The Woodlands Government

Next generation government for The Woodlands Texas - Focus groups for Gap Analysis

2011-07-24T13:09:00.003-05:00

The first step of resident input has been completed in a newly established project to determine the next form of government for The Woodlands Texas. As early as 2014, we are legally able to change to a city form of government.This phase of the project was to get feedback from residents for a gap analysis being conducted by the project consultant. Two goals of this phase are in the project plan - (1) See what residents don't know or understand, and (2) determine what are the perceived issues and future needs for effectively governing the community. To do this, residents were divided into two knowledge groups and attendees chosen at random to attend a number of focus groups moderated by the project leader. Focus groups were kept small in size so as to encourage interaction and contribution. The data collected will be sorted out, analyzed, characterized , and then presented back to the community in January to the next focus group workshops and apparently a town hall meeting. You will find a number of issues below related to governing and what seems to be a laundry list of problems as the primary concern on people's minds as we move forward. I may not agree with some of these, but I do believe as many ideas as I can remember should be included. I missed some I am sure, but the idea is to get these out in the open for continued development and thought by residents.

To get an idea of what has been brought forward in these focus group discussions, here are some of the thoughts from one group.

What is right about our government

There was not much discussion in this area.

(1) Parks and pathways are excellent amenities and are kept clean.

(2) Government looks after the expense of our pools but there are perhaps too many of them and some tax dollars support their use.

(3) We are not part of Houston or Conroe (implied,not stated explicitly)

(4) Inclusion of residents in Parks department and policing strategies by government staff
(5) The Fire Dept is a fire class service.
(6) The policing force has improved and is now one of the best around.
(7) Excellent delivery of information to residents, beyond that required by the Open Records law of Texas

Gaps

(1) Residents cannot influence decisions about land use. This is no longer a community of large land blocks to be developed except in the Village of Creekside Park. In the other villages, development is typically near and around existing residences or businesses. Residents have been demanding input for years, but go unheard and then with empty promises of inclusion into the process. As the remaining development properties within the villages are sold, residents do not want to have surprises and new establishments that seem to alter the master plan, with lack of controls such as noise, presentation and privacy expectations that affect the quality of life by taxpayers.

(2) Local taxes for the benefit of local needs are managed by separate entities, some of which reach outside of the territorial jurisdiction of The Woodlands, with even differing strategies of management. Lack of centralized control of tax dollars is a gap, especially for county wide taxation based on property values. The county commissioners conduct their meetings on local issues in Conroe, and those decisions are integrated with other county areas. Management for a town of 90,000 should be from within the community and integrated with this community's priorities and needs, not managed by an external entity. This tax domain primarily consists of road maintenance, law making, courts, policing and jail. Governing must be equal and apply to all parts of the county equally due to the legal restraints on spending of taxpayer money.

(3) There are no controls for noise pollution other than county laws which are designed for rural areas. County rules, regulations and guidelines are applied to stop signs, speed limits, signs, traffic noise, dogs barking, and other very common municipal issues within the territory of The Woodlands. The lack of ordinance power prevents The Woodlands from controlling its quality of life. It forces the community to accept rural conditions within the bounds of large densely populated area.

(4) There is not an effective way to interact with the Board of Directors as a whole. That is prevented by the current structure and method of government. There is no area representation on the Board of Directors and there is only a one way communication in meetings. Every taxpayer should be provided equal amenities and quality of community life. The village representation at meetings has failed to accomplish the original intent of Village liaisons. It is too weak a link to the board of directors. However, the Village Associations themselves need to be preserved and provide the social aspect of our community in the way they have traditionally served. All taxpayers are not represented by members of the board in the current government/political environment.

(5) Our local government has no control over the roads and streets. County and state regulations control and their funds maintain them. The placing or removal of a stop sign, the timing of lights, speed limits, design, and all related matters are in the hands of the county and state where a resident has much less influence. In contrast, our local government maintains the paths which must cross those streets and the master plan which includes easy, flowing pedestrian is sometimes impeded by actions on these roads. Noise on the roads impact the quality of life for several blocks adjoining the main roads. Some residents are thinking that we should re-evaluate the widening of the roads. Governing this issue is ineffective.

(6) Our parks for the most part are clean, but some are not. Trash is brought in and left in the parks and sometimes in the water of some of our parks apparently by outside visitors. This situation needs to be governed, perhaps by control of use.

(7) Residents do not participate in government elections sufficiently. There is a knowledge and interest gap. It appears we continue to have an educational issue or more probably are still plagued by government complexity. It takes years to get educated to a comfort level on local issues, while many people move in and out of the community. Before this government was established, all residents had a say in politics and community decisions. Additionally, demographics have been changing dramatically. We now have entire blocks where many residents have no ability to vote, because of the citizenship voting law. This problem did not exist before this new government, because all residents had a say in their government. No board member represents these people and they have no say who governs them.

(8) Managing and encouraging homes to be purchased instead of rented as a business plagues the community. Residents prefer to have resident owners as neighbors instead of renters who rarely participate in government or have an interest in the local systems. They become users and part of the problem while no one represents the home at the polls. This is apparently a growing problem and not governed in any way.

(6) There is no governing of imposed tax dollars. Instead, taxes are governed by percentage of home value. Although the economy continues to have low inflation, some home owners have huge tax increases and therefore significant inflation. Salary does not keep up with home inflation. This affects long term residents the most. It is assumed that the value of a house should be the taxed by a cap on percentage of value instead of tax dollars. This gives the government more money. Residents are more than concerned about this, but it is not governed.

(7) The DSC is a critical part of the fabric of the community, yet members on this committee are appointed by the Board of Directors. There remains representation by the development company. The RDRC boards of each village are elected to position, but the DSC sometimes overrides the decisions by those boards. This creates a gap in governing. Perhaps a solution would be to place this function in the hands of the people and let there be an elected association to manage restrictions.

(8) This government has evolved into a business-centric group of directors who are imposing past and present decisions of the development company and the prior Town Center government officials who were appointed, on the residents. There is a hesitancy to consider candidates who have other ideas for various reasons. Incumbents are the preferred choice of the very few voters who go to the polls. This seems to be the cause of the continued frivolous spending of tax dollars and lack of home owner buy-in to the business community role in the spending of tax dollars. Governing Town Center activities, plans and role in the community remains with the development company. 90,000 residents need to have a say in the development of the entire Woodlands now. These people live here and many of them work here. Governing the use of land is a huge gap as we move forward. There continues to be negative neighborhood impact by development decisions. One such recent example is a cemetery in close proximity to a residential neighborhood. When are we ever going to get a master community plan to manage? The gap is that the local government does not have land use controls.

Future Challenges

(1) Peripheral development of business and housing. ExxonMobil brings a larger number of people to the area in a relatively short time. Development along the new parkway and other peripheral areas will bring considerable competition for tax dollars and housing. Rental properties could increase in our community as older homes sell. Traffic could rise and the quality of life decrease if not governed. Development to our north will bring Houston closer to us. New development will outclass technology here in The Woodlands, especially "green technology". So there is a perceived related threat to home value and taxation demands by our government.

( 2) Traffic in general will rise as our roads continue to absorb traffic passing through The Woodlands, as a conduit between new development to the west and south from I45. Governing the use of roads and related noise/vibration is a considerable challenge. The quality of life here needs to be protected.

(3) Managed affordable taxation for the residents

(4) Resident participation as volunteers. There is less opportunity than in the past to participate in government. Growing replacement or new volunteers is an issue. There is less opportunity than in the past to learn how the governing processes work, how issues are addressed and how decisions on the budget are made.

(5) Developing transparency of the development company as a governing body. It makes decisions for residents and has the master plan that is not visible. Residents want transparency now. The master plan appears to change whenever the development company wants it to. It is time to stop that behavior, or it is time to open it up so that residents buy into it and have confidence in decisions and not feel constantly threatened.

(6) Getting resident buy-in/influence in decision making. This could be related to just getting the vote out. Current government makes decisions based on the ideas and thought processes of a very few. There seems to be little conferring with residents on the issues.

Need to protect

(1) Unique feel of The Woodlands

(2) High quality of our schools

(3) Forest including trees, undergrowth and wildlife. Seems to be a gap in protecting our wildlife.

(4) Parks and pathways

(5) Residential standards

(6) Managed traffic flow (a county service)

(7) Volunteer system - inclusion of residents

Missing items

I can think of a couple of additional things not mentioned but very relevant to the future governance model. One is water. We are taxed based on bonds for wells. Newer MUD districts have a much larger debt than the older ones in general. I see a financial issue associated with consolidating all the MUD districts together now but we may want to do that in 10-15 years. We face significant issues with water in the future, and there are issues with the governance model related to these issues.

On the positive side, we have excellent senior staff in government, most which transferred from the associations. This was not discussed in our focus group.

In our current governing model, we cannot annex peripheral areas. This was mentioned, but I don't believe it ever made it to the gap analysis data. To be able to manage our current territory domain, we need to be able to have the sales tax income generated by nearby businesses. There needs to be flexibility to annex areas, especially to our west.

Our fire department is certainly a very good one, but we do not need to be top of the class in firefighting capability. We need better leverage surrounding departments. Our goals should not be to be the best in every class of service but to be as good or better in some of them, with a manageable and affordable budget. Budget must be governed better than it is.

The exercise itself did not ask for feedback but did ask for questions. That bothered me a bit. When I asked a few of the people leaving what they thought of it, I got some good feedback that should have been gathered in the meeting itself. However, I believe this was very worthwhile and am anxious to see the results from other focus groups. I wish they too would be published, but I do not yet have my hands on any documentation. I understand someone else has done some documentation though. The project manager seemed a little anxious about that, because I believe he wants it all to be presented as a processed presentation rather than delivering the sound bytes that were collected.

Difficulties of governing

2010-07-30T12:10:00.001-05:00

Government is basically the same everywhere except maybe here. You can't please everyone, especially here. In The Woodlands Texas, we have some unique issues. History drives our dilemma. We started as a development company and gradually transitioned into an association. Then we developed Town Center independently but in parallel with the residential villages using totally different concepts, but retaining similar processes and community values. Village residents were not necessarily in agreement with the development plans of Town Center but few contested the vision of a suburban downtown in the middle of the forest, governing itself. From the beginning, Town Center has been a place for visitors. Now it is also a place for a unique urbanized class of residents. With the merger of Town Center and association governments into a township government, some of the conflicts have not yet been adequately addressed. Some big issues remain and the task to effectively govern this community is difficult.

Newer residents have embraced the ideas of urbanization more than old timers. This has caused somewhat of a conflict between naturalists and city dwellers, a concrete/steel society vs a natural setting. This subject is rarely discussed because it just lies in the background, like a shadow, going unnoticed and being misinterpreted as the same as a business vs residential conflict. Villagers do not want to hear noise or see concrete and steel in their communities. That is the basis of conflict between the two paradigms. Commercializing The Woodlands must be done with care and consideration for the reverse side of the coin.

The line between commercialism and naturalism could be drawn at budget time. Residents should not have to pay for commercialism, yet investments in commercialism can save taxpayers real money. Now the question is constantly asked, should government be in business, with capital investments and profiteering? This is one ongoing debate that is currently occurring within the government of The Woodlands. It is a conflict, because there continues to be vestiges of the old Town Center in the way the directors think and act. After all, we have a number of old town center directors remaining on the current board.

Many people here ask pertinent and pointed questions, but they rarely take any action. Last night I attended a town hall meeting specifically convened to review the 2011 budget. Outside of the normal crowd, there were very few residents, maybe only two who stood up and made what I would call "normal resident" comments. I made comments too, but I have been commenting regularly ever since our governing question came to the table a few years ago. The township directors were all ears with pen and paper in hand, but with so few voices speaking, they should not feel comfortable in receiving the feedback they sought. They get what they can and will discuss what to do before finalizing the budget. Last year, the public produced more comments than this year and had significant impact on the outcome. This year, the election generated significant focus on the issues, but the public did not come out and vote. It was no surprise to me to see so few people attending the town hall meeting and so few comments made.

It is no surprise to see the same issues at the town hall meeting as the election. Are the issues real? Is policing really an issue? If it is, why didn't the public vote out the incumbents and let new ideas be brought forward? Status quo does not produce change. It sustains the old. It is interpreted as "everything is OK". Just keep the taxes the same and we will be happy. Yet the public said something different in the residents' survey. There are problems to be solved, especially in law enforcement.

The board has therefore made a small change to the budget to reduce Alpha Omega mounted patrols and put the money towards policing. $300,000 was knocked off of the $1.5 million contract, yet we will continue to see the mounted patrols in the parking lot of Walmart at I-45 and SH-242. The idea is that they are charged with patrolling all of Town Center. We will increase policing in 2011 through more overtime and three more hires. Each hire will require a full sized police car, compatible with the Sheriff's fleet for high speed chases on highways. These automobiles must be replaced every four years. We are not county roads. We are a urban community of neighborhood streets. Our policing requirements are different than the county. Every officer is trained in the county processes and skills are developed in the same way. Sheriff policies must be retained in the deployment of the officers. Isn't it time to change?

Hand it to the board however. The proposed budget has a plan to study policing again. Yes, get consultants and see what is needed in the community. It is difficult to govern a community, especially when there are no skills within the board to manage the policing of our community. This study may be the right thing to do now, but it must be done carefully. Representatives from the village associations are being given the job of giving feedback on the future of our policing. Maybe the feedback should also be given to a committee of knowledgeable people in the community. There is an abundance of issues associated with the direction we are headed, but someone has to lead the effort and get it done.

Fortunately, we have seven residents who volunteer their time to make these decisions. I hope they take to heart the comments made last night in their thoughts as they reconsider some of the decisions in the budget. For one, I hope we move off of the old idea that there is any law enforcement benefit in the deployment of horseback patrols. That is purely a tourist expense, hid under the umbrella of law enforcement. Much of it could be used as a general homestead for residents. If in 2011 it would be trimmed from $1.2 million to $500,000, then we would have enough money to fund a homestead discount in 2012. I have heard of no plan to reduce this budget item in the five year plan, so this would apply for five years out as well as today. With $500,000 we should have plenty of visible mounted patrols in pretty red jackets to give the township its "personality". Just put them in the right places - where people walk (but not parking lots). Put them in places for physical presence at events where people gather and along paths in Town Center, strictly for visibility. Put them under the jurisdiction and management of tourism, not law enforcement. They are patrolling to attract visitors. Let's find out if they really do that.

Development Standards Committee of The Woodlands Township

2010-06-19T11:54:00.001-05:00

Recently, I attended a Development Standards Committee (DSC) meeting to observe what transpires these days in a regular meeting. Resident attendance was abnormally high at this meeting. There were one or two unusual resident issues to handle on the agenda available at the front desk, apparently creating a higher-than-normal interest. I picked this month for two reasons – (1) the Woodlands Board of Directors has been receiving applications for positions on this committee and are currently determining who will be appointed to the board for the coming year. Next week, the board selects the new members. I was observing behaviors and interactions among the committee members and between residents and committee. (2) One resident has been telling his story publicly. I wanted to see what happened first hand on this particular issue.

I bring my observations for your consideration and interest. Walking in the door of the township service center, I found a number of residents and contractors waiting in the lobby. I signed the guest register for the meeting and proceeded to the conference room. I discovered that the protocol is to wait in the lobby until called, a bit different than other meetings where you just walk in. The committee was having a light dinner, so I returned to the lobby. A staff member announced the meeting was ready to commence, so we all walked to the main conference room.

Similar to a RDRC meeting, the committee sits in a U-shaped configuration facing each other and the overhead projection screen, with some visitors sitting on the side and others behind the chairperson. I understand in normal months, when there are fewer visitors, everyone sits to the side so that each can see more of the board member faces and the chairperson.

On this occasion as others, in advance of the meeting it was recommended by staff to place a number of agenda items on the Summary List. That is, variances that had been reviewed and were considered to be OK as submitted or needed some modifications as recommended by an RDRC and the homeowners were present to acknowledge agreement. Also included was an application change of a property for Fire Station #8 on Gosling Rd. These were all read to those attending and approved by one vote of the committee. The other requests were considered individually by the committee.

