 percent of the U.S. adult population are lawyers, 41 percent of the members of Congress are. But, as far as I can tell, the percentage of those on the Kyle City Council with a law degree hovers right at the zero mark. Kyle City Council members, staff believes, simply don’t possess the expertise to distinguish what can and what can’t be said in a public forum and, instead of providing some kind of training or guidance on these matters, figures it’s easier, it’s safer, to just lock them up outside the public’s view for these types of discussions — the public’s right-to-know be damned.
These thoughts, these suspicions, blossomed because Sellers had no qualms about discussing may of the details of ths subject with me.
"The city is going to partner with Make-A-Wish to fulfill a wish for a young boy here in Kyle," the city manager told me. "His wish is to build an outdoor hockey roller rink. His passion in life is hockey and he lives here in Kyle and there is not outdoor roller rink in the near vicinity. The closest ones are in San Antonio and north Austin. The city had already planned on building a covered pavilion in the budget. We talked about that very publicly. With some modifications we can turn that into a hockey rink but still have it be a public pavilion. But there’s a cost to that. There’s the walls that go around it. So because this is a wish that’s much larger than Make-A-Wish will typically fund, in order for them to feel comfortable moving forward with the wish, they needed a partner. So the agreement that the council just approved stipulates that the city will partner with them on the wish and will assist in the fund raising effort. If we’re not able to generate the necessary funding level that’s above our budgeted level for the project, then we’ll find the funds to stopgap that amount. It is our hope that the citizenry of Kyle and those that are associated with Kyle will recognize this as not only a public amenity but a wish for a young boy and they will feel a need to contribute to the facility."
Look-ee there. Sellers spelled out the entire project to me and nowhere did he reveal any privileged information. Nowhere did he disclose what advice he received from his legal counsel. Nowhere did he reveal the terms of any contract. All he revealed was information about a boy’s wish, the use of budgeted tax dollars (and, yes, the possibility of additional tax dollars) as well as plans for a public fund-raising campaign – all information that not only could have been revealed during public council discussion on this matter but I will argue should have been talked about in public if, for no other reason, than to increase the chances of a successful fund-raising effort. So why was it all done behind closed doors?
"Because we had very legal questions to ask the attorney about the contract because it involves the city budgeting, it involves a commitment to fund for a project that isn’t currently budgeted," the city manager replied.
However, I didn’t ask Sellers to reveal any legal questions that might have been posed and he didn’t volunteer any. And I’m not sure whether a discussion to fund "a project that isn’t currently budgeted" is one for an executive session and not a public discussion. It’s worth noting that after government officials raided the office of President Trump’s attorney Michael Cohen and seized volumes of written and electronic records, Cohen’s attorneys insisted that was all privileged attorney-client information. So the judge in the matter ordered the prosecution to turn over all the information it had seized to a special independent master the judge appointed who would determine what, if any, of the information was privileged. As it turned out, the special master has ruled more than 98 percent of the written material and over 99 percent of the electronic information is not, in fact, privileged information and can be returned to prosecutors. In other words, the legal scope of what can be kept from public consumption seems to be shrinking. So, in lieu of all that, why was this city council discussion held in private again?
"Because we’re not ready to make the public campaign yet," Sellers confessed.
My heavens. That raises an even more horrific option. That means the answers to all these questions may not be A, B or C. There’s a fourth answer, a D option in this multiple choice quiz and that D option is "We simply don’t want the public to know about this yet."
And that, to me, is the most disturbing option of them all.
It’s 11:27 p.m. The council files back to the dais following a two-hour, 11-minute secretive executive session outside the view of the public, and Mayor Travis Mitchell says: "There was no action taken during executive session. There will be action taken now. Council member Scheel." Then Council member Tracy Scheel says "Mayor, I would like to offer a motion to authorize the city manager to enter an agreement with the Make-A-Wish Foundation for fund raising and a license agreement related to park land improvements."
