07-18-03 Fill Dirt Review Committee minutes

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Notes for 7 -14-0.uncil meeting. City Joining in Ba. lawsuiU Flooding I'll speak on two~~9J.ects tonight, joining the Bayport lawsuit and flooding. I have watched..thi~.council in public aCtion concerning Bayport. And I've concluded that some members of this council have done everything they can to ride the coat tails of the other Cities that are op~nlyfighting Bayport, and, those same members have tried to curry favor with the Port of Houston, hoping the Port will throw them a few crumbs. I have a question for those council members. How long do you think you can appease and pander to the Port before you become just like the arrogant, deceitful politicians that control the Port? Your concern about legal costs in fighting Bayport is false. I've proven to you that La Porte pays 3 times what other Texas Cites our size pay for legal service. That has amounted to millions of dollars of our tax money you have squandered over the years, and you've done nothing about that. And I've studied your so called study on legal costs and it is not a study; it is a cover up. And so, I'll repeat what I told this council a few weeks before you finally took your initial public stand against Bayport. I'm fed up with hearing excuses. it's past time for you to listen to the citizens and openly join the fight against Bayport. And now regarding Flooding: I understand that the council is concerned about possible flooding from the county dirt being added to Lomax. I'm going to pass around pictures of real flooding. That lake you see in pictures 1 &2 is my family's 5 acre homestead in Lomax. It is some of the highest property in Lomax and it naturally drained West to Big Island slough, until the feed lot owner installed an illegal 1 ~ ft. high X 8 ft. wide dam on the west side of our property and flooded a large portion of our homestead for several months of the year. Picture 3 is the dam. After putting several thousand dollars into dirt and bulldozer work some of it still flooded as you see in picture 4. The City ignored my complaints about the.d~m. But when the dam builder filed a written complaint against me for standing water, the City aggressively worked his complaint. In fact, they were so aggressive they ignored their own written procedures that required a written warning prior to giving me a $2,000 citation. I confronted them with their procedure violation and they tried tq lie their way out of it. And your legal service still aggressively harassed me, costing me many hours off work and $500 in attorney fees, before the citation was finally :dismissed. To add insult to this injury, the City made us get a permit for the county .. -d~rt. Then we had to have City final inspection.... And all the while the dam builder/feed lot owner has been hauling in truck loads of sand that he eventually uses to raise his land so it drains onto my land...all done without City permits, and without City inspections. And Picture 4 proves that. Council, are you starting to see, why I openly and accurately state that La Porte City gQvernment is crooked and corrupt? I have just started to expose the arrogant abuses my family and I have endured for 13 long years. I'm going to warn you people for the second and last time, you better remove your contract attorneys from any dealings with me or the Blackwells.