Several items on the agenda confused me. I either missed them or they were not considered at all. All were characterized as “consideration and action on legal action, regarding failure to comply with the Covenants and Standards for outstanding violations on the home”. But there was one of these that did make it to discussion that drew considerable attention. This one revealed a power struggle between a resident and the committee. He was given 3 minutes to state his case and he did. The resident in his mind was repairing a fence that had been damaged by a hurricane. One of the fences encloses a dog area in his backyard. He also has an adjoining pool area enclosed by a fence, but that fence did not incur damage from the storm. Due to a change in height of the fence of the dog enclosure, within the limits of the covenants, he was asked to replace the fence pool area fence as well, based on consistency and appearance for the entire fence. Additionally, he was required to obtain a fence permit for his pool. He had volunteered to replace the fence for appearance but verbally refused to obtain a permit. Another resident came as a witness and also testified on his behalf. He was given 3 minutes. That gentleman was interrupted as he spoke because one member of the board and the chairman interrupted him and stated that what he was saying was irrelevant. I found that to be insulting, and am sure he did also. The proper way to handle the issue was to allow the resident to speak, receive the arguments he had and then tell the resident that the argument was irrelevant and could not be used to support the case. There is no reason to be disrespectful. I was uncertain at the end if the argument was or was not relevant, due to the way it was handled. The motion was made and passed requiring him to change the fence and get the permit. He walked out saying he would not comply with the permit request, because he already had a permit for a pool fence. His modifications would obviously exceed the safety criteria provided by the original permitted fence. Here was a case of an apparent power struggle. The human aspect of the situation did not seem to be handled very well. This could end up to be a high cost legal action for the township for a relatively minor issue.

In my view, residents generally managed to present their proposals easily enough with the assistance of staff, but it seemed that many were in a position of compromise. They wanted their application variance to be approved but looked to the committee for ideas to get it approved. For this reason, it appeared that much more information than necessary was discussed. In some cases, the resident was drilled on specifications of the materials being used, when in my opinion, those questions were simply irrelevant to the case.

A desired outcome of a committee meeting should be consensus between resident and committee. There should be no feeling of superiority by the committee or a feeling of abused power upon a resident. There should not be a feeling of injustice. All should be logical, guided by the covenants and common sense. Thinking beyond the box in this case, I think we may be a little short in due process. If there is a feeling of injustice, we should have a means for arbitration, if only to provide a means to hear a case of injustice, not on the technicalities of the covenants themselves.

Some of the case decisions considered by this committee can have significant financial impact. One application had a value of hundreds of thousands of dollars. For this reason, some serious attention to skills must be given to the process of appointing a committee, especially the chairperson, who must make decisions on order and psychological impact. In fact, Experience is important but more important are the philosophies and attitudes embraced by the candidate. A candidate must embrace the covenants as his bible; he must possess excellent interpersonal skills; he must embrace objectivity in decisions; he must be able to distinguish between right and wrong ethically; he must know and understand the value system of The Woodlands; he must be respectful to peers and residents alike. This is a demanding job that should not be filled with a person unable to put himself in the shoes of a resident that is making the application and at the same time put himself in the shoes of his neighbors. The integrity and general quality of our neighborhoods depend on the decisions of this committee.

I can see that individuals on the committee should have certain roles to fulfill the needs of this job. Within the committee, some knowledge of architecture is required in some roles, but I do not see the need to have “experts”. We do need experience in The Woodlands for every single member. Each one should be a resident. We need at least one member able to communicate well, one who is efficient oriented, one who has neighborhood vision, one who will defend a resident, one who is technically competent and one who has legal skills. The idea is to have a good effective team; we have to fill roles and skill needs on this committee for it to work as we would like it to work.

Attending a MUD Meeting in The Woodlands

2010-06-17T16:29:00.000-05:00

As clear as Woodlands Texas MUD? Attending a MUD (Municipal Utility District) meeting isn’t that bad! Yes, there are some technical parts of the discussions and yes, there are financial parts of the discussions, and yes, it is not the most exciting thing a person could do. I can say there were very few things I did not understand, but then again I have a background in drilling wells and finance.

Anyone can attend a MUD meeting. It is healthy to experience one, for both the board of directors and you. Showing interest connects the board to its customers and its customers to the district. I sure don’t advocate going to every meeting, but I do recommend that every resident attends at least one, preferably for the district providing water service to their home.

The MUD #60 meeting I attended this month addressed a resident’s issue with soil erosion and received reports from the various agencies affecting MUD business. Of high interest to us, is the implementation of the San Jacinto River Authority Groundwater Reduction Fee. This will be fully communicated to all Woodlands residents by Jim Stinson and staff in the JPA. Residents will likely incur an additional fee of $0.50/1000 gallons of water used, starting with their October bill. Concurrently, all the MUDs need to develop a higher well contingency fund for replacing a well, should that be needed. The cost of a well has increased substantially since the last raise of contingency fund collections.

An hour spent at a meeting can be an eye opener. Minutes for a Woodlands MUD are not as accessible as those for the county or the township. They are available per the Texas Open Records Act. A copy can be acquired at a meeting or from the district’s secretary. Current agenda is posted at the utility district office near Grogan’s Mill and Lake Robins.

Operations of a MUD

Each MUD has its own budget to manage. Each has its own assets to manage. Each district has authority over a defined geographic area. Here in The Woodlands, for efficiency purposes, maintenance and financial services are aggregated and shared among the districts. This practice helps them to keep operating costs down. Each MUD is responsible for its entire service process. All MUDs here have an interlocal contract for those shared services to the Joint Powers Agency (JPA), a nonprofit created for this purpose. The district scope of authority is limited to the reclamation, drainage, acquisition, and distribution of water. It includes the streams and ditches associated with water runoff, as well as the infrastructure required to provide those services. A MUD has no limit on capital investment. The Board of Directors consist of five elected residents of the district. Every even year (e.g., 2000, 2002, … 2010), there can be an election on the first Saturday of May. If there are no challenging candidates, incumbents are automatically elected and there is no election. Each board elects representatives to serve on the Joint Powers board. Taxation is by the MUD. Those elected represent the tax dollars paid by residents in the MUD district. Taxation is driven by capital expenses, i.e., sewage facilities and wells. Bi-monthly water bills are for sewage, water and cost of operation. Now we head into a new era, where surface water will begin to play an increasing role in our potable water supplies, raising the cost of water to the district. For many people, watering lawns likely will eventually be cost prohibitive.

Some but not all resident issues with drainage or water supply can be addressed by the board. Sometimes, residents work directly with the JPA to resolve problems. For example, I recently assisted a resident, to resolve a long standing serious problem with sewage flooding in her home. The JPA came up with a solution that should fix that problem.

In 2010, there were no challengers to the board in this district. To challenge an incumbent, one must follow a procedure outlined in the charter. Contact your local MUD representative for timing detail and procedure.

References

1. The Woodlands Joint Powers Agency

2. San Jacinto River Authority

First Township Board Workshop Meeting - June 17

2010-06-12T12:37:00.000-05:00

The Woodlands Township Board of Directors will conduct its first Board of Directors Workshop on Thursday, June 17, 2010. This is not intended to be a voting meeting, but can be. Looking at the agenda, this will have a single vote, since there is a consent list for approval. This will be one of two meetings this month for the new seven member board to manage the affairs of the township. This meeting will be held at 9am at The Woodlands Township Board Chambers, 10001 Woodloch Forest Drive, Suite 600, The Woodlands, Texas 77380. About one week afterward, a second meeting for the month will be in the evening at 6pm at the township service center on Lake Woodlands, across the street from the United Methodist Church. The intent of that meeting is to make decisions in the presence of interested residents. We all hope that residents take more of an interest in what occurs. I plan to be at both meetings. Do you? Link to Agenda

The Mounted Police Contract - Alpha and Omega, the beginning and the end

2010-05-25T16:22:00.000-05:00

Most people are aware of the mounted police in the Town Center of The Woodlands, Texas. Alpha and Omega is the company providing this service by horseback for us. You can hardly miss their red uniforms that sort of resemble the Royal Canadian Mounted Police. That image generates a small town atmosphere, so the township concept is boosted by their presence, so it is believed. We have them deployed in various zones within the Town Center as a tourist attraction. Just like the transportation system, however, we tend to lead people to believe these mounted patrols serve another function, that is to supplement the policing of the community. They are not policemen at all and, in fact, cannot secure your safety. They serve no useful purpose at all in regard to law enforcement. Some people will say they are useful in spotting crime and reporting it. In reality, they are no more effective in doing that than any resident who has a cell phone, and almost all residents have cell phones.

The other day I was at Walmart at FM 242 and I-45. I noticed two mounted police patrols in the parking lot there. Then I wondered. Why are they here? Walmart certainly does not present the image we need for a tourist, and the likelihood for a tourist to be present at Walmart sure seems to be small! I have no reason to contract these mounted people at all. If I would see them only at the parks, I would be more apt to support their presence, but why do we have them in the parking lot of the mall, Walmart, and other large commercial locations? These large commercial enterprises have their own way of protecting their businesses and managing security. Perhaps in isolated circumstances, we have a need for them in events and certain hours of the evening to help promote our community. Yet why are taxpayers bearing the burden for this extra amenity? The cost of it is atrocious! Some close to the checkbook say that the visitors are paying for them and this is what attracts them here. The horses are, after all, sort of a mobile petting zoo and children like to talk to these colorfully outfitted people on top of horses. Even adults find conversation with the riders interesting. We find that the primary functional reason we have them is to dispense information and to help people find their cars in the parking lots.

Let's take a look at the contract. Budget time is coming up very shortly. Don't you want to know what agreements we have and the alternatives the Woodlands Township Board of Directors should be considering? There will be seven directors charged with making a decision to continue this program, cut it back or replace with a new one. I will give you their email addresses soon, although you can find those addresses on the township website. You will be able to copy and paste those addresses from this site onto an email to correspond with them.

So I want to bring this contract to the attention of residents in The Woodlands. We pay Alpha and Omega company $39.10 for each patrol hour. That is about double what we pay for a Sheriff deputy officer according to one of my sources. Behind the scenes we are also paying for support personnel at the tune of $10.53 per hour. A patrol person is called a Trooper. Troopers provide a courtesy to visitors of Town Center. They are charged with providing information to patrons of the commercial area, but if they see some crime, they are charged to report it immediately, just like a resident would be expected to do. They are to help people find their cars in parking lots as well. The contract provides for a maximum of 700 total Trooper hours per week. Clerical support is a 40-hour maximum week. This three year contract ending in 2012 may be canceled with a 30 day notice. If both parties agree to change the contract, the contract can be modified.

Value of the contract is $1,514,920 for 2010. Alpha and Omega was selected based on government staff criteria from two bids. The competing company bid was $1,361,370.

Alternatives have never been defined that I can find. Back in TCID days, there may have been alternatives to the original concept, but we don't seem to have a Board of Directors these days trying to conserve on spending.

What alternatives can I envision?

1. Smaller presence - For this alternative, I suggest Town Green Park, the pavilion, down on the waterway and the conference center. That makes four locations, 6 days a week. As a rough simple cost estimate, let's say it takes 1/2 support person and 4 Troopers to provide that service. And let's say each patrol would be 50 hours. Per year, it would cost 52* ((20*10.52)+(50*$39.10))= $417,581. That would be almost $1,100,000 savings in 2011, more if we can cut this contract this year. I don't see any reason to continue spending so much for the remainder of this year. This is called "reduced services" by the directors but not in my book. I call it "service by need", not "service by want".

2. Removal of service altogether - Forget the image. People do not come here for the horses. They come for the waterway, the fountains, the other amenities and attractions. Save an additional $471,581.

3. Drop the contract and solicit new bids for reduced presence. That would likely lead to a smaller rate since we do not have to contract such a large company to provide the services and we can go out for bids again. That might save an additional $50,000.

4. Replace the entire mounted horse service with cameras. I cannot price this, but it would necessitate monitoring personnel and a station. This is a common practice and enables visual contact with law lawbreakers from high strategic points using technology and monitoring staff to add additional security for all critical areas in the Town Center. This would require a capital outlay for a communication infrastructure but probably could share some of the county's resources.

5. Replace the entire mounted police with bike police patrols. No cars would be required. They could operate out of the existing Sheriff building near Town Center or Constable police office nearby. A deputy should cost us about half the amount of a mounted Trooper. 12 policemen patrolling on bikes would cost approximately $639,600 per year, a savings of more than $900,000. We could probably shift some of the township patrols and thereby increase police manpower in the villages for increased security services. One option would be to take perhaps three existing patrolmen with cruisers, shift them to the villages and then put six patrolmen by bike in the town center. There would be no cost for cruisers. True, they would not be wearing red uniforms and they would not be on horses, but maybe they could ride horses. I don't know the answer to that question, but I believe the bike provides a faster and more effective response to crime or call.

We could mix and match these alternatives. There are likely many more scenarios. If you can think of any, please let me know through the comment section. During the budget process, you should demand your board of directors to give you the alternatives considered, why they selected one (hopefully the best that fits the community) and say exactly why they rejected the others. That is their responsibility in managing your money and communicating back to you their stewardship of it.

Election 2010 Apathy and Politics - Randy's opinion

2010-05-21T11:14:00.002-05:00

I have heard various accounts of what happened on May 8th. Each one has its merits. However, most skirt the real issues by just calling the turnout “apathy”. One person characterized the 92% no-show as the "shame of America". From what I observed, the lack of turnout has numerous reasons that could collectively be called apathy. Many residents here believe the local government is complicated and beyond their available time and effort. Why vote on something that you don’t really understand, especially when things seem to be OK? We have had this problem ever since I moved here and long before. Apathy is just “leave it to the others to determine”. If anything has changed since we became a township, we have a much better voting turnout than we did before, but the quality of the turnout may not have been so great. The turnout in my precinct was probably the highest ever, but not good enough to make a difference.

I’ve heard this question - "who knows what is right anyway?" And in some cases - "I don't even know what directors do! Do they have job descriptions?" Then there is the other simple perspective - "I go vote for someone I know, but I have no idea what the issues are. I trust the person, not the words." Personally, I understand both viewpoints. As a voter, I have been in both places. Circumstances around an election can create a feeling of ignorance to many and discourage people from coming to the polls, but that does not adequately describe what happened.

There were basic politics not too difficult to understand in this election. One candidate sought his position through one issue, thinking that issue was significant enough to get attention, and his solution would get him a position on the board. Nope. That does not generally work. The public was leery. Crime and policing seemed overstated anyway. There were other candidates who did not clearly set themselves apart from the incumbents; change is usually needed to take a position away from an incumbent. My team thought we had a good shot at Robb, because of his attendance and voting history, along with a solid issue platform which would have retained the waterway strategies of TCID for tourism and commercial expansion, but at a much lower cost. None of that seemed to matter, as it turned out, due to apathy and personal loyalty. Then there was a third person who entered the contest the same day as I did. She was endorsed by what I call the “anti” group of people. I am not an anti-establishment type of person; I am just a resident who wants to have an affordable quality lifestyle. I know how to get it done and why one needs to do it. The fourth candidate was not seriously running, so he was not on our radar.

It is tough for the working resident to sort out the issues and be able to make an informed decision on them. In this election, the voter had significant information provided by The Villager and the League of Women Voters, in addition to candidate websites and literature paid for by candidates, but many residents were not even aware of them. Unfortunate to challengers, the safe position for many voters is to vote for incumbents. After all, they have the "insights" into how things are run and have a great deal of knowledge and contacts, right? Actually - wrong! Can you blame the voters? Yet there could be significant consequences from that attitude. Status quo through incumbent support eventually leads to a decay of living quality and lost opportunities for improvement. In this case, leaving it to others holds fast to the commercial-centric doctrine in lieu of residential needs. Consequences of this doctrine are not seen for the moment, but when the time comes, they will become evident. Then it is too late. Remember the stock market? Despite all the communication attempts, our residents generally remain an uninformed public.

Leaders of the community have a job to do in order to get more voters to participate, but that would not serve them well. They need to educate the public in a way that is clear and short, not in the terms of those seeking deep understanding, but that is not going to happen. Many of us question the status quo, but many also defend it as a safety net. A candidate's challenge is to gain voter confidence, so that the voter will truly listen. I understand that. I dealt with it daily when I was trying to describe my position on issues during the election. The more depth one wants to know, the more difficult it becomes to get the point across. The bottom line is that the public wants to elect candidates it can trust to make the right decisions for it, never mind the issues. That becomes the psychology of endorsements. What I call "limelight advertising" is reality in the eyes of many. Focus on the people around the candidate instead of the person. That hides the candidate's capabilities and presents an image rather than a person. It is also a social issue, blinding to the eyes of those who are not interested in local issues. It takes the common resident to vote in order to make a difference.