OK, I’ve been putting up with this crap for four years now, but this time it just seemed to me the City Council had jumped the shark. First of all, there’s the mayor’s falsehood, his outright lie. Look, I have all the respect in the world for Mayor Mitchell. I spotted him as a positive political influence before he even formally announced his intention to seek a council seat. I thought way back then he was the most qualified person to succeed Todd Webster as mayor of this city and I remember meeting quietly with him at a local coffee shop where I told him I was convinced Webster would not seek re-election and urged Mitchell to forego a potential run for council seat and instead put all his energies and resources immediately into a mayoral run. I was afraid if he ran for council and then a year later tried for the city’s top elected post, his opponents in the race would try to brand him as an opportunist. As it turned out, I completely over-estimated the political sophistication of those seeking elected office in Kyle and my concerns were unwarranted. Not only that, Mitchell is only the latest mayor to tell these kind of lies. Mayor Webster did it before him and I imagine other mayors did the same thing before that.
Here’s the deal: Either Scheel completely blind sided every other member of the City Council by coming up on the spur of the moment this cockamamie notion for the city manager to enter into an agreement with the Make a Wish Foundation (Anyone out there crazy enough to wager that’s what really happened?); or, what is more likely, the council did, in fact, take action outside the public purview and decided the city manager should enter into such an agreement. In other words, the council took action in private, outside the view of the public, that should have been conducted in an open meeting. The council, once again, abused the concept of executive privilege that is a part of any executive session.
Like I said earlier, this is not the first time this has happened. In fact, it takes place with this council on a regular basis. I’ll get around to explaining my thoughts, my suspicions, on why this happens in a moment, but first I should explain why this episode became the proverbial straw that broke this camel’s back.
The Make-A-Wish Foundation is, to me, one of the all-time great feel-good stories and, boy, in this time in our nation’s history, we really need all the feel-good stories we can get.
Christopher James Greicius, a 7-year-old living in Arizona in the spring of 1980, had always wanted to be a police officer. But, by the spring of 1980, he was also being treated for leukemia. A U.S. Customs officer, Tommy Austin, befriended Chris and collaborated with officers of the Arizona Department of Public Safety on a plan to provide a special day for the youngster. Chris actually spent one day as a police officer. He received a custom-tailored police uniform. He rode in a police helicopter. He was formally, officially sworn in as the very first honorary Public Safety patrolman in the history of the state of Arizona. His wish to become a police officer was realized. Chris died soon after, but this episode became the foundation for the Make-A-Wish Foundation, which, to this day, still has its national headquarters in Phoenix, Ariz. The Make-A-Wish Foundation is a 501(c)(3) non-profit organization that arranges experiences described as "wishes" to children with life-threatening medical conditions.
But back to what happened last night. There’s the other part of this equation as it pertains to us here in Kyle which is, of course, a public park and the word "public" in this sentence can’t be stressed enough. Why is the council’s discussion and ultimately its decision to ask the city manager to enter into an agreement on this subject outside the public’s view? I posed that very question to City Attorney Paige Saenz.
"There are legal issues related to the contract," she told me.
OK. I’ll accept that. I don’t think the "legal issues" or the terms of any proposed contract should be discussed in public, but the overall process the council took to arrive at the decision that was made behind closed doors (the actions they took even though the mayor flatly stated "There was no action taken during executive session’) should be a part of the public discourse. And I know this has happened many times before, but this time the subject is the Make-A-Wish Foundation and a public park in Kyle and I expect citizens would want to know and have the right to know about discussions on those subjects, especially concerning their relationship to each other.
"I can’t speak to all of that," Saenz said. "Let me allow the city manager to respond to that."
So. I posed the same questions to City Manager Scott Sellers, another person for whom I have the utmost respect. In fact, I’ll go on the record as saying in my more than 50 years writing about and being involved in municipal governments around Texas, Scott Sellers is one of the best, if not the best, city administrator I have ever encountered. The City of Kyle has laid a solid foundation for its future and Scott Sellers has provided the leadership, the direction, to make sure this is the case.