I felt most issues were simple rather than the reverse. Spending too much, wasteful spending, the need to have better alternative and contract selection criteria, the need to measure better, and last but perhaps more important than anything else, the absolute need for a director to tend to the business of the township instead of being absent from decision discussions and voting. Some people argued that work conducted behind the scenes of the township board meetings was more important than attendance at board meetings. I strongly disagree. Government should be transparent and arguments visible to the public. Otherwise those working in the invisible background should not claim any responsibility for successes. The evidence of performance is at the board meeting when one discusses a proposal and casts a vote. That participation could also be evident in open discussions with the public, but that is rarely seen in local politics. We do have town hall meetings for this purpose, but they are not sufficiently leveraged to affect many projects. Hot resident issues can be heard at these meetings, but they are not very frequently discussed with residents. I conclude that the Board of Directors remains a closed door operation to most of us, with political influence constantly used to gain support for individual ideas and perspectives behind the scenes. As long as that happens, we lack diversity in decision making, and our money is inadvertently channeled into pet projects. That was evident in the strategic planning exercise. Residents were not invited to participate in those proceedings, but the budget is justified on the outcome of that process.

So what happened out there on the 8th? I witnessed three groups of residents. (1) Those who feel like they don't have sufficient exposure to the government in The Woodlands or have no interest in local issues. These folks normally do not vote in local elections. This group constitutes at least 50% of the registered voters. (2) Family life comes first - hey it was Saturday. During the early voting there were homework assignments, getting home late, leaving early, and the old 50+-hour work week. No time for voting. This group is also very large and comprises most of the remaining 92% no-shows. (3) The voters – 8% of the registered voters who are oftentimes die-hard Americans, involved in local issues, appreciating the opportunity to speak out, and selecting the candidates who they deem best to serve the community. They are exercising their American privilege to choose.

In the 8% who did vote, I can think of six categories. (1) Status quo - give me an incumbent. I am afraid to change; (2) First on the ballot; (3) Loyalty: I know the person, have organizational ties, or I am from the candidate’s village; (4) Name recognition: I have heard of the person; (5) Issue-centric: based on ideals, desire for change, or values; and (6) Duty: I am supposed to vote. Research often occurs at the polling location for these people. I believe the majority of the 8% group did their homework and were prepared to cast their ballot on arrival at the polls, but most of them voted personal loyalty for at least one candidate. If one looks at the voting demographics, I suspect the median age of voters was very high relative to the median age of the registered voter community.

What did the candidates do to get voters to the polls and vote for them? Money buys votes. There is no doubt about it. With money, you can also claim about anything you want. You have name broadcasting power. You can buy the biggest, the most, and the labor to get your message to the population. If you are an incumbent, you can claim virtually anything that went right when you occupied the position, to be your personal accomplishment. If you did not vote against it in an open meeting, then you are safe. You can also buy a following of people. If you have organizational power, you can influence your people's role and support from within the organization, including financial support.

Standing out in the hot sun earns votes. Being the last voice or image a voter sees before going into the voting booth is highly valued by the candidates. Being on location to greet them is appreciated by voters. I guess that depends though. I felt that the “hawking” done by candidates at the early convenience election location was frankly distasteful. Many voters chose not to be bothered and parked where campaigners were not allowed. The hawking had no value in attracting voters to the polls, but possibly helped to persuade them to cast their votes for some candidates. I was one of the few who preferred to go house to house and ask people to come out and vote. Calling friends brings loyal supporters to the polls. Going door-to-door educates the public. A personal “please vote” goes a long way.

Some of the things I heard occurring behind the scenes of this election made me bristle. Politics are not exactly ethical, you know. Candidates can be ethical, but their people may not. Signs were stolen out of yards for example under the cover of darkness in apparent attempts to remove advertising of targeted candidates. There were even reports of coerced contributions of skilled labor. Some activities by “supporters” disappointed me and some advertisement falsehoods disappointed me. There was no avenue to contest those claims except to spend more money.

In this election, residents were blasted by propaganda in every media possible. Many did not want to be blasted, so they turned it all off, throwing away the newspapers, and not answering or ignoring the calls. I heard "enough already" several times. I sure felt that way myself. "Another d*^# call from a machine!" How is it that a candidate can use a machine to call your home numerous times when you are on the national no-call list anyway? Is that ethical? Is it breaking the law? Also, why would anyone call from a church when that is against IRS regulations? Why did I get a call from Tommy Williams? Why did I get a call from Kevin Brady? Politicians were actually advertising themselves on someone else's campaign contributions. Maybe robo calls should have said "This has been a paid political advertisement for Tommy Williams and Ed Robb by the campaign committee for Ed Robb." Why would anyone spend so much money anyway for a non-paying job? Ego? Issue? Ideal? Fun? Experience? Why? I am a voter and a stakeholder in this government, so I ask these questions. Don’t you? What is the motivation and why do certain political figures want to have a certain candidate in office, especially in light of that person’s past performance? Some people have connected the dots and made their own calculated conclusions. Advertising can be informative and appreciated, but the repeated immersing of people in it is not.

Personally, I had one reason to run for office. I believe what has occurred on the board is not exactly right. That was exemplified by the all out campaign spending to maintain control of the waterway spending strategies and other projects. I bet there were some people who would have raised $100,000 and spent it, if they thought that was necessary to reach their goal. I draw parallels with the spending of our taxes. That leads me to think there is big money in getting all those people into office. Doesn’t it to you?

Look back at who endorsed the candidates and start asking yourself some of these questions. Politics here appears to run much deeper than any concerns about The Woodlands itself. Those currently in office are not suspected of neglecting township business in my mind, but I know the job can be done better at a lower cost. Government watch groups are chasing the money trails to check if there is foul play with money. They believe through those connections that we have an under-the-rug political machine operating here. They insinuate that some of the people on the board have personal agendas. The suspicion is raised to a much higher level when one looks under the umbrella of endorsements and favors. It is not about the quality of living in The Woodlands. One person compared it to Chicago. That was because of the apparent money trail and endorsements. Well, let's see, a church where candidacy was announced from the pulpit without equal time to others (perception: my organization, I can do what I want). This raised the question of church vs. state in the minds of many. If one would compare the voting records against the church's membership role, some say the outcome would be obvious. I do not plan to conduct that study, but perhaps some organization or watchdog group should.

I have heard these thoughts from several sources, some from activists and others from long time residents. Several people say they are afraid to speak out, because they fear that they will not be heard in other matters, or their business relationships would be impaired. Influence and power drive them to be quiet. I am not one of them. My strategy is open and much easier to understand. We need to focus on one thing here – Be a great place to affordably live, that serves the entire family and community. Everything else takes a back seat.

For me, my values stand with those who originally came here, who developed the feeling of a hometown, those who walked to the store, even at night to get a gallon of milk for breakfast, in the darkness of the tall tree shadows. That is the way it was when I moved here, and that is the way I seek it to be in the future. Some people say we should not be out at night. Bah humbug. Quality and security is not defined in that way. Quality is defined and measured within certain focus points, namely safety, amenities, mobility, pollution, affordability, services, livable homes and our natural forest. Excellence in mobility gives us the complete freedom to move about anytime of the day or night. If you make the place not livable, then it is not the community we have known with the advertised values seen in marketing.

Residents missed an opportunity to make a difference on May 8^th. Other opportunities will come along as life goes on. My hummingbirds returned to the yard five days after the election; I am going to double the number of grandchildren this year with my son’s announcement on Election Day. Yes, there are better things to do, but I do want to thank my supporters for their confidence in me. A person can only offer to help. Some force it down the public. I will not. The community will likely continue to flourish but at a higher price than necessary. It will be a community of distinction, but maybe not one of quality. We continue to grow, but we are beginning to see deterioration, and we are only two years into the township. Now seven directors will manage your tax money. One of them was absent from voting for 37% of the decisions for the past several months. His loyal following and political allies voted for him to be on the board. 92 % of our registered voters remained quiet and allowed that to happen. If you are one of those quiet ones, will you allow it to happen again next year and the year after? What will it take to get you to help drive your own destiny?

Transit Consulting Contract 2010 - Woodlands Township

2010-05-15T20:33:00.003-05:00

Two contracts of The Woodlands Township should be on residents' radar during the next few months. The Goodman contract was budgeted and let for transit consultant services, primarily for trolley and water taxi services. The other contract will be considered in a separate article.

The total contract is for $100k. It is to advise the township and provide reports on air quality to H-GAC (Houston-Galveston Area Council)as part of a pilot project, in addition to the transit consultation. $20k is to provide a recommendation for transition of the water "taxis" to the township. That includes the capital improvements needed to bring the boats up to specs that includes dining and completing the maintenance facility for the boats. It does not include a look into alternatives such as custom pontoon boats. Another $22.5k is included to pursue funding sources from federal and state agencies, among others. Another $22.5k is allocated for interfacing those agencies.

Additionally, at a cost of $27.5k, Goodman is contracted to conduct a survey for determining the interest and value of conducting a pilot trolley program between the village centers and Town Center. In this survey, residents will be asked questions at each location. The results will be compiled and reported back to the township. Residents in apartments and homes nearby to the village centers will not be part of the survey unless they visit the village centers and participate in the process there. It seems to me that multi-family dwellings would be a primary source of passengers for such services.

Right now, I am unsure what the actual vision is for the pilot program. Perhaps the contract includes that, but if so, it was not evident. The questions are apparently designed to see what interests residents have, so the vision should come out of those questions.

The trolley system in Town Center has been quite successful. If you have not ridden on one before, I highly recommend doing so, just to have a feel for what the service provides. With a trolley system to the villages, an avenue would also be introduced to visitors and tourists to go into the village centers to eat at a restaurant or shop at a boutique. I am hopeful that we can produce a good vision that serves both the public and the visitor, to reduce gas emissions and take traffic off of our roads, while stimulating the financial health of our village centers. A trolley system has a high chance of success in my mind to improve mobility here. The same question gets asked though. Should that be a function of the government or a private enterprise?

On the other hand, the operations of the cruisers is not a good investment, at least as currently defined. Goodman has already delivered on that part of the contract. They reported a probable loss of $240k annually is expected. However, with some tweaking and additional ridership, the operation could break into the black by "privatization" through the CVB. The taxis are perceived as a major component of drawing visitors to The Woodlands. They are perceived to be the unique difference between a visitor electing to come to The Woodlands in place of another nearby destination in the Houston area. However, the ridership statistics do not demonstrate that conclusion.

The Woodlands Development Co owns the taxis free of any federal dependencies or commitments, and it owns the underlying interest in the waterway corridor. The Federal Transit Administration owns an equitable interest in the waterway corridor. The development company has a long term agreement to extend the waterway westward to the lake. They have acquired federal ARRA money to extend the waterway starting this summer, along with the maintenance facility. Additionally, the company is arranging for federal funding of another parking garage next to the existing one on Lake Robbins at Six Pines.

Another project to fund with federal money, is a fleet of electric cars.

So it goes. The development company has plans for additional services and eventually we will have to assume some of that operation. It would be good to have the corresponding proposal and expected burden on taxpayers. I have yet to explore that part of the development company's plan. I just hope the board is aware of this and has visibly bought into the idea before the project is initiated. What is the plan and when does the township take over the operation and at what cost? I suppose those are the questions for the board.

Related Links
+ Federal Transit Administration

Election 2010 - No shows at the polls

2010-05-11T17:14:00.007-05:00

Have you wondered as I have about the no-shows in The Woodlands Township election, 92% of registered voters who did not vote? I took some proactive steps as I canvassed neighborhoods to check on the pulse of voters. What I found out was simply amazing!

Top Issue	Number	Percentage	Percentage removing the no issues and unknowns
MUD	2	1%	1%
Other Svcs	2	1%	1%
Trees	5	2%	3%
Other	4	1%	2%
Schools	1	0%	1%
Parks	0	0%	0%
Mobility/noise	12	4%	7%
Animal Control	2	1%	1%
Garbage	0	0%	0%
Crime/law enforcement	17	6%	10%
Safety	4	1%	2%
Alerts/watch	1	0%	1%
Ad valorem taxes unfair or too high	17	6%	10%
Common area maintenance	4	1%	2%
Covenants and related services	16	6%	10%
No issues	104	38%
Unknown	53	19%
Big government and local politics	17	6%	10%
Against commercialization	5	2%	3%
In favor of commercialization	2	1%	1%
Loyalty	4	1%	2%
Total including no issues and unknown	272	100%
Total less No issues and unknown	168	62%	100%

This was not a scientific survey. There was no attempt to balance demographics or lifestyles. It was collected solely from middle class neighborhoods. I did sample different types of neighborhoods. All villages are represented by approximately equal numbers. Generally speaking, each village was different and each neighborhood was somewhat different in responses. A total of 168 unique responses were generalized into categories. The question was "What is your top concern in The Woodlands?" Five categories accounted for 47% of the total. Some people skirted the question, which resulted in the 19% unknown. The "No issues" category came primarily from newcomers, who explained they had not been here long enough to understand local issues. Some were perfectly content with the way things are run. Others just do not understand the political arena nor how things work here.

Safety signifies true safety issues such as children in the middle of the street without adult supervision, or ants on the trails establishing a high risk to allergic children and adults. Crime concerns are mostly from the press or politicians, not any first hand experiences except for one. Mobility issues were generally the result of living close to a major road. "Close" is rapidly changing from being the adjoining street to the major road, to three streets away from the major road. Access and noise were the focus of those discussions. Loud trucks and motorcycles are the primary concern, but the constant hum of traffic is also irritating.

Covenants were large issues in several neighborhoods. I have passed on the complaints to the administrative staff. I found issues in almost every village.

The big government category is a serious one. Many people beyond this exercise have expressed their concern about putting too much power in the hands of a few, especially when it seems there is a little voting club along with what appears to be some rubber stamping and inept, unprepared decision making. Term limits has been suggested to overcome the "been there too long" and to remove defensive attitudes associated with pet projects. After all, taxes belong to the public, not the government.

So what gets people out to vote? You can immediately strike off the "No issues" crowd or in this case 37% of the registered voters. They were happy. If we assumed the 19% unknown group also are no-shows, then we have 56% of the registered voters expected not to show up. So what happened to the other 36%? Could they have been out of town for mother's day? Some yes. Could they have had other priorities? Maybe, but my assessment is that at least 36% of the registered voters were just not sufficiently interested enough to go out and vote. Ball games, picnics, children activities, and all those things you want to do on a Saturday were beckoning on such a beautiful day.

How do we fix the problem? It is fairly hopeless. So what do candidates do? There is not much hope to tell you the truth. Incumbents get the draw because there are no intelligent voters. This is what some are saying and this is what will bring America down. People will complain when their taxes go up. Hey - not my problem say those who challenged the incumbents. People will complain when they suffer from a crime because of the wrong metrics and an ineffective police staffing method. They will complain when the traffic is bad. Those who can see the future issues cannot reach the general public, who is too busy to discuss the issues. Urban living is more complicated than people seem to realize. That makes the issues more complicated as well. What everyone needs is a means to understand the issues with little time invested. Based on the discussions I had, we are a society that crosses our fingers and hopes for the best. That is, things will work out out of natural order and process.

Elections are great but we won't have many contenders, given the lack of consideration of the process. Who wants to throw away their money on a public that does not care? This is a new The Woodlands? This is what it has become?

Consider that the 2% who responded with a "you are wasting your time here. He is my pastor" attitude. Instead of 2%, it probably turned out to be in the neighborhood of 25-50%. I will likely explain that in another article. These are the loyalty votes, not based on issues, not based on anything, except that the man preaches sermons on Sunday mornings, has lived in this community a very long time, and is an expert collector of people's money. Sad but true. There really is no way for the public to be educated. As it turned out, there was probably no reason for his team to spend so much money, but they were not sure. What is apparent is that the election for some reason was very very important to him and his team, enough to spend lots and lots of money to make certain he was elected for this two-year term. These two years are the critical years for establishing a new government. The people of this community will be hand fed into the desired results by those who are commercial-centric. Issues such as expansion west will be pushed onto the population of this community. You can expect the quality of life to continue to deteriorate as a result. My family is a victim of the general issue of development, so we know first hand about it.