But here’s what happened. When I told Sellers that, in my opinion, two subjects the public might be interested in were the Make-A-Wish Foundation and a public park, and then asked why those two subjects had to be discussed outside the public’s view, he said "There’s a contractual agreement with Make-A-Wish that we needed legal advice on."
Look, I’m not asking the city to reveal the actual terms of a potential contractual agreement. They shouldn’t, especially before all sides have agreed to it. But that’s just part of an overall story, the broader picture of which should be a part of the public discussion.
Let me give you an example of what I’m talking about that should be familiar to anyone following the national political scene. Both U.S. House and Senate have committees that have been investigating improprieties that occurred during the 2016 General Election. Some of the inquiries into those improprieties, i.e., some testimony from witnesses, have taken place in closed sessions. But the public has always been informed what the subject matter of those inquiries were going to be along with a general idea of what information the representatives hoped to glean from these closed sessions. Then, after the closed sessions are completed, the representatives have been very open about whether they felt all their concerns were addressed, all the questions were answered to their satisfaction and they provided this information without revealing the details of any classified information they were told behind the closed doors. Not only that, any discussions on whether to recall that witness or to summon additional witnesses based on what was learned in the closed session were always held in open session.
Here, in Kyle, that procedure is abused on a regular basis. As noted above, the council obviously discussed the pros and cons (if there were any) of asking the city manager to enter into negotiations with the Make-A-Wish Foundation and then decided (Was there a formal or even an informal vote on the question? If so, what was the breakdown of that vote? Those details should not be kept secret) that, yes, they wanted Sellers to enter into such negotiations. Such a discussion could be had without revealing any of the actual terms of a proposed contract.
Or could they? That brings me back to the subject I raised earlier, namely my suspicions on why this abuse of executive privilege happens so regularly. The only reason I can think of is this: The city staff just doesn’t trust the council’s ability to have a public discussion on matters such as this without disclosing privileged information. Going back to my example of the congressional committees, it’s important to note that, according to the Social Science Research Council, while 0.6 percent of the U.S. adult population are lawyers, 41 percent of the members of Congress are. But, as far as I can tell, the percentage of those on the Kyle City Council with a law degree hovers right at the zero mark. Kyle City Council members, staff believes, simply don’t possess the expertise to distinguish what can and what can’t be said in a public forum and, instead of providing some kind of training or guidance on these matters, figures it’s easier, it’s safer, to just lock them up outside the public’s view for these types of discussions — the public’s right-to-know be damned.
These thoughts, these suspicions, blossomed because Sellers had no qualms about discussing may of the details of ths subject with me.
"The city is going to partner with Make-A-Wish to fulfill a wish for a young boy here in Kyle," the city manager told me. "His wish is to build an outdoor hockey roller rink. His passion in life is hockey and he lives here in Kyle and there is not outdoor roller rink in the near vicinity. The closest ones are in San Antonio and north Austin. The city had already planned on building a covered pavilion in the budget. We talked about that very publicly. With some modifications we can turn that into a hockey rink but still have it be a public pavilion. But there’s a cost to that. There’s the walls that go around it. So because this is a wish that’s much larger than Make-A-Wish will typically fund, in order for them to feel comfortable moving forward with the wish, they needed a partner. So the agreement that the council just approved stipulates that the city will partner with them on the wish and will assist in the fund raising effort. If we’re not able to generate the necessary funding level that’s above our budgeted level for the project, then we’ll find the funds to stopgap that amount. It is our hope that the citizenry of Kyle and those that are associated with Kyle will recognize this as not only a public amenity but a wish for a young boy and they will feel a need to contribute to the facility."
Look-ee there. Sellers spelled out the entire project to me and nowhere did he reveal any privileged information. Nowhere did he disclose what advice he received from his legal counsel. Nowhere did he reveal the terms of any contract. All he revealed was information about a boy’s wish, the use of budgeted tax dollars (and, yes, the possibility of additional tax dollars) as well as plans for a public fund-raising campaign – all information that not only could have been revealed during public council discussion on this matter but I will argue should have been talked about in public if, for no other reason, than to increase the chances of a successful fund-raising effort. So why was it all done behind closed doors?