If you are one of those who did speak out by voting, make sure your voice is again heard when we consider a new government, have a meeting on taxes, establish a budget, and every major major issue along the way. I hope to publish major subjects that need your attention as we go forward. There will be two meetings a month. One will be in the evening where you can speak out. Those who did not vote I do not expect to take part in any of the proceedings, but realize at least some of you missed your chance for good cause. I hope you participate in the meetings. Now I have to say that you will not likely be pleased with the opportunity to speak out. The Board of Directors will continue with the before meeting / after meeting method of resident comment. It is a cold governmental process. Residents will probably never be able to engage in the actual discussion and deliberation of issues. Well, maybe at town halls.

I hope this makes some people stop and think about what happened on May 8th and will help those interested to overcome the election process issues. We have only begun to fight. We will take it wherever it needs to go to get fixed. Maybe, just maybe by some remote chance, we will see some reforms, stoppage of arrogance and actual representation of the real public. I am not holding my breath.

Unions and Politics

2010-05-10T13:02:00.003-05:00

I have learned many things in this election. One of them is the lack of ethics in some activities. As many in The Woodlands know, our fire department has a union. That is not atypical but what they try to influence is simply not acceptable and not ethical. Candidates were asked to complete a questionnaire. OK, why not? I did not know that the deck was already stacked. The questionnaire was apparently for show only. There is one purpose for the process, to appear to be "fair". While candidates were doing everything they could to get their views to the public, the union was working as a special interest group, taking precious time away from the candidates and for what? For what I am about to reveal to you.

True, they are not yet employees of the The Woodlands Township, they could at least act like it. They chose the most likely to succeed to serve their special interests (spending more money than required, supporting programs that have no value to residents). For that reason, until they stop their (possibly illegal) attempts to swing an election, they will not get my support. I will advise all candidates to not complete their questionnaire next year.

When will the residents stand up for what is right? Some candidates endorse the union activities. This activity has to stop. I do not think it had much of an impact, but I noted a dark non-open method of approaching voters.

Here is a copy of the flyer passed out at the polls. At least an apology to the public is needed from those responsible. I have met the person who was passing these out before when I worked at the polls. I am told he is a representative of the union.

Notice that there is not a PAC (Political Action Committee) nor a union nor an association placed on this document. It is a product of the "employees" of the Woodlands Fire Department. Next time you see a firefighter, ask him why they tried to influence the election outcome. Try to get real information, not settle for just words that say nothing. They were out there at the polls. This needs to be investigated and whoever is accountable should be held accountable.

Our traffic and government transparency

2010-04-30T08:05:00.001-05:00

I think about this often these days. In my mind, we still do not have a transparent government. For example, are decisions related to development of our western frontier something our community should be concerned about? Are there decisions related to the mobility of the region in which our government should be making a stand? You and I have seen but not been involved in plans by TXDOT to expand The Woodlands Parkway to highway 149. The reason to expand? Development! Think about the effects of that expansion? Like one board member told me this week. "The western section of The Woodlands Parkway will be six lanes also." Well, if the western section will be six lanes, then the front part will be 8 lanes, or worse, a freeway! How do we protect our community from continued decline by utilizing our roads as commute freeways? Who is representing and protecting us? Is it the Township Board who endorsed the TXdot proposed widening of highway 242 for the entire length so as to promote more transient traffic through our community? Do you know that 50% of that roadway is for The Woodlands, but the remainder is for transient traffic? No wonder our crime rate continues to erode! I have heard soem interesting ideas in the past few weeks from residents on this subject.

Typically some of the most important issues are discussed behind "closed doors". Our politicians might be working on some of these issues privately, but the issues are in gray areas that everyone should be concerned about. The newspapers do not seem to be there nor residents. We live in a complex society that is filled with influence as a value to support enterprising individuals, organizations and companies toward their hidden agendas.

Do you want status quo in our government? I sure don't! Who is helping us? The development company?

What are The Woodlands resident issues found in our government request system?

2010-04-17T15:13:00.003-05:00

Type	Incidents	Percent
Events	1	0%
MUD	1	0%
Other svcs	1	0%
Trees	1	0%
Other	2	1%
Schools	2	1%
Parks	4	1%
Mobility	6	2%
Animal control	8	2%
Garbage	8	2%
Website	9	3%
Crime	13	4%
Safety	13	4%
Alerts/Watch	13	4%
Solicitation	15	4%
Assessment questions	17	5%
Other requests	21	6%
Streetlight repair	32	9%
Common area maint	46	13%
Covenants	55	15%
Information	87	25%
Grand Total	355	100%

I reviewed the 355 resident requests from the Township Request Database over the past three months. January 1st to near the end of of March 2010. Not all requests were from residents, but the vast majority were. Obviously from the data, all who reported an issue through the database had a variety of questions and concerns. You will note that I have distinguished between safety and crime. Safety had something to do with mitigating a specific visualized risk to life or health. Crime concerns were related to the news, or general statements about the crime reported outside of the view of the resident.

Information is a catch-all and can be about anything, such who to call on advice how to approach an issue. If information was sought for the Neighborhood Watch program, that was included in Watch. Mobility does not include all road issues. It is limited to change or safety issues related to mobility, whether by foot, bicycle or automobile. Common area maintenance includes park maintenance and water runoff from easements. Solicitation is usually a request to consider the use of a service provider.

The Township Service Request Database can be accessed at this link.

If you have any questions, please don't hesitate to place a comment or email me.

The Woodlands Independence from Houston

2010-04-15T11:03:00.002-05:00

Isn't it great to have a guarantee of not being governed by another city, especially Houston? We don't have their taxes, police force, their ordinances, their firefighting standards, their trash and garbage schedules, their environmental standards, their 911 call centers, or their standards for a "quality life". We set our own standards and our own direction. That was what I considered when we began our trek to govern ourselves.

I remember participating in the meetings with residents to determine what our issues were, where we wanted to go, and what was most important to us. Security and taxes were our utmost concern. Water should have been also, but our vision for that issue seemed further out then. Our water problems have accelerated as the build-out accelerated, and the Montgomery county growth significantly impacted water consumption. Slower reservoir recharging due to drought has also impacted the urgency to supplement our well water with potable surface water. Now that issue is probably our biggest tax threat.

I recall going door-to-door getting support from the community for all three propositions. I did not want Houston to annex us; the date they could do that was quickly approaching. They could annex us as early as 2014, and from all indications they would have strong financial incentives to do so. All they had to do was to build a fire station within a certain distance of our community and bang! They could have and would have done it.

I wrote several articles on the subject of those propositions, and many people read them. I did my own risk assessment based on the knowledge I had gleaned from working with many people on the project. That exercise took a lot of time, but it was well worth it. Today, I stand firm on what was done. That was a good decision. We have not lowered our taxes as much as I had hoped. In fact, the WCA has not lowered its taxes at all. I will write another article on taxes a little later.

Here are the links to articles I wrote on the Township creation (three propositions) back then. You can see I have cautiously supported the Township concept from the beginning and have never backed off.

1. Residents Value System
2. Road to Governance
3. Governance in a nutshell
4. Panel Discussion with Woodlands Decides
5. The Decision
6. Congratulations to The Woodlands

Good news to Indian Springs and Panther Creek

2010-04-09T11:09:00.004-05:00

Actually, the good news includes the Village of Creekside Park as well.

The start of the Creekside Park fire station on Kuykendahl is delayed until the 3rd or 4th quarters of this year due to delays in road construction. Therefore, the relative governing bodies decided jointly to accelerate the construction of the Indian Springs fire station and staff it with the personnel from the temporary fire station currently off of Gosling. This action will make Fire Station #8 (Indian Springs) operational before Fire Station #7 (Creekside Park). The Indian Springs Fire Station is now planned to begin operations in July 2011 followed by Fire Station #7 in January 2012.

After all the insistence that Fire Station #7 had to be done first and the urgency was tantamount, we now have a different scenario. It was not that urgent after all. Residents in Panther Creek and Indian Springs, including myself, have been asking to accelerate the Indian Springs Fire Station for a long time, even before the 2010 budget process. Now that some of the hurdles have been jumped for the Indian Springs Gosling location, that location is now more advanced in infrastructure and can proceed without the obstacles that Fire Station #7 has.

So residents and business owners alike in the southwestern part of Panther Creek and the southeastern part of Indian Springs are thankful that a better emergency response time is on its way to their homes and retail areas. Thanks to those who contributed to this decision.

Sometime this month, we should see the land acquisition agreements completed for both fire stations with final approvals for the project scheduled in May, with ground breaking for Indian Springs in July and for Creekside Park in January 2011. Also, those who are interested should be present at the DSC meeting in May to see the proposed plan and how these stations might impact residents' lives. The Indian Springs station is to be at the corner of Gosling and Flintridge.

2010 Woodlands Bond Issue Announced

2010-03-25T12:42:00.000-05:00

The Woodlands, TX (March 24, 2010)… The Board of Directors of The Woodlands Township issued $34.8 million of tax-exempt unlimited tax bonds today with an average interest cost of 3.82 percent.

The Woodlands Township Chairman of the Board Nelda Luce Blair said, “Our financial plan assumed a five percent interest rate, so this issue is going to yield significant savings to the taxpayers.”

The Woodlands Township’s Financial Advisor Drew Masterson said, “This rate is one of the lowest I’ve ever seen.”

The sale of today’s bonds comes after the voters in The Woodlands approved three different bond propositions on November 3, 2009, to fund fire services, park improvements and refinancing of association line of credit. The sale of the bonds included a very favorable bond rating of AA by Standard & Poor’s. The S&P noted The Woodlands Township’s strong economy, good financial management and limited future debt as strong positives for the rating, according to Chairman Blair.

“We’re very pleased to issue these bonds,” Chairman Blair said. “We are very pleased with our bond rating and very pleased with the interest rate. The voters in November asked for us to move in this direction, and today’s sale is reflective of their wishes, which ultimately benefits the taxpayers of The Woodlands. The passage of all three bond propositions shows that residents said that parks, pathways, fire stations and lower debt are important to their quality of life, and that they understood that these bonds will make those things possible.”

The winning syndicate underwriters in a sealed bid process included Southwest Securities, Citi, EdwardJones, Wells Fargo, and Stephens. These firms prevailed over three other bidders. Bonds were offered by the underwriters to initial investors at rates ranging from 0.73 percent in 2011 to 4.33 percent in 2030. Bonds can only be offered by the underwriters through the Official Statement, which will be posted on The Woodlands Township Web site.

The first proposition approved by the voters addressed fire department needs. Proceeds from the sale of the bonds will be used to construct two fire stations, purchase related fire equipment for these stations, provide payment of any emergency services district (ESD) debt allocable to the Township upon removal of certain territory from the overlapping taxing jurisdiction of the ESD, and any related issuance costs.

The second proposition approved by the voters addressed The Woodlands Township’s Parks needs. Proceeds from the sale of the bonds on the second proposition will be used for the construction of new parks and pathways pursuant to the Recreation Facilities Development Agreement and Construction Management Agreement assumed by the Township from The Woodlands Association, Inc. and The Woodlands Commercial Owners Association, Inc.

The third proposition approved by the voters addressed the refinancing of existing debt obligations from the community associations. In accordance with the terms of the Transition Agreement, the Township assumed certain debt obligations from each community association and related service companies on January 1, 2010. Proceeds from the sale of the bonds will be used to refinance existing debt obligations of $19.080 million assumed by the Township from the community associations and The Woodlands Fire Department, Inc., and to pay for bond issuance costs.

Click here for additional details.

The Woodlands Township Web site is at www.thewoodlandstownship-tx.gov.

Government control of association functions - deed restrictions

2010-03-08T07:00:00.000-06:00

We have a controversy in The Woodlands that has arisen from a single action. I will not direct my comments to the exact nature of the issue, but will direct my thoughts to the overall situation relative to the situation. This is also intended to review the process here so that residents have a more in-depth understanding of it. In The Woodlands, there are three organizational entities which enforce property covenants, otherwise known as "deed restrictions". The enforcement of covenants is not normally part of a government function. In this region, association fees are normally paid by residents to fund association functions, especially to provide covenant enforcement. In the merger of the township with the associations, the township government acquired legal authority through the legislature to bring covenant enforcement under its umbrella. This has inherent consequences that residents should understand. We should also understand why we have merged this function into the government rather than keeping it separate.

Our covenants in many ways are no different than other communities, except for a few values we uphold to make our community uniquely "The Woodlands" and to provide amenities for the type of resident for which the community is intended. For example, the community highly values its trees by design and vision from the master plan. This value includes the trees on home properties, as well as in green areas. A tree of 15+ years is recognized for its value to neighbors and the community as a whole. Therefore a caliper measurement of a tree's diameter determines its protection by property covenant. This same value is highly esteemed for public property owned by the township.

To enforce our residential covenants, we have a three-tiered system. On the frontline we have employees in the township who administer enforcement. They receive complaints, keep records, prepare and send out notification letters, monitor neighborhoods for violations, organize materials for meetings of the DSC and RDRC, and more. The Residential Design Review Committees (RDRC) is the second tier. This committee consists of resident volunteers elected annually by the community of each village to review covenant violations and decide on appropriate actions. The theory is that covenants are for the residents, and therefore actions should be decided by the residents of those village neighborhoods. I am the chairman of one of those committees, so I have been involved in the decision making process during my tenure of several years. It is the goal of an RDRC committee to be fair to the residents but at the same time enforce the covenants. A covenant is a contract between the community and the property owner. Therefore, it is legally binding. The RDRC committee members are not normally deeply versed in law, nor are the members necessarily property experts. They live in the same neighborhoods as those who seek changes to their property or have violated the covenants. They seek consistency in property presentation to the public. Those who serve should be and generally are citizens who have the same value system as the community and willing to spend their time to keep the community consistent with the master plan vision. Each decision is based on data collected from the covenant administrator who has been assigned to that particular committee, plus any committee member's personal knowledge of the situation. The RDRC does not have the authority to file lawsuits, nor does it have the authority to decide on final action of any sort. After the review of requests, the committee recommends an action plan to the property owner. It also recommends an action plan to the third tier of enforcement, if the owner does not wish to follow the recommendation, or the committee is electing some variance to the covenant. RDRC and DSC committee meetings are open. Each committee member follows the regulations of the Texas Open Meetings Act(TOMA). Residents are welcome and do at times attend RDRC meetings and DSC meetings.

The Development Standards Committee (DSC) consists of four appointed qualified residents and three Development company designates who act on enforcement of the standards. The Township Board of Directors is responsible for appointing individuals to this committee. Most of the time, this committee will agree with the recommended actions of the RDRCs but occasionally spots an issue and overrides a recommendation. I have seen only one of these instances in our village, where there was an issue with water drainage and the DSC took appropriate steps to investigate the design of the neighborhood, discovering something the RDRC did not know, and therefore took a different approach to the solution. This is the reason the committee exists, to provide a higher level of expertise on some issues and to provide a means for a resident to protest the RDRC recommendation.

So how does all of this play into what recently transpired at the township meeting? Our tax dollars are now used to enforce the covenants. If legal action is required by the DSC, money must be spent by the community. Legal mitigation of an issue happens when a resident either refuses to take the action(s) prescribed, or when the property owner cannot be found. The DSC has the authority to take a lien out on the property to pay for such actions. If the community pays for mowing the grass, or caring for or repairing the property, the property owner is required to eventually pay for those services. And if there are court costs, the property owner will pay for that as well, unless of course, the property owner wins the case. If the resident cuts down a large tree without permission, he will likely have to pay for replacement(s).

We do have residents who refuse to follow the covenants, even though the residents formally promised to do so by signature when they purchased (or rented) the home . Each and every covenant is to be enforced. Some people believe the trashcan regulation is simply frivolous, but it is serious. Cans left in view of neighbors and the public is unsightly and a nuisance to many residents. No resident has the right to interpret the covenants the way he or she wishes to interpret them. The trash can regulation is very important to some residents, and the regulation is part of the covenants. Making one part of it more important than another is not an option either. However, legal action is prioritized and generally taken based on the severity of the issue. If residents are routinely annoyed by unsightly property and the property owner refuses to comply with the action dictated by the DSC, legal action will be taken and that will cost taxpayers some money.

So the recent issue, noted as a "transition issue" by the Township Board, is one of accountability for taxpayer dollars. While the DSC is an independent entity, not regulated by the Township Board of Directors, it does not have spending authority per se. Covenant administration's budget for 2010 is $2,196,883 and the anticipated income is $30,000. President (Don Norrell) of the Township has signature authority for legal expenses. No one seems to actually have the authority to say "no" to the actions of the DSC to take these actions. Therefore the controversy - growing pains maybe, but also perhaps an inappropriate government function. The idea for having this function in our township government is efficiency and funding power to enforce the covenants. So if the township can intervene in the decisions of the DSC, the process becomes vulnerable to politics, which cannot be tolerated. Our covenants cannot be enforced based on the popularity of government official(s), nor on personal relationships.

I believe everyone in authority in the township does not want the Township Board of Directors to be a fourth tier in the process. They are not designated to be the last resort for a protest by a resident. How are the DSC committee members accountable? They can be removed by the Board of Directors if there are serious issues in conduct. The issue that triggered a discussion on the overall process and accountability debate, was one of timing and resident consideration. The resident asked to cut down a tree and apparently made some remarks on the character of one or more officials for their decision. A constraining order was issued to protect the tree(s), some saying that action was due to those remarks towards some officials. The restraining order occurred during the Christmas holidays. There is a history of residents occasionally cutting down trees, even if they are not permitted to do so. Sometimes the DSC has to assess the probability of that happening. A restraining order is the prescribed action in that situation.

Commentary

The question of covenant enforcement autonomy continues to haunt me as we go forward. I believe this Township Board of Directors has the correct perspective on autonomy, but on the other hand, there is the issue of financial control. Taking this one step further, perhaps we should not even have the covenant enforcement function in the government, but instead return back to a separate resident association concept, with fees levied on residents, instead of taxation, to fund this type of activity. Then however, we would lose the economic advantage of IRS taxation relief and probably suffer a higher total cost for this function. We would not have the financial backing of the large tax dollar base when we have to go to court and engage in a battle with one or more property owners. Therefore, I am not in favor for backtracking on government control of the function.

Whatever occurred in this case seems inappropriate to me on both sides of the fence, but whatever occurred would not change anything in the overall picture. The covenants must be enforced without political influence on the process. I see no reason to add another layer of decision-making. The RDRC recommended decision should normally stand, but it can be contested and overruled. The DSC action should always stand. Residents can contest its decision in court. That keeps the whole process autonomous with checks and balances, and like having the function in an association, it is not governing; it is simply enforcement just like a police law enforcement unit. So the township seems to want to reserve the right to intervene in court cases, because those cases will be in the name of the township. I believe we cannot do that. If it makes the township look bad or affects its image to the public, that cannot be the basis of enforcement; the action can only based on the enforcement of a covenant itself. There is compliance or there is not compliance. Certainly we need to have a contract for legal advice on what action to take sometimes as well as consider alternatives to filing a case in court. It is also wise to assess the impact of non-compliance and see if there is a real need to take a harsh action. That is up to the RDRC and DSC on how they conduct their business. This has worked well in the past from my experiences, but not saying it will always be so. Community associations almost everywhere also have these issues.

Legally, there are books written on the subject of associations that tend to make one want to have this function in a government, At Harvard, the issue of the power of an association was reviewed in "The Rule of Law in Residential Associations". As one might expect, there are varying views of this subject in other universities and circles of law. By having the function in the Township, we trump the issues of real government vs "democratic sub-societies". However if we maintain our position of autonomy, any related citizen rights issues remain.

Current candidate list for The Woodlands Township

2010-02-26T09:06:00.000-06:00

Candidates continue to apply for the Township board positions. As we stated in the last article, there are four positions, each defined simply by a number. Each one is an at-large position. Incumbents occupy each one with one incumbent dropping out for personal reasons, leaving that position slated only with new candidates. Nominations remain open for those four positions, but will close soon.

Position 1 - Claude Hunter (incumbent) and Robert Tyson are vying for this position. Hunter has been a cornerstone of the community for quite sometime, highly involved in everything and reasons out all issues. It will be difficult for Tyson to successfully challenge him, but not impossible. Tyson is new to the scene but has challenged WCA directors for quite some time. He will need to convince the public that he is a team player to make any significant inroads to this position.

Position 2 - Tom Campbell (incumbent) and Michael Donnelly are in this contest. I expect another person might emerge to join in this race. Donnelly, as a dissenter of the establishment, is a weak challenger, while Campbell is organized, issue-oriented, and always willing to listen to the community, having a significant following.

Position 3 - Lloyd Matthews (incumbent) has dropped out for personal reasons. He does not feel he can spend adequate time on the job in the next couple of years, so he was ethically obligated to step aside. We may see him back in two years. Those remaining in this race are Jeff Long, the last president of WCA. He is the strongest contender in that he has a great deal of experience in the community politically and has had significant influence on the transition to the Township. Running against him is Adam Muery who is starting a strong campaign based on policing the community. Muery is likely to make this race interesting. The last contender, Jay Mack Sanders is fairly obscure. I am uncertain of his doctrines or contention strength at this time.

Position 4 - Ed Robb (incumbent) has a strong hold on his position and has yet to be challenged for it. He is the pastor at the United Methodist Church on Lake Woodlands and has contributed significantly to the township board before and through the transition of government.

I believe there will be more candidates entering the election. Some are probably waiting to see who is added on the slate before they select the incumbent they want to challenge.

May election is creeping up on us - watch out for the new position-based process

2010-02-25T21:47:00.000-06:00

Subtle changes of process may be evident when you go to the polls this coming May in The Woodlands Township elections. Recent legislation changed the way nominees will be elected here. On May 8th, the Township election will not select the top vote getters at large, as was done in the previous election. It will instead be the winner of each of the new four at-large positions, i.e. the candidate who wins position 1, candidate winning position 2, etc will be on the board. Now how does one select a position to run for? Good question, responded some officials. The timing of application submission goes hand in hand with what strategy to select in campaigning. So to start, four candidates submitted their forms as soon as the process began. Generally speaking, one candidate chose to run for each position, like dominoes, occupying different spaces. None of the first runners elected to run against the other. So one assumes that the incumbents communicated with each other and chose to be separated into each of the four positions. That would make sort of a coalition, but it does not establish much except to make sure incumbents do not run against each other. This is the first time to elect by position, therefore incumbents filing for those four positions makes sense. There is nothing wrong with that as far as I can see; it is simply the effect of the changed law.

Instead of individuals competing each election, it becomes a system of challenging incumbents, not necessarily aligned on political boundaries or platforms. This is what happens in city elections when council candidates are elected by district. They have challengers to their positions.

The hometown feel of our community is changing with the legislation passed in the last session of the Texas Legislature. Like I say, it is neither good nor bad, just a change, looking down from 1000 feet up. Some residents were suspicious of the change and others were very critical of it, but the arguments against it have not been strong. I question the process but will wait til the end of this article to present my own thoughts.

In the prior election, some people observed weaknesses in the free-for-all at-large-position process. When voting, you chose three from the candidate list who you wanted on the board. Sounded like the top three would just naturally rise to the top. Yes, but you could have been canceling out some of your own vote. I heard several people voice a concern about that. For example, take the scenario below:
You cast all four of your votes.
Candidate #1 - receives 4 votes, you did not vote for this candidate
Candidate #2 - receives 3 votes, your vote included
Candidate #3 - receives 3 votes, your vote included
Candidate #4 - receives 3 votes, your vote included. You wanted this candidate to win most of all.

If you had cast only one vote, for candidate #4, your preferred candidate would have won, given the same results from the others. The result would then have been:
Candidate #1 - 4 votes , yours not included
Candidate #4 - 3 votes, yours included
Candidate #2 - 2 votes, yours not included
Candidate #3 - 2 votes, yours not included

A different outcome.

Bill SB2515 has these changes to the original legislation:
" (2) an election shall be called for the uniform election date in May of the next succeeding even-numbered year after the election held under Subdivision (1) of this subsection, for the election of four directors by [ add "position"] [cross out "at large"]. Each of the [The] four candidates [receiving the highest number of votes shall be] elected shall serve for a term of two years;"
- and -
" an election shall be called annually thereafter for the uniform election date in May of each year for the election by [add "position" ] of either three or four directors, as appropriate, to serve two-year terms."

Now with the conflicting vote risk removed, each voter can rest assured that his own votes do not affect his own selected candidates negatively.

In a positioning move for the election, the executive committee met last month and decided on names for the four positions to be put on the ballot. They named them "Position 1", "Position 2", etc etc. Each candidate will be allowed to run for one and only one position. A position is not marked by village, demographics or population. It is merely an arbitrarily named position, elected by the majority of at-large votes for that position.

I asked for the rationale behind our at-large position method, and have received a few responses. There were some interesting and relative answers by officials, but nothing from our Austin representatives, nor anyone who actually made the decision to write this new method into law. Therefore I will use what I have, since the rationale presented seems appropriate for the question asked.

It is believed by some that the old way facilitated groups or slates of candidates to run. It could then be a popularity schema, votes going to those who ran together, partied together, or had common ideas or lifestyles in common. They would naturally group together and even develop strategies together, maybe not on purpose, or maybe so. The new method would promote individuality and attract opponents to counter that individuality. Therefore, it would encourage those possessing the highest skills, enthusiasm and savvy to compete for a specific job (even though it does not pay anything). That would seem to be in the best interest of the public. It would promote more focused debates among those running for a single position rather than everyone debating everyone running for the positions that are up for election.

Coupled to that, one would assume there is rationale against geographic districts being established here. Indeed there is an argument against that. Should we pit geographic area against geographic area in the routine operation of the Township? If the Township was divided into geographic positions, it is feared by some that the mere fact of having area representation would detract from governing in meetings and in the voting process, for show and political reasons. Since the demographics of each area is homogeneous, a districting method would seem counter productive. You would want the board to act in unison on most issues. There is a lot of work to do. Quibbling and bickering on who is getting what and special area interests should be minimized in debate and in decision making, not saying that an area consideration be tabled, but be considered as part of the whole, not represented and defended by a board member's residential location. The new way encourages team decision making for the benefit of the whole and not special interests in geographic areas. Normally, districting is put into place to represent the interests of minority groups. We don't have the distribution of any minority in any special place in The Woodlands.

Commentary

Basically I agree in part with the view that in theory, we are ethnically and racially homogeneous. I also agree that we need unity of purpose and efficiencies on the board of directors.The entire community has been designed to prevent areas from being ethnically or racially overweight. That was part of the master plan. From what I know, Hispanics, for example, are spread throughout The Woodlands. I do however have an instinct on some demographics that are prevalent in some areas. For example, there are probably lower median incomes in the WCA part of The Woodlands (eastern) vs the TWA part (western). Additionally, the median age of a resident is likely higher in the WCA villages than the TWA villages. Age of the communities also play a role in the spacial demographics and necessities of areas. For example those living in Grogans Mill and Panther Creek have issues with aging streets and pathways, while those to their west may be more concerned about filling in missing links in pathways and planting trees.

Generally, cities have at-large positions and area positions. I personally believe it would be to our advantage to have three area positions and four at-large positions. That would be like a city government and would promote more trust in the community on where being represented. Having area districts enable lower cost campaigns and less effort to run for a position.

Saying that, we also have village associations to help in representing residents to the board. I have to wait to see how this works out. The villages have no voting power or authority, but resident issues are and will continue to be heard by the board. Therefore there are residents elected to village positions having significant influence on the board's decisions. This in my opinion should offset any representation issues.I hope residents partner with the board of directors to take the village associations more serious and demand that the voices in the associations be heard. That is where local issues should be brought forward. It is my opinion that the president of each village association should be charged with making local representation be heard. We are positioned to do this. Let's make it work!

Finally, it seems that in order to be constitutionally aligned with tax representation, there would be area representation. A government by and for the people means that an equal population-based tally of will is the only way to determine how tax dollars are to be collected and spent. Maybe we have that in our current law, maybe not. I am not a lawyer. We seem to be in a gray area of legal interpretation, from what I hear. So onward on the path to May 8th. Let's see what happens. The positions remain open for additional candidates.

CISD solicits feedback on next school year' s calendar

2010-02-08T18:32:00.000-06:00

The CISD website has a feedback question for residents and employees to input their preference for next year's calendar. It is especially important for parents with school age children to provide their feedback. In the comment form, make sure you identify yourself and state your position.

The difference is centered around Thanksgiving preferences. Calendar "B" has a full week and two weekends vacation for Thanksgiving, allowing parents to travel. One off day for the children is removed from the January schedule to accommodate the new alternative calendar. Teachers will be asked to begin one day earlier in August. School start and end will be exactly the same for both calendars.

Recognizing that parents might have to find additional care for some of their children is a motivator for the standard calendar " A". Calendar "A" is similar to the 2009-10 school year, with three days for Thanksgiving.

IndianSpringsGuy endorses the full week of Thanksgiving to allow more time for families to visit relatives and travel during this very important traditional holiday of our great nation. That would be calendar "B".

Parents, teachers and other affected residents of the school district, please provide your input for more effective feedback to the school board.

Click here to make your wishes known:
Conroe Independent School District feedback website

Census 2010 - how important is it to us?

2010-02-07T08:53:00.000-06:00

The simple answer - VERY! It is a trillion+ dollar issue, and the related decisions based on the Census endures until the next census in 2020! That is a long long time. We in Texas (and especially Montgomery County) are part of the few states and counties that are growing rapidly. We have the responsibility to ourselves to make ourselves known to the Census Bureau. The U.S. Census was established to count people so that they could be represented by our government which is for the people and by the people. I am a partner on the team, having taken a certification class, so I am able to "see" the process, and I feel comfortable with the process. The process is important and safe. Ten questions will be asked in ten minutes lasting for ten years.

Census Day will be April 1st. Questions will be answered on what your household is anticipated to be on that day. For example, if your child is going to get married and leave the household, that "child" should be interviewed separately, so that person can establish location and their residence situation independently.

Forms will be mailed to your home in March. Census workers will subsequently be visiting the homes of people who have not answered the questionnaire.

Every year, some $300 billion is distributed to states and communities based in large part on census data. In a high growth area, typically there are financial issues associated with the growth and maintenance of infrastructure and projects that are required, which would not normally be required if the population was stable and self sufficient. We need every person to be counted so that we get our share of the funds. The government's representation in decision-making for those funds is reorganized based on the resultant numbers.

How is the process safe? Do you know that if there is an illegal activity observed by a census taker at the home where that person is conducting business of the Census Bureau, the census worker is sworn to not report what was seen? He is not exempt from being summoned to court, but he will not cause any issue with the law. The worker is not an arm of law enforcement, nor responsible in any way for what he sees at your home.

The purpose of the visit is strictly to count people, nothing else, leaving the household as he found it, without any risk to the inhabitants. It is all about numbers - identifying the number of potential volunteers for community services, the number of voters, demographics of voters and residents for government programs and grants, etc etc. Numbers! Numbers to help the community, with no risk! The only risk is not being counted - then you have failed to help your community, your government to make decisions, to represent you. So please, do your part and get the word out to those on your mailing lists and social networks. This is a national effort, and you have the opportunity to promote the process.

How important are volunteers in The Woodlands?

2009-12-09T13:42:00.000-06:00

Volunteers have historically been the key to a successful community here in The Woodlands Texas. All governing functions have originated from these residents, some of whom have been elected and others as ad hoc volunteers. With the advent of a taxing authority, we will now be governed by a single volunteer board of elected directors to The Woodlands Township. This only replaces the governing constituents of the associations. There remains the necessity to operate our covenant standards enforcement with resident elected volunteers. There is also the continued need to have village associations with elected residents.

This month, the associations put together a "final" annual celebration for volunteers. Each year, the progress of the community is celebrated in a Christmas party as a "thank you" from the community for the work of volunteers. This is an event always appreciated by the volunteers and has in itself created an atmosphere of willingness to serve in our community. This year we had a live band but normally we have a DJ to play music. Those who I have talked to prefer the DJ over the live band due to of the variety of music and lack of dead time when the live entertainment takes a break. Many people decided to leave when the band took its break this year. Also the the service company staff always comes to this meeting and dance, and they enjoy the evening alongside the volunteers. Since we all work together throughout the year, this is a perfect event to cap off the year.

So I ask, is this the last of this type of celebration? Have we matured into something less hometown? I hope not. The community derives a great deal of benefit by the teamwork demonstrated in every meeting and event through the year. Maybe the Township can find this type of event useful to keep costs down and encourage continued resident participation in hometown activities beyond the village events. This tradition will be sorely missed by those who have grown to appreciate the contributions of fellow volunteers. We have tradition. I hope this was not the last of these year-end celebrations.