"Because we had very legal questions to ask the attorney about the contract because it involves the city budgeting, it involves a commitment to fund for a project that isn’t currently budgeted," the city manager replied.
However, I didn’t ask Sellers to reveal any legal questions that might have been posed and he didn’t volunteer any. And I’m not sure whether a discussion to fund "a project that isn’t currently budgeted" is one for an executive session and not a public discussion. It’s worth noting that after government officials raided the office of President Trump’s attorney Michael Cohen and seized volumes of written and electronic records, Cohen’s attorneys insisted that was all privileged attorney-client information. So the judge in the matter ordered the prosecution to turn over all the information it had seized to a special independent master the judge appointed who would determine what, if any, of the information was privileged. As it turned out, the special master has ruled more than 98 percent of the written material and over 99 percent of the electronic information is not, in fact, privileged information and can be returned to prosecutors. In other words, the legal scope of what can be kept from public consumption seems to be shrinking. So, in lieu of all that, why was this city council discussion held in private again?
"Because we’re not ready to make the public campaign yet," Sellers confessed.
My heavens. That raises an even more horrific option. That means the answers to all these questions may not be A, B or C. There’s a fourth answer, a D option in this multiple choice quiz and that D option is "We simply don’t want the public to know about this yet."
And that, to me, is the most disturbing option of them all.
Saturday, June 2, 2018
All bark, no bite
Ginger and I attended this morning’s dedication of the city’s much-ballyhooed new dog park at Steeplechase Park. It was a nice, well-attended affair hosted by Parks Director Kerry Urbanowicz, representing the city staff, and Mayor Pro Tem Shane Arabie, representing the city’s elected officials. Other city staff members I spotted included City Manager Scott Sellers, Chief of Staff Jerry Hendrix and, of course, Communications Specialist Kim Hilensenbeck. Other elected officials included council members Daphne Tenorio and Tracy Scheel, both of whom, like me, brought their beloved pets with them. (Tenorio, it should be noted, only brought her one non-rescue four-legged roommate along, leaving at least three other doggies back at the Tenorio homestead). In the official opening remarks, Arabie talked about how the dog park is another move by the city to improve the quality of life for its residents and provide the opportunity for neighbors to interact with each other.
The first official dogfight in the park began at 10:34 a.m.
The two dogs in question were separated almost immediately with seemingly no harm done. A lot of growling and barking, but no real attacking or biting. Kind of a microcosm of a typical Kyle City Council meeting, another one of which is scheduled for this Tuesday following a two-week break. That last council meeting on May 15 was incredibly brief, actually lasting less than an hour. We should be so lucky this time around. This week’s executive session looks like it could last longer than the entire last City Council meeting.
The agenda includes four items — count ‘em, four — involving the erection of no-parking signs along streets where students at the city’s two high schools park on residential streets. An overly long presentation on the Emerald Crown Trail Folly is also on the agenda. (I still escapes me why the city is so accommodating about a proposed path between Buda and San Marcos that will largely bypass Kyle while completely ignoring the concept of its own municipal trail network, but there you have it.) There’s also a suggestion to have the city’s code of ordinances include rules about exactly where in their backyards residents can place accessory structures and if the council wastes as much time haggling over this as the Planning & Zoning Commission did, discussion on this one item could also last longer than the entire May 15 meeting.
But the items that really piqued my interest ahead of Tuesday’s confab were two of the four being advanced by Mayor Travis Mitchell: one to bring back yet one more time the well-worn idea that Kyle should be a member of the Central Texas Clean Air Coalition and the second one being a change to the council rules to avoid the mess like the one the council created for itself a couple of months ago involving a controversial zoning decision.