Montgomery Population Changes - Redistribution of Districts in 2010

2009-11-19T20:46:00.000-06:00

Every ten years, the U.S. census is taken, and from that census, county districts are redrawn based on population. New numbers have arrived prior to the 2010 census;these are predictions of the census results based on data collected by the U.S Census Bureau and the state. As many people here know, Montgomery County is a hot spot for growth, ranking high in job and population growth. The county has been exploding this decade (2000-2008). CNN Money Magazine stated in 2007 that the jobs have grown 38.3% from 2000 to 2007, ranking Montgomery County at 16th in the nation. The county is predicted to grow in population by a whopping 82% in this decade! This is significant and is a driving factor for planning action in this county. The country is taking notice of this.

Our County Judge, Alan Sadler, has assessed the distribution of this growth and believes there will be only one precinct that will be expanded to balance population growth in 2010. That will be a minor change. Precinct 3 should not be affected! Based on predictions released today, precinct 3 should remain status quo in area coverage in 2010. The reason for minimal change is that the population increases have been uniform throughout most of the county in this decade. The judge is getting a jump start on planning for next year when any redistribution must occur. He pointed out that our county growth in the 70's and 80's had significant impact on district boundaries but in 2000, there was not much change and in 2010, we can expect even less change. This is a booming county overall. No longer is it just a booming south county.

Newly available data is also exposing demographic change in our county. Of special note, our Hispanic population has been far below that of Harris County. Now the Montgomery County population boom is notably drawing on an increased influx of Hispanics, probably in all economic sectors. The Anglo population percentage is noted to have grown about 51%, where the Hispanic community will have grown by 128% over the past decade! As a comparison, the Harris County growth of Hispanics from 2000 to 2008 was about a 19% increase. Demographic statistics will show Anglos at 77% of the population and the Hispanics at 18% of the population in Montgomery County. Other ethnic/racial groups are a much lower percentage of the overall population. By comparison, Harris County will have roughly about 36% Anglo and 39% Hispanic (based on 2008 population estimates). Statewide, Hispanics make up some 36% of the population, putting us below the average. All of these statistics are based on the assumption that the 2000 Census is fully correct and that the data from births and immigration in subsequent years represent the population changes.

So what does all of this mean? Let's just take it in its simplicity. First, Montgomery County is growing at a tremendous rate. That translates to schools, roads, home development, commercial development, jobs, and other infrastructure expansions required to sustain the growth if current residents are not to be crowded out. Fortunately we are seeing a rise in employment even in this downturn of the economy. The numbers also show us that Spanish as a first language is on the rise in our county. That has significant implications in study programs in our schools, labeling of products and signage in commercial areas. It is an important factor in considering the future of our county.

From everything I have seen, I doubt if we will know how many of the Hispanics are eligible to vote. Assuming everyone is legal, the number of Hispanic voters may be different since Resident Visas do not give a person the right to vote. Voting influence of the community may not be as high as the commercial influence the Hispanics will have on our economy.

Although the current economy has slowed home and commercial sales, it has not stopped our growth. That growth also affects inflation by normal laws of supply and demand. The county remains a desirable place to live, work and play, and the commercial community is playing that up by attracting more and more businesses to the area. With all of that factored into the vision of the future, we can't help but feel there is no stopping this momentum. Our county judges are being challenged with this day after day. We will have more to say about this in coming days in the Commentary.

Woodlands Election Dates Announced

2009-11-18T16:19:00.000-06:00

The Woodlands election ballots will be composed of the village Resident Design Review Committee (RDRC) positions and village associations' positions. Each village has a separate ballot; only the positions open in that village appears on the ballot. Generally, about half of the positions come up for election each year in each village to encourage smooth transitions from year to year. These elections will be held annually according to the by-laws of those organizations.

Section 9.06 of the "WCA Covenants, Restrictions, Easements, Charges and Liens of The Woodlands" designates that 'Each RDRC shall hold regular meetings at least monthly and be "open" to all "Members".' This makes these meetings open to residents of the community. These elected residents act on behalf of the village to review violations and requests by residents. Requests first go through a quick process and if there are planned violations, the RDRC must get involved. Residents are afforded a second review on appeal if they think the Design Review Committee (DSC) will or should grant their requested plan, where the RDRC has denied it. Most issues are resolved by the RDRC, but the DSC has the last word. One RDRC will consist of about 5 residents. Often it is difficult to get sufficient residents to apply for these positions, so please try to participate if you can.

Village associations typically have a president, vice-president, secretary, and treasurer as officers. Additionally, there are generally representative positions to create neighborhood diversity on the elected board. So one village association will consist of 9 or 10 elected residents.

The Township has consolidated the Woodlands Election into one week, where we had two weeks in the past to vote. The election schedule this year will be:

Application for candidates - Dec 31, 2009 - Jan 21, 2010. One person may apply for more than one position. A resident can serve on both the village association and the RDRC concurrently. Application details will be found on the association's website which will be changing in the near future as final transitions are completed for the Township.
Early voting - there is no distinction this year between early voting and "election day". It is all at the same location, and the process is exactly the same - Feb 15-20 at the Community Associations building (across from the Methodist Church) at 2201 Lake Woodlands Drive. Just come vote one of those days. The hours will be announced later.

It is important for residents to understand the difference between the "Woodlands Election" and the "Township election".

The Woodlands election requires only proof of residency. If a voter is over 18 and lives in the village, that person is eligible to vote in that village election. Home ownership lays no role and neither does citizenship status or voter registration.

The Township election requires full voter registration and residence. It is conducted on official government election dates at county voting locations. In May, 2010, we will be going to the polls again to elect Township directors for the remaining open positions.

Community Elections coming up soon

2009-11-11T23:25:00.000-06:00

It wont be long before we need to show up at the polls again.

This time it will be for village associations and the village RDRCs. Both are important. Those elected to serve in the village associations will be engaged in more than social activities. They are often acting as an organization for resident concerns and maintaining a vigilant watch for improving the community. This coming year, they will take on a new role - one of a liaison to represent the concerns and issues of its residents to the Township board. The reverse will be true as well. They will be receiving information and guidance from the Township on village activities and issues on behalf of the residents.

Those elected to serve on RDRCs will be tasked with resident conformation to property standards. They enforce the covenants, hopefully in a way the community approves. This is the neighbor link to enforcement of standards. All meetings of the RDRC are "open", meaning that the members cannot conduct business except by prior notification of an agenda to the public and conduct their meetings strictly according to the agenda. Residents are invited to attend each and every RDRC meeting.

Please consider participating in one of these organizations and volunteer to be elected to one of the positions available in your village. More information will be made available when January rolls around. Look for how to participate and then go to the polls when the elections are held.

Election 2009 November 3rd

2009-10-15T19:38:00.000-05:00

An election is coming up on November 4th or earlier if you wish to participate in early voting. At this link, you can review the ballot²

Woodlands Propositions
There are three proposition for The Woodlands. All three are bond proposals. As stated elsewhere on this website, I endorse all three "FOR". These are very important for our community, enabling the township to issue bonds to borrow for payment of the specific constructed assets over the lifetime of the assets being constructed. Please refer to the articles under "References and Resources" for additional information and/or access to the township website. Page 2, second column.^{3 4 5}

Texas Constitutional Amendments
Woodlands residents will also vote on state constitutional amendments below. These are my tentative conclusions that I am sharing with all readers. However, I encourage everyone to read the resources provided and whatever else they can find that is "legitimate" and "trusted" to reach their own conclusions.

Proposition 1 :"FOR". Enabling a municipality or county to acquire land adjacent to military property, using bonds. Of course an election for each bond proposal would be required. The legislature would have to draw up the appropriate language.
Proposition 2: "FOR". Valuation of homestead residence solely on residence value, not potential commercial value. This is the fair way of property valuation. It has been a weakness in our valuation system for years. Although it will affect some government coiffures, I believe it is about time we protect homeowners against commercial valuations, which ultimately can drive them out of their homes.
Proposition 3: "AGAINST". Uniform standards and procedures for the appraisal of property for ad valorem tax purposes statewide. I do not think this is needed. Leave valuation up the counties. There are processes for contesting valuations in our county and it should be the same for all counties. .
Proposition 4: "FOR". Establishing the national research university fund to enable emerging research universities in this state to achieve national prominence as major research universities and transferring the balance of the higher education fund to the national research university fund. This would enable additional universities in Texas to participate in major research and become on even par with the traditional large universities - A and M, and UT. Our state has grown well beyond being a two major university state and we should move to the 21st century with the funding of other major institutions. There will be no additional taxation. In our area alone, we expect the University of Houston to graduate to a tier one school if this amendment passes.
Proposition 5: "FOR". Authorizing the legislature to authorize a single board of equalization for two or more adjoining appraisal entities that elect to provide for consolidated equalizations. This applies to The Woodlands. We have two appraisal entities - Harris County and Montgomery County. We may want to consolidate the two for The Woodlands for consistency of valuations. It makes sense when two adjoining entities fall under the same taxation umbrella.
Proposition 6: "FOR". Authorizing the Veterans’ Land Board to issue general obligation bonds in amounts equal to or less than amounts previously authorized. I see no reason not to do this.
Proposition 7: "FOR". Allow an officer or enlisted member of the Texas State Guard or other state militia or military force to hold other civil offices.This is just an oversight when Texas started the guard. There is no reason to exclude any member of the guard from other civil positions.
Proposition 8: "FOR". Authorizing the state to contribute money, property, and other resources for the establishment, maintenance, and operation of veterans hospitals in this state. Many veterans have to travel many miles to get hospital care because of the size of our state and the distribution of veteran hospitals. This enable the state to assist the federal government by contributing resources to the Veterans agency.
Proposition 9: "FOR". to protect the right of the public, individually and collectively, to access and use the public beaches bordering the seaward shore of the Gulf of Mexico. The shore should be open and public. This enables that to happen. Encroachment of water from erosion and has recently caused the loss of public beach access. Beachfront homeowners wish to protect their privacy and keep the public off of what used to be "their" land. This proposition is contested based on "squatter's rights". The open beach act should prevail.
Proposition 10: "AGAINST". Elected members of the governing boards of emergency services districts may serve terms not to exceed four years. Due to the nature of the services, I cannot endorse pushing someone out of control on the basis of number of years. Let that be determined by the election or appointment processes.
Proposition 11: "FOR". prohibit the taking, damaging, or destroying of private property for public use unless the action is for the ownership, use, and enjoyment of the property by the State ... Please refer to the reference on this proposition for the full text of the proposition.¹See the opposition arguments in the reference.

Voting Information

In Texas, early voting can take place for any county-registered voter at any voting location in that county. For example, if you live in Montgomery County and are registered in Montgomery County, you can vote at any of the Montgomery County designated locations in early voting. On the day of election, each registered voter may vote only at their designated precinct location.

Early voting will take place from Monday, October 19, 2009 through Friday, October 30, 2009. Early voting will not take place on the weekends unless specified otherwise. From October 19, 2009 through October 24, 2009, early voting locations will be open from 8 a.m. to 5 p.m.; from October 26, 2009 through October 28, 2009, polls will be open from 8 a.m. to 5 p.m.; and October 29, 2009 through October 30, 2009, polls will be open from 7 a.m. to 7 p.m.

Montgomery County early voting locations are:

Montgomery County Administration Annex

(Building with County Attorney & District Attorney Offices)

207 West Phillips – Conroe, Texas 77301

Malcolm Purvis Library

510 Melton Street – Magnolia, Texas 77354

South County Community Building

2235 Lake Robbins Drive – The Woodlands, Texas 77380

North Montgomery County Community Center

600 Gerald Street – Willis, Texas 77378

East County Courthouse Annex

21130 U.S. Highway 59 South – New Caney, Texas 77357

West Montgomery County Annex

19380 Hwy 105 West – Montgomery, Texas 77356

The Harris County early voting polling location will be open from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. The Harris County early voting location is:

134 W. Crystal Canyon Circle – The Woodlands, Texas 77389

On Election Day, there will be nine consolidated Montgomery County polling locations in The Woodlands Township and one location in Harris County for the Village of Creekside Park. The polls will be open from 7 a.m. to 7 p.m. The polling places are:

Precincts 69, 76, 81 - Mitchell Intermediate, 6800 Alden Bridge Drive

Precincts 58, 59, 70 - Bear Branch Recreation Center, 5310 Research Forest Drive

Precincts 56, 75 - Windsor Hills Clubhouse, One Windsor Hills Circle

Precincts 71, 78 - Buckalew Elementary, 4904 W. Alden Bridge Drive

Precincts 3, 61 - The Woodlands High School Ninth Grade Campus, 10010 Branch Crossing Drive

Precincts 31, 62 - Collins Intermediate, 6020 Shadowbend Place

Precincts 4, 48, 49 - Copperwood Apartments, 4407 S. Panther Creek Drive

Precincts 33, 67, 84 - Lamar Elementary, 1300 Many Pines Road

Precincts 32, 45, 79 - Wilkerson Intermediate, 12312 Sawmill Road

Harris County - Creekside Forest Elementary School, 5949 Creekside Forest

References and Resources

¹ Analysis of Proposed Constitutional Amendments by the Texas Legislative Council
² Example Ballot
³Township Bond Election Brochure
⁴ Woodlands Commentary Bond Update
⁵ Woodlands Commentary Bond Endorsement
⁶Texas Online Voting Central - Texas Registration database
⁷Tommy Willams Guide to Constitutional Amendments

Woodlands Township 2010 Budget Public Hearings

2009-08-19T12:00:00.000-05:00

As we take each step towards the first budget for the township, more residents are waking up to the opportunity to influence the outcome. Last night, the public hearing at The Woodlands Emergency Center proved to be a more informed, more aware, less emotional group than the previous town hall meeting on the same subject. Assimilation of the budget by more residents is producing more interest by people without political agendas, such as incorporation. To some people incorporation is the solution to all issues, but ask those who live in cities and see what they say. When the time is appropriate, we will consider incorporation, bringing to the table the pros and cons of following that path. One person at the meeting last night even volunteered to go to the City of Houston and renegotiate the agreement with that city to incorporate The Woodlands before 2014. This is supposed to fix our "policing problem".

In all reality, we do not have such a problem. The Woodlands is a safe place, but it is now an urban community that will have crime regardless if it is a city or not.

So putting the political aspect aside and just looking at the issues of the budget, many of the residents and board members are taking a fresh look at it. Don Norrell presented a fresh view of the same budget but this time had an alternative financial proposal that was discussed with the Sheriff's office. It is doable and in my opinion, the preferred alternative. I believe The Woodlands as a whole welcomes the redistricting proposal and wishes to act independently from the county which has significant budget issues this year and probably next year as well, limiting what we can do. That is, I believe we want to get on with it and fund what is required so that we have our own district with supplemental contracted deputies in 2010, not wait until 2011 and not have a phased approach to reach that vision. One of the suggestions in Mr. Norrell's alternative is to discontinue the patrol contracts with Shenandoah and Oak Ridge. Instead, use those ($0.5mm) funds for the extra $1.5mm dollars required to implement the project at the beginning of 2010. It was suggested that the remaining funds come from other undetermined projects that would be deferred by one year.

The trend of thought seems to cap the budget as it has been proposed, at 32.8 cents per $100 evaluation. It appears that the board asked to keep it there. That is a reasonable approach to me but we should be conscious of the public view of the budget and make adjustments to mitigate their (our) concerns.

The other project which needs adjustment is the Indian Springs fire station. Indian Springs is a mature village, now completed for quite some time. Many of the homes in the village were built in the 1990's. For five years, the plan has been to build a fire station for the village in 2010. That seemed like eternity as residents watched the service continuously decay as the traffic increased on Gosling and The Woodlands Parkway. The eastern side is served by station #2 at Research Forest and Gosling, so the trucks must deal with the congestion to reach the village. The response averages about 8 minutes. The maximum average of most fire fighting units is 5 minutes, that recommended by the insurance standards board (ISO). The current ISV level is not acceptable. In the proposed budget, the station is scheduled to be built in 2011. That means the village station remains in the long range plan. Another way to look at it is: the station has been delayed in favor of one in a developing village. Since the budget item has been scheduled by the WCA for years, the transition agreement has faulted on a critical service level. Therefore, we see this as a problem related to the 2010 transition to a new government. We would likely have a fire station in 2010 since the WCA and TWA acted independently on their projects. Last night, I was there to represent the concerns of Rush Haven residents. There were also residents from Trace Creek subdivision who have a similar service response. They also are concerned along with the entire ISV village board.