In the almost four years now that this journal has been in existence the council has twice rejected the notion that the city should join the Clean Air Coalition. I am not firmly entrenched on either side of this issue but I lean toward not joining for a few reasons. The first, of course, is Groucho Marx’s philosophy of life as outlined in his resignation letter to the Friar’s Club (and repeated by Woody Allen in the great Annie Hall) that "I don’t want to belong to any club that will accept people like me as a member." The second is that the organization does not emphasize the one goal that will achieve its clean air objectives and that, of course, is reducing the number of fossil-fuel burning vehicles on the roads of Central Texas. The third is that there’s money involved in joining the coalition, that money comes from taxes we pay and I’ve never been convinced Kyle would receive an ample return on that investment. And since the last time a Kyle council rejected this idea, another reason has been added: the Trump administration, under the leadership of EPA Director Scott Pruitt, is doing everything it can to disembowel organizations like the Texas Clean Air Coalition in its unrelenting efforts to eliminate all regulations designed to keep our air and water hazard free.
However, according to Mitchell, that third reason I had — the one about a return on the taxpayers’ investment — may have a hole in it.
"The Clean Air Coalition is being brought back for two reasons," the mayor told me. "First, we have two new members on the council and those members have not weighed in on the matter. (They both replaced council members who cast dissenting votes.) Second, CAPCOG (Capital Area Council of Governments, of which the coalition is a part) recently demonstrated how participating in the Clean Air Coalition could be valuable to our residents by drafting a technical memo to help us better understand how near-road air pollution might affect a particular residence in Kyle. It was a concrete example of how participating in the group can be of service to our community, and as such I have decided to vote in support of joining."
So what exactly did this "technical memo" say that was so valuable?
"We had a resident express concern that road improvements near his business would create enough road-based air pollution to negatively affect his business," Mitchell said. "Rather than speculate, we asked for CAPCOG to analyze the air-quality impact of the proposed project. Utilizing science and manpower in part made available through the Clean Air Coalition, CAPCOG provided us this technical memo at no charge. The data was extremely helpful in our communication with the resident, and it also provided a clear understanding of how our projects may or may not impact the air quality of the community."
So did that mean CAPCOG’s study show the road improvements under consideration would not "create enough road-based air pollution to negatively affect his business"?
"Correct," the mayor replied.
The other item involving changing the rules of council includes one having to do with the deadline for submitting proposed agenda items and the second, and more interesting one, dealing with the procedure for bringing a defeated item back for reconsideration. If the rule changes are approved, the new deadline for council members to submit agenda items would be 3 p.m. on the Thursday immediately preceding the could meeting in question. (The previous deadline was 5 p.m. five business days before the meeting.) The second change provides an exception to what I call "the Diane Hervol rule" that stated if an item placed on the agenda by a council member failed to pass "that same item or one of substantially similar subject matter may not be placed back on the agenda for at least six months from the day of the vote." (I call it "the Diane Hervol rule" because the former council member whose name I invoked would routinely bring back meeting after meeting an item the council had already rejected until she wore enough of her colleagues down that they would decide to vote for it just to keep from having to deal with it at every meeting.) The interesting addition to this rule is one that concerns "matters that have not received four votes … either for or against…"
If you’ll recall the council back in February tried to vote on a zoning request for a proposed residential subdivision on Sledge Street that was opposed by those living in an already established subdivision on the other side of the street. Arabie was not present at this meeting and votes on two different zoning proposals ended in 3-3 deadlocks, thus effectively killing the subdivision. However, the item mysteriously re-appeared two weeks later and on March 5 one of those zoning requests ultimately passed by a 4-2 vote (on this occasion, council member Damon Fogley was absent). There was some question, especially from Tenorio, whether it was even permissible, according to the council’s established rules at that time, for such a reconsideration.
If the council approves the rule changes Tuesday, it will state that in those situations in which a proposal fails to receive four votes either way "Any member of council can request that the matter be placed on the agenda for reconsideration. The request may be made at the meeting at which the motion failed to pass, or the request may be made in writing and submitted to the city manager and the city secretary by 3 p.m. on the Thursday before the next regular City Council meeting following the meeting at which the matter failed to receive four votes."