Personally, I was pleased to at least see the township board receiving and considering resident concerns. More than that, I was pleased to see the president of the Township working the residents' issues. That gives us all some hope and tells us that it is worthwhile to attend and provide our opinions and input to the board. I thank the chair person, Mrs Nelda Blair for being very patient with everyone. A great deal of passion was expressed, whether just perception or real, about the service levels of policing and the priorities in the budget.

Hopefully the board will realign budget priorities to meet the expressed needs of the community.

Budget Police Proposal 2010

2009-08-02T08:00:00.000-05:00

The new policing plan proposal of the Township will provide consolidated service for the entire community. It appears to be a cost effective program and accomplishes the goal to merge all resources into one package. Let me start by saying I endorse the proposal, because while reading this article, one might think otherwise. I do question if the proposed operating unit is sized properly. My focus is on the metrics and doing the right thing for the right goal. This proposal adds 0.9 cents to the budget. What is a $200,000 homeowner asked to pay for this service? I choose to use a $200,000 assessment because it is easily scalable - only $18 per year or $1.50 per month. I can see some political or psychological value of the proposal and logical value to the community, but am not convinced that we actually need the number of deputies in the proposal. People respond, “Can’t you see all the crime here?” I do not take a position because of the media, nor out of reaction to a short-term problem. Managing a business has been a long-term task for me. I’ve been here many years and talked to many people about the police manpower in this community. Personally, I do not like to invest in intangibles unless there is measurable value to them. Why would anyone do so when they can invest in tangibles, which have cumulative and long lasting value? So I will outline the plan, as I understand it, and outline what little portion of it that bothers me. Basically, I am concerned about the derivation of the proposal.

The proposed plan is to reorganize the Montgomery County law enforcement districts such that The Woodlands becomes its own district. Currently it is part of the large district 2. Having our own district, limits the trips outside of our area, except in dire situations. It makes the reporting easier and customization of services easier. What is more important is that it provides a captain over the Township, commanding the force – a single point contact accountable for costs, services and processes used for enforcement, directly reporting to the Sheriff and the Township, managing the personnel issues, and performing the reporting and administrative functions. District 2 is funded by the county and provides proportional police service to us because of our percentage of population in the county. In this plan, the workforce assigned to us from District 2 would be merged into the current Woodlands deputy force funded by the Township, forming one operational entity. We have known for some time that the merger has an opportunity to consolidate the resident patrols with the Town Center patrols. So we put all of this into one pot and call it The Woodlands District. This will enable an organization that essentially performs like a police force for a municipality. It conforms to the processes of the county, but it is flexible enough to tend to the needs of the community. Additionally, we pay for the cooperative policing in the I45 corridor with Shenandoah and Oak Ridge. That is an additional and debatable cost being phased out in the plan over the next two years. In the new plan, we would grow our contracted deputy staff by 27%. I have not yet seen all the details of the proposed Woodlands District plan, but the million-dollar price tag is staggering, and therefore my concern for metrics behind the proposal. I am certainly not alone in this, as I have had a few people express their similar concerns. It is still early in the budget process. I hope to hear from more of you on this and other issues.

Since we cannot execute the full plan in 2010 due to the county being under economic constraints, funds to hire the additional deputies to execute this plan are not available. In the first part of the two-year plan, 2010 would be a transition year, adding a patrol for the village centers. So you see, this will be part of the long term solution as well. Part of our taxes will go to commercial use, guarding businesses (and shoppers) in the village centers and their immediate surrounding area, perhaps snagging a bank robber or two near or in the centers. I see recent robberies playing a role here, even though the banks have elected to have insurance policies instead of guards. Currently, normal resident deputies serve the centers. So theoretically they would be more available to respond to resident calls or traffic issues, and the new deputies would provide a specialized service to all the commercial centers outside of Town Center. The cost for this part of the plan is $360,000, or 1/3 of the total. Commercial patrols would be divided into two zones. The north would serve Alden Bridge, Cochran's Crossing, Windvale and College Park. The south zone would serve Grogan's Mill, Panther Creek, Indian Springs, Walmart/2978, and Sterling Ridge. Coverage would be 80 hours per week by one officer in each zone.¹

Emotions are running high with some people in The Woodlands as a result of the number of bank robberies and other crimes, but we need just plain common sense to prevail. What alternatives were rejected in this proposal? It seems no one yet is presenting how we got here. This budget project proposal sounds good on the surface, but the details and history will tell the full story. I have not seen any metrics yet that drive the proposal nor have I seen metrics that tell us how many deputies we should have for the size of community we have and based on the workload of this force. For example, we need quick response when we call 911 and fairly quick response sometimes even when we call the non-emergency number. One stated goal of the project is to improve response. What is the current response? What do we need it to be? What can we expect different with the service level in the new plan? Those numbers are not (yet) published. What is the number of officers we have out on the streets on an average? I would think we should know the equivalent people on the streets for each given hour. (FTE patrolling). Accountability to operational metrics might also include a diversity of street presence. Instead, I see the metrics of the criminals. How many robberies, how many thefts, etc etc. Maybe one can staff based on the number of reported crimes, but that is not really a good way to staff, is it? The criminals, not the police force, determine that metric. That makes the criminals the drivers of our taxes. One can argue that the number of cars present will deter crime. I am betting that it would make little difference. One can call the number of crime incidents “the workload”, and it is just that to some extent, but it is certainly not clear that we have a handle on the number of officers needed for our community. Maybe the plan has too few, maybe too many. Metrics should be able to guide us through decisions that can be measured for effectiveness.

I know this could be considered a controversial article. It is intended to bring some resident issues to the table to stimulate thought. I know there are other residents here who have the same value system as I do, although they may have bigger pocket books than I. All good big capital project managers have value-driven metrics. Operational managers too will tell you they need meaningful metrics to make meaningful decisions. So when someone wants to spend our money on additional police, I have to ask, what will that money do for us and how was that number derived? Someone might say it buys you protection. I don’t think so. Read everything you can about policing and find out where the police have actually protected someone in neighborhoods. They are not guards, as we employ them. They are responders to help people when called. Then and only then do they normally provide something of measurable value.

We asked for additional law enforcement a few years back because we had serious issues on our streets. Several residents were killed in car accidents. Who is responsible for improving accidental death statistics on the roads? Injuries still occur. Maybe the additional staffing has had no effect, and we have just been lucky. We remain with many drivers doing crazy things on our roads. If we are going to throw dollars at the problem, let's do it cautiously with measurable results. Perhaps the biggest impact is to go door to door and get people to seek change in the community - to lock their doors. The Sheriff's office has told us over and again the same story - residents are contributing heavily to the crime problem.

We don’t have local ordinances to enforce. Local ordinances generate additional work. Our police work is standard for the laws of the county and state. Having higher police visibility is also a goal of this project program. I am not sure how to measure that and am wondering if it should even be a goal. Police presence in a neighborhood is negative to some people. In my opinion, the best deterrent in not presence but reputation. If our police force has a reputation of being johnny-on-the-spot and likely to apprehend anyone committing a crime here, that will deter criminals. If residents have a front line of defense and are known to not be easy picking, then that will deter criminals as well. I see those as two focus points for effectiveness. Newspapers advertise our crime. Maybe we should counter advertise with our successes.

I am sort of questioning the necessity of this project based on what not has been presented. The goals and metrics are not well defined publicly. I have been questioning it for the past year. It seems to me that we need to look at efficiency. This may only be a communication issue, but no metrics have been presented. How many deputies are in the office vs. on the street? How spread out are the deputies in the community? Do they have sufficient backup? What is their response time to emergency calls or those that that need immediate attention? How many false alarms are they servicing or missing? How long are they at a crime site? Metrics have not been used to present the case for the project. How many deputies are enough? What can we do to free the deputies up? Doing an efficiency and work process study could save us millions over the next five years. I don't think we have done that over the past 3 years, since we switched to the Sheriff's services. We continue to use the original study. Since then, our experience with policing this community has grown in size and complexity. If we take my neighborhood as an example, my neighbors can testify to their current level of service. But how about system-wide? My neighborhood has generally received acceptable police response to emergencies and non-emergencies. In contrast, our fire response has not been acceptable, yet our service level will probably remain the same until 2012 in this budget plan. That is measured and published. True, we are not having major fires here (yet) to raise our level of concern like the crime incidents that we read about in the newspaper.

What can we do to help reduce the number of police required and make our force more cost effective? There are several views to this. The statistics that people use now to show the crime rate has a mixture of what I call “forced crime” where the criminal breaks the law no matter the obstructions or difficulties and “accommodated crime” where the criminal breaks the law with no obstructions, or basically where the community or homeowner allows the crime to easily occur. We are told that the bulk of our crime is the latter case, committed by young people, who live here or in nearby communities, seeking easy fast targets so they are not detected. Their goal is to move quickly and get what they can as fast as they can and perhaps even use a stolen car (probably not locked) so that their identity is unknown. So the way I see it, if we are indeed driven by the number of incidents for staffing our police force, we who take precautions are paying for someone else’s negligence. Residents and businesses and the community have an obligation to protect their assets with alarms and locks. I do. Why can’t others? Some people say we need more presence on the streets. I say that would help just a little. Apprehension is the key to success, but if you look at when residents typically report an incident, it is too late to apprehend the criminal. A swarm of police at the time of the incident helps the apprehension process significantly. Otherwise, the incident becomes a report, not an engagement and an unlikely apprehension. The first line of defense is not the police but the resident, the storekeeper and store owner, and the community. They are the first responders; they are the eyes of the community. That will be the case no matter how many officers we have on contract (or employed for that matter, if that was an option). If they are not reporting the incident while it is happening, it is often too late to do much about it.

Why don’t we advocate conservative approaches in our governing body as it transitions to a consolidated entity? Maybe the first year we could have another look at the concepts behind our policing strategies. We need to lower our taxes if we can, but more importantly, we need to be right sized in police force and we need service levels based on the right measurements. If we have to, and it can be rightly justified, then we have to reorganize and deploy more officers on the streets. I just do not see yet that we have to fund this size of a police force. Is it too large or too small or just right? If we don't know that, we don't know the budget. Given the appropriate numbers to drive staffing levels, we could be convinced we need this exact number of deputies and administrative staff, but establishing a tax levy for this is simply does not seem right, given the current information available and economic climate. Maybe all of this has already been considered. I asked if efficiencies were considered and board member took notes, but maybe a better question would have been “what were the rejected alternatives to this proposal?”

Asking a few residents in our neighborhood how they feel about this, the response has been positive but conditional. One person responded: "There has been a lot of money wasted in the associations and it just continues. This would be more important than some of those expenses." Another said, "I would not mind paying the additional cost as long as it produces notable results." Asked if police response to recent calls has been satisfactory, the reply has been overwhelmingly "yes" from those who have needed and used the service with one exception. A resident noted that the response was good, the apprehension occurred, but the law breaker was released. "If the law is not enforced, why should I pay for law enforcement?"

In general, I am for right-sizing tax assessments to fit the needs of the community. Expectations are different among residents. Some have a 30-cent mentality, others a 32-cent expectation and still others a 34-cent expectation. Many people would like to drive down the cost of living here. Almost everyone I talk to wants to be taxed on need, not want or false perception. The desire for responsible and transparent spending is the trend of thought from about everyone I speak to. Personally, I want to see excellence here and live in a safe place. I do not believe it is possible to keep crooks out. It is possible to protect ourselves and get excellent response from law enforcement officials when we need it. Maybe we already have sufficient response. Perhaps an education program and resident participation program should be part of the budget. Yes, we have the awareness program, but it needs a tune-up. I believe it is a weak program needing a complete overhaul.

As you are probably aware, this program is one of four that raises the tax rate from an operational base of 25.3 to 32.8 cents per $100. The policing project costs $2mm over two years or 0.9 cents per $100. The table below from the presentation in the town hall meeting demonstrates the major add-on costs in the budget best. I have added tax payer dollars to it.

Program	Tax in cents/$100 assessment	Tax for $200,000 home
Base Operations and debt - current service level	23.5	$470
New Police program	0.9	$18
Existing major capital projects on books (ISV fire station , Creekside station) plus replace Central Station	3.1	$62
Other capital projects - New parks and pathways - Village of Creekside Park and new developments	3.5	$70
Total	32.8	$756

Resources
¹ Public Security Plan by Vice President of Operations & Public Safety - Steve Sumner
²Township Budget Initiatives, page 2

Woodlands Township Budget Scope and Overview

2009-07-31T16:43:00.000-05:00

The Proposed 2010 Budget includes the funding of The Woodlands Township and the Community Associations of The Woodlands’ services and staff, along with funding for The Woodlands Fire Department, The Woodlands Convention and Visitors Bureau, and includes an enhanced community-policing plan, as well as continued infrastructure development.

Its scope includes long and short term needs of the community. The idea is basically to maintain the current level of quality services and to enhance selected services. A process has been established through a strategic plan to ensure the efforts are directed towards long term strategic objectives. These include replacing aging facilities, maintaining a very large number of assets, and creating a flexible financial environment in which to succeed.

The budget includes the combined services of the Community Associations and The Woodlands Township. The Woodlands Fire Department will continue as a separate not-for-profit corporation and will be funded entirely by the Township Board of Directors. The Community Associations’ assessments will be replaced with a Township property tax levy. All responsibilities and obligations of the Community Associations will be assumed by The Township on January 1, 2010.

“These are historic times for The Woodlands,” said The Woodlands Township Chairman of the Board Nelda Blair. “This budget will reflect the needs of the combined organizations of The Woodlands Township and the Community Associations of The Woodlands, including combining the staffs, centralizing responsibilities and improving efficiencies. Quality of services will remain the same or be enhanced as the two organizations combine as of January 1, 2010.”

Basic services provided in the Proposed 2010 Budget include:

Covenants Administration assumed from the Community Associations’ responsibilities
Parks and Pathways - 110 parks and 180 miles of pathways
Aquatics - 13 swimming pools, 50% funded by revenues and 50% by fees
Waterway maintenance - pathway, fountains and park
Fire and EMS - 6 fire stations with related trucks and equipment and 110 firefighters
Enhanced Law enforcement - 54 deputies with proposed reorganization and delivery of services
Neighborhood Services - from existing services by the associations
Security services - in Town Center
Convention and Visitor Bureau - special events
Economic Development - partnerships
Refuse collection and recycling
Streetlights
Roadway and entry maintenance
Capital projects - replacement of aging or non-serviceable equipment
Capital projects - new parks, pathways, fire stations
Debt service - existing debt refinance and financing new projects

The Woodlands Township has four primary funding sources¹:

Property tax of $37.9 million - will replace Community Associations’ assessments
Sales and Use Tax of $30.1 million – general operating fund plus Houston, Conroe agreements
Hotel Occupancy Tax of $3.5 million - sole use is for the convention center
Other Revenues of $5.6 million
Bonds or loans for large capital projects

The property tax levy will replace the Community Associations’ assessments, which fund these services:

Community policing
Covenant enforcement
Parks and pathways maintenance
Aquatics
Neighborhood services
Garbage collection/recycling
Community maintenance
Administrative services
Capital asset replacements
Capital asset additions
Operating reserves
Debt service
Community relations

The Woodlands Fire Department costs were previously funded by the Community Associations’ assessments and will now be funded through Township Economic Development Zone (EDZ) fund which is sourced by sales taxes.

The sales tax is expected to generate approximately $30 million annually. Approximately $15 million of the annual sales tax collections will be used to fund the cost of The Woodlands Fire Department previously funded by Community Associations’ assessments. The remaining funding from the sales tax collections (approximately $15 million) will be used to fund (1) Regional Participation Agreement funding to Houston and Conroe, (2) debt service and annual expenses including:

Economic Development Zone debt service
Town Center security
Convention and Visitors Bureau
Community event promotion
Economic development promotion

Service enhancements included:

Expansion of existing community policing program (over a two-year period)
Initiation of a group sales operation - use existing personnel
Initiation of a centralized purchasing operation - use existing personnel
Program for capital reserve funding
Program for economic development reserve funding
Funding for assumption of water taxi service

Provision for three reserve accounts are proposed in the event of potential downturns in sales tax and hotel occupancy tax collections.