Mitchell is insisting that the Sledge Street reconsideration kerfuffle has absolutely nothing whatsoever to do with this proposed rule change (Sure, Fine. Whatever.), but I’ll leave that debate to others.
"The proposed changes to the Rules of Council are to clarify a policy that we loosely followed but was never spelled out by ordinance." according to Mitchell. "The ‘motion to renew,’ … exercised in the zoning matter you referenced, was allowed under our current policy. The proposal before council on Tuesday will actually create a new rule slightly different than Roberts Rules. It allows for any member of the council to bring back an item at the following meeting if the item failed on less than four votes. To me, this is a more democratic approach.
"I can give you an example," the mayor continued. "The way our rules currently read, let's say council has a meeting in which for whatever reason only four council members can attend. In that scenario, a single dissenting vote would effectively kill the item unless the person who dissented agreed to bring it back. I don't think that is the best approach. If an item fails but on a vote like 3-1 or 3-3, any member of council should have the right to reconsider the vote at the following meeting."
There might be some interesting debate on these issues but, like that incident at 10:34 this morning at the just-opened dog park, I’m betting the barking will be there but the biting won’t.
The first official dogfight in the park began at 10:34 a.m.
The two dogs in question were separated almost immediately with seemingly no harm done. A lot of growling and barking, but no real attacking or biting. Kind of a microcosm of a typical Kyle City Council meeting, another one of which is scheduled for this Tuesday following a two-week break. That last council meeting on May 15 was incredibly brief, actually lasting less than an hour. We should be so lucky this time around. This week’s executive session looks like it could last longer than the entire last City Council meeting.
The agenda includes four items — count ‘em, four — involving the erection of no-parking signs along streets where students at the city’s two high schools park on residential streets. An overly long presentation on the Emerald Crown Trail Folly is also on the agenda. (I still escapes me why the city is so accommodating about a proposed path between Buda and San Marcos that will largely bypass Kyle while completely ignoring the concept of its own municipal trail network, but there you have it.) There’s also a suggestion to have the city’s code of ordinances include rules about exactly where in their backyards residents can place accessory structures and if the council wastes as much time haggling over this as the Planning & Zoning Commission did, discussion on this one item could also last longer than the entire May 15 meeting.
But the items that really piqued my interest ahead of Tuesday’s confab were two of the four being advanced by Mayor Travis Mitchell: one to bring back yet one more time the well-worn idea that Kyle should be a member of the Central Texas Clean Air Coalition and the second one being a change to the council rules to avoid the mess like the one the council created for itself a couple of months ago involving a controversial zoning decision.
In the almost four years now that this journal has been in existence the council has twice rejected the notion that the city should join the Clean Air Coalition. I am not firmly entrenched on either side of this issue but I lean toward not joining for a few reasons. The first, of course, is Groucho Marx’s philosophy of life as outlined in his resignation letter to the Friar’s Club (and repeated by Woody Allen in the great Annie Hall) that "I don’t want to belong to any club that will accept people like me as a member." The second is that the organization does not emphasize the one goal that will achieve its clean air objectives and that, of course, is reducing the number of fossil-fuel burning vehicles on the roads of Central Texas. The third is that there’s money involved in joining the coalition, that money comes from taxes we pay and I’ve never been convinced Kyle would receive an ample return on that investment. And since the last time a Kyle council rejected this idea, another reason has been added: the Trump administration, under the leadership of EPA Director Scott Pruitt, is doing everything it can to disembowel organizations like the Texas Clean Air Coalition in its unrelenting efforts to eliminate all regulations designed to keep our air and water hazard free.
However, according to Mitchell, that third reason I had — the one about a return on the taxpayers’ investment — may have a hole in it.
"The Clean Air Coalition is being brought back for two reasons," the mayor told me. "First, we have two new members on the council and those members have not weighed in on the matter. (They both replaced council members who cast dissenting votes.) Second, CAPCOG (Capital Area Council of Governments, of which the coalition is a part) recently demonstrated how participating in the Clean Air Coalition could be valuable to our residents by drafting a technical memo to help us better understand how near-road air pollution might affect a particular residence in Kyle. It was a concrete example of how participating in the group can be of service to our community, and as such I have decided to vote in support of joining."
So what exactly did this "technical memo" say that was so valuable?
"We had a resident express concern that road improvements near his business would create enough road-based air pollution to negatively affect his business," Mitchell said. "Rather than speculate, we asked for CAPCOG to analyze the air-quality impact of the proposed project. Utilizing science and manpower in part made available through the Clean Air Coalition, CAPCOG provided us this technical memo at no charge. The data was extremely helpful in our communication with the resident, and it also provided a clear understanding of how our projects may or may not impact the air quality of the community."
So did that mean CAPCOG’s study show the road improvements under consideration would not "create enough road-based air pollution to negatively affect his business"?
"Correct," the mayor replied.
The other item involving changing the rules of council includes one having to do with the deadline for submitting proposed agenda items and the second, and more interesting one, dealing with the procedure for bringing a defeated item back for reconsideration. If the rule changes are approved, the new deadline for council members to submit agenda items would be 3 p.m. on the Thursday immediately preceding the could meeting in question. (The previous deadline was 5 p.m. five business days before the meeting.) The second change provides an exception to what I call "the Diane Hervol rule" that stated if an item placed on the agenda by a council member failed to pass "that same item or one of substantially similar subject matter may not be placed back on the agenda for at least six months from the day of the vote." (I call it "the Diane Hervol rule" because the former council member whose name I invoked would routinely bring back meeting after meeting an item the council had already rejected until she wore enough of her colleagues down that they would decide to vote for it just to keep from having to deal with it at every meeting.) The interesting addition to this rule is one that concerns "matters that have not received four votes … either for or against…"
If you’ll recall the council back in February tried to vote on a zoning request for a proposed residential subdivision on Sledge Street that was opposed by those living in an already established subdivision on the other side of the street. Arabie was not present at this meeting and votes on two different zoning proposals ended in 3-3 deadlocks, thus effectively killing the subdivision. However, the item mysteriously re-appeared two weeks later and on March 5 one of those zoning requests ultimately passed by a 4-2 vote (on this occasion, council member Damon Fogley was absent). There was some question, especially from Tenorio, whether it was even permissible, according to the council’s established rules at that time, for such a reconsideration.
If the council approves the rule changes Tuesday, it will state that in those situations in which a proposal fails to receive four votes either way "Any member of council can request that the matter be placed on the agenda for reconsideration. The request may be made at the meeting at which the motion failed to pass, or the request may be made in writing and submitted to the city manager and the city secretary by 3 p.m. on the Thursday before the next regular City Council meeting following the meeting at which the matter failed to receive four votes."
Mitchell is insisting that the Sledge Street reconsideration kerfuffle has absolutely nothing whatsoever to do with this proposed rule change (Sure, Fine. Whatever.), but I’ll leave that debate to others.
"The proposed changes to the Rules of Council are to clarify a policy that we loosely followed but was never spelled out by ordinance." according to Mitchell. "The ‘motion to renew,’ … exercised in the zoning matter you referenced, was allowed under our current policy. The proposal before council on Tuesday will actually create a new rule slightly different than Roberts Rules. It allows for any member of the council to bring back an item at the following meeting if the item failed on less than four votes. To me, this is a more democratic approach.
"I can give you an example," the mayor continued. "The way our rules currently read, let's say council has a meeting in which for whatever reason only four council members can attend. In that scenario, a single dissenting vote would effectively kill the item unless the person who dissented agreed to bring it back. I don't think that is the best approach. If an item fails but on a vote like 3-1 or 3-3, any member of council should have the right to reconsider the vote at the following meeting."
There might be some interesting debate on these issues but, like that incident at 10:34 this morning at the just-opened dog park, I’m betting the barking will be there but the biting won’t.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)