Operating reserve – 20% of operating expenditures
Capital Asset replacement reserve
Economic Development reserve

Resources
¹ Township 2010 Budget webpage

Woodlands town hall meeting August 2009

2009-07-31T09:31:00.000-05:00

The second town hall meeting, since the Township was formed, was directed at the 2010 budget. Residents did participate in comments after the budget proposal prepared by the township and association staff was presented. Like usual, some were ultra critical and others who had special concerns. The Township continues to have a few people totally submerged in their quest for a city government. Most residents don't really care, so long as their quality of life is maintained or improved and they don't have to spend their hard earned money for something they can get otherwise. There remain issues in the community as we regularly discuss here on this website, but where is there any place without issues? So what said the people in this meeting? The responses are cataloged, but I can't say that I captured all of the concerns expressed.

Swimming pools are not open at convenient times for working residents who want to enjoy the amenity with their families. Suggestion - open later, close later (8pm). I suspect Parks and Recreation will be looking into this suggestion. People do use the pools early in the summer, but the need to be open later is probably a valid point for some pools, maybe not all.
Seniors need help with the rising cost of living here. We need a senior tax exemption. The Township has been working on this issue. Tom Campbell has been a very big proponent. I too hope for relief!
We have a problem with crime here. Let's have a surge in law enforcement, similar to the Iraqi surge. Get it fixed now! This was in response to the two year plan in the budget. I will write an article specifically on this subject soon. It is much more complicated than this, and we need to have a detailed plan to deal with the recent and future issues.
Stolen car in driveway. "I moved away from a place that had crime and came here to get away from it. I bought a new car, and it was stolen out of my driveway here. I thought this was a safe place." This is of course a valid concern, and we all are on board in concert with this gentleman; however again, the issue is complicated and needs discussion and planning. Residents have a role in this too. It is not just a problem for policing or for the Township.
Another concern about policing budget. We don't want to overspend on the issue. Shouldn't we be looking at efficiencies of our current deputies first? There may be improvements that would not require so many deputies. For example, reporting using our park WIFI installation, or working to reduce false home alarm calls, or working to have our citizens take on some responsibility themselves for the rash of crimes such as locking their home and cars. I will address policing issues in a coming article.
Unnecessary Spending - playground equipment was recently changed in Capstone Park. New equipment is not as durable as the old equipment, and the old equipment did not need replacement. This appears to be a waste of money. We don't need to replace equipment just to replace it. Make it last for its lifetime.... I have been a bit concerned about this also. However, as Claude Hunter responded, equipment is often changed out for safety or regulatory reasons. The reason for this particular instance was unknown.
Another concern stated for lack of tax exemptions for the elderly. We have lived here a long time and want to stay but there is no tax exemption for those of us over 65 (over 70).
Museum and cultural amenities. the Township is lacking in its effort to bring a museum here. Can't we have funds allocated to that effort? A teacher and long time resident brought this issue to the table. There were several women who seemed to come together to express their concern at this meeting. Nelda Blair asked them to return to the podium to discuss it further; another lady did that later. A clothing store is going to occupy the place in the mall where the museum is currently located. The Houston Museum of Fine Arts will cease operation at that location in September. The Woodlands will no longer have a museum. There is no plan to find a place for it. Nelda responded that the mall operates separately and the Township has no influence on its business. "We cannot get to Houston to visit the museum there. We need a museum here." For sure, in my opinion, there is a need to have a satellite museum north of Houston, more accessible to residents here. Something more may come of this during the budget process.
Understanding of bonds. You are proposing a 32 cent tax and a bond of $45mm. That is a huge tax! This was just a misunderstanding of the purpose of a bond election proposal. The statement may help the Township to sell the bonds to the public. Bonds are used to finance the investment over a long period of time, keeping taxes low. The items in the bond are mostly what would have happened if we had remained as associations instead of a taxing government. The difference is that these projects would have been financed through loans, or taken out of accumulated treasuries. The Township has to follow government regulations and must seek the least cost solutions for capital projects so that taxes can be kept flat. The bonds will allow us to pay the debt over about 20 years instead of 4 or 5. An assumption that the bonds will pass is included in the 32 cent tax rate. There will be no added tax for the bonds.
Not a municipality. If we were a municipality, we probably would not be having these problems. Why are we reinventing the wheel? Let's be a city!!! Renegotiate the agreement with Houston! Well, there is a plan to study and formulate a proposal for a long term governing body. What will be done will be for the benefit of the community, not blindly do something because everyone else does it. We have a schedule and have appropriated funds in the budget for the study. 2014 is the earliest in the agreement when we can be incorporated. Personally, I do not see this gentleman's point. let's go forward and not backward. Everyone is on-board to look at this issue, and everyone knows there are pros and cons. Are we not a community of intelligent people? Let's move forward with our plan. Everyone understands the issues with policing. We will probably not have lower taxes when we become a city, more likely higher taxes. The Township has made great progress and now we have a proposal to reduce taxes with more policing. I don't know what more to ask for that being a city would solve.
Not sufficient financial reserves. We need to raise the tax one cent to obtain sufficient financial reserves. I have been in city governments and seen much better reserve plans. We have significant assets here and must be able to protect and replace them. Personally, I hope the plan is sufficient. I do not want higher taxes. This will no doubt be discussed in future budget meetings.
Ice Rink. We had two views. (1) Lessen the priority. It is not required. Let's instead promote private enterprise to take on the challenge. It has not been a profitable venture in the past. (2) Keep the priority. We could do a great deal to promote the sport of ice hockey in the area. Make the rink full size capable for sports competition. Rinks are a premium in the Houston area. We have to travel across the city for one. Area sports clubs will want to use it. It can be profitable. Personally, I can see both views. Before the township sets out on this, the project has to be properly sized and framed so that we don't end up with a problem. We should stay out of business ventures ourselves and find private money for them. It could be considered just another park amenity. We do need such facilities for our children. We don't need to be the recreational facility for North Houston. Why can't there be other places in North Houston with a rink? Is this really something the Township should invest in? It would be a draw for business in Town Center and would produce sales tax money though. Should residents be footing the bill? This is controversial, so make an excellent business plan for a well thought-out project, and I would support it.
Law enforcement - We have a serious crime problem here. Consider immediate measures to fix the problem. No additional comment from me. I will address seperately.
Veterans Park - we have taken this issue to the associations several times before. This is an opportunity for the Township. We do not have a place to go here to honor our veterans. Please plan a park in the budget for us to have a veterans park! Don't you think this is a reasonable request? I do.
Can't we finance the assets longer than 20 years, more along the line of the life of the asset, say 30 years? Don Norrell responded, "yes but investors need more security at the General bond rates. We would have to pay more interest for a higher risk bond."

The comments above came from residents in almost every village. I was happy to see so many people participate. It sounded like the voice of the community, and as one resident put it afterward, "we speak out and all ideas are respected and considered even though some of us disagree on some issues." This is the way it should be. Where there is one nugget, there is likely others. A I stated in a prior article, this presentation revealed a great deal of work and thought. Everything I see is logical. There is tweaking to do, and I for one, hope to see a few things changed but nothing dramatic.

Resources
¹Proposed Annual Budget Fiscal Year 2010 presented by Norrell
²2010 Budget proposal from Commentary viewpoint

2010 proposed budget

2009-07-30T12:59:00.000-05:00

The Woodlands Texas residents have passed yet another milestone. At the town hall meeting last night, the first budget proposal of the complete township was presented by Don Norrell. I will give you my take on it.

First and foremost, the staff of the Township and the Woodlands Service Company has put together an excellent summary! The five-year plan is as Don Norrell stated, “never totally accurate but has the known requirements in it at the time of publication. Things always change over the course of even one year.” Timing of projects is partially driven by the need to keep the tax rate consistent and predictable. When a financial plan is developed, one must predict the income and the cost of providing services.

Bottom line is that the proposed tax rate is 32.8 cents per $100 county property assessment. There will be no exemption for disabled veterans, or over-65 residents, or for homesteads. In perspective and comparison, the county is proposing a tax rate on the identical property assessments of 48.38 cents. For a $200,000 home the township tax would be $656 and the county $967 for a total of $1,623. This would be the bulk of your tax bill for 2010. For a complete picture, you will have to also add the school tax and the community college tax to it. Put the township tax in a historical context: in 2007, the association rate was 45.5 cents for TWA, 42 for WCA and 39 for WCOA. So TWA will save 13.5 cents ($270 for $200,000 home), WCA 9.2 ($184), and WCOA 6.2 ($124 on $200,000 assessment).

The base operating requirement has been established at 23.5 cents. That is, to keep the same amenities, not build anything, just keep things as they are, and pay off debt, it would cost the taxpayer 23.5 cents on every $100 assessed. So that means for the $200,0000 homeowner, a tax of 7.5 ($150 per year) per year pays for the following over the next five years:

Expansion and reorganization of police services
Two additional fire stations and the replacement of the central fire station
New parks, renovated parks, ponds and recreational improvements.
Firefighting and policing equipment
Computers, hardware, software
Accumulating financial reserves
Emergency fund
Trolley expansion
Waterway taxi operations
Probably more that I have not captured
Study for government office construction

We continue to be a community being developed, so we continue to build parks and amenities to make The Woodlands, “The Woodlands”. Unfortunately, the Township inherits a 50/50 partnership with the developer to fund the construction of parks and pathways in new neighborhoods. The TWA debt obligations, because of that agreement, must also be paid by all of us. That debt would have been paid off by TWA association assessments over the next four years, had we not consolidated and formed a new government. We also inherit the capital investments of several new parks and pathways as a result of the development of Creekside Park Village and other new neighborhoods.

Operationally, we will be hit by a very large operational increase in the fire department. For the township as a whole, salaries and benefits go up a whopping 7.4%! Township employees will receive improved benefits from the merger by assuming some of the benefits from the Woodlands Service Company. Combined, this 7.4% equates to $1.7 million. Contracted services will also go up by 4.1% equating to $1.0 million. This primarily provides additional police protection. These two expenditure types comprise 62% of the operating budget. Elsewhere in the budget, it is difficult to see the changes simply by numbers, because of the capital spending in the last two years of the WCA when projects were accelerated. There are also some savings from consolidation and redistribution of duties among staff.

By the number to note: Policing program $1.1mm, Savings by consolidation $1.24mm, 2010 capital for construction & renovation & improvements $11.0mm, 2010 total revenues $77.7mm, 2010 total expenses $77.6mm, Debt service $7.65mm, Paths and walkways Town Center $1.8mm.

Can we expect some tuning to this initial budget proposal? I think so, but the rate will not likely go down much if any. I would like to see it capped here though and not allow it to rise above 33. Preferably, the board can add value by lowering the rate to 32 (where I really want it capped long term). It is expensive to live in The Woodlands. We face water bonds added to all of this. Much work has gotten us to this point. Refinement and fine-tuning is needed. We are, after all, in a recession. The county cut back 5% to accommodate some of the stress on everyone. It would be better to start the township lower if we can, and consider the plight of those who are under budget stress.

Potable Water in The Woodlands, Texas - declining reserves explained

2009-07-24T11:00:00.000-05:00

Over the past few years, we have been able to watch our rapid growing county gradually become water-deprived. That has happened for a number of reasons - high consumption per capita, rapid growth of population, and drought. We are dependent on subsurface reservoirs that are being depleted and not sufficiently recharged. Although the available amount of water is stressed, we are theoretically not short of water, ..... YET. The county is predicted to double in population in just a little over 10 years. That will cause huge problems for us. Therefore, our water utility districts are planning a major project to obtain, transport and replace our MUD wells (which are not even paid for yet) with surface water from Lake Conroe. This will occur only in the five major population areas of the county. Those living outside of those areas will keep their water wells and continue to utilize existing underground supplies.

The primary issue as has been described to me by James Stinson, General Manager of Joint Powers Agency, is the waste. He has publicly stated this several times. Residents are putting millions of gallons of our limited underground water on the street, in gutters. They are also utilizing much more than actually needed to water their lawns. Some lawns are watered even when it is raining. I have neighbors who do that. They are away and have their sprinklers programmed to regularly water the lawn on certain days. Of course they reprogrammed their system for the nighttime to conform to restrictions, but if it rains (which it has not), their water system does the same as when it is dry. Now if that is not waste, I don't know what is. This can be avoided by acquiring a rain monitor device that will shut off the automatic watering system when it rains. The JPA will even help you purchase one by rebating 50% of the cost up to $150. Most residents from what I have been told, measure what they put on the lawn; they simply water it until the ground is soggy. Usually ground is never soggy with proper watering techniques, because one inch delivered evenly will not cause soggy soil unless the soil is composed totally of a soft non-compacted dirt. It usually has plenty of sand and clay making it moderately soft even when moderately wet. I have never seen it "soggy" except when using soft dirt on the surface. So the GM says we waste 40% of our water and I can certainly believe that number! Please measure the water you deliver to your yard and restrict it to about one inch per week.

I measure mine with little tins from cat and dog food. I put a ruler into the water after watering and adjust my watering technique to make it about one inch everywhere in the sunny part of the yard and a little less in the shady spots.

What happens to the underground reservoirs when we deplete them faster than we recharge them? Down in the depths of the ground, there are producing water zones. These are composed of rock, usually limestone or sand, with a lattice structure to permit the retention and movement of water within them. The rock structure essentially is composed of billions of little cavities held together by lattice rock structures. Water moves into these zones from the surface when it rains, gradually seeping deeper and deeper into the soil until it reaches these underground "homes" for water. It forms an underground water network pulled by gravity. The water acts as a cushioning mechanism, keeping the lattice structure from collapsing. There is tremendous overburden pressure caused by the combination of gravity and the weight of the rocks and soil and everything else above it. When you take the water out of the structure at a faster rate than it is put into it, the water level drops, just like a river. The upper part of the structure then collapses or shrinks until it reaches a pressure equilibrium with the tensile strength of the rock lattices. When the structure collapses, it is gone forever. The space that once existed to hold water is gone. This causes subsidence and lowered capacity of the producing reservoir, just ask people in Harris County what happened in prior decades because of their depletion of the reservoirs! Also when structures collapse, there is no more underground water at that depth, requiring some people and some utility production wells to be deepened in the reservoir to reach the water supply. Thus the vicious cycle continues.

Here in The Woodlands, we have an opportunity to decrease the rate of this self destruct mechanism by not blatantly wasting our water. We utilize more than the rest of the county. We are upstream from Harris County and they produce from what we don't. We are in their recharge zone, which without much rain, has been a very limited or non-existent process in some areas lately, so what we do affects them. Water is a very precious and limited resource. We must invest in tools and time to conserve it. Every human being upon this earth has the responsibility, as custodians, to care for it.

Water - political hotspot

2009-07-22T18:00:00.000-05:00

Here in The Woodlands, we are considering a systematic lawn-watering schedule, similar to what we have now in this drought, but not activated by drought conditions. We do need good water management. Who is the target of this possible new action and why? I see responsible people every day acquiescing to the current regulations for good reason – the drought, to conserve water by observing the current restrictions to water only two times a week (one inch). But let's get to some form of reality. Personally, I have been considering this from the moment it was instituted this year. Right now, I have to use more water for the lawn than I did before, to technically comply with the restriction. I have made it known to some of the authorities that this situation exists and why. Although there is no official accommodation in these restrictions for temperature, for soil conditions, nor for work schedules or home direction orientation, there is a means to get an exception. An example of need: Most of my lawn can go six days without water if I give it one inch and supplement the watering in a couple of small places. There are a few places facing west that cannot survive a week without water. Now it would seem that I have to water twice a week to comply with the drought restrictions. Technically yes, but actually no. There is good news, the Joint Powers Authority can and will accommodate case-by-case situations. It is recommended by the same authority to water once a week with a one-inch application. That is possible in my yard at a 95-degree maximum ambient temperature. It is impossible at 101. Our current restrictions are not inflexible. All that the Joint Powers Agency (JPA) actually asks us to do is to not waste water and help them keep the pressure up for fire safety. The current restrictions are good to help us to do that, but they need to be regarded as somewhat flexible. Try to follow them if practical. Neighbor-to-neighbor, no one wants to be seen breaking the rules. If there is an issue and you can minimize waste in some other way, tell the authority and get an exception. Then tell your neighbors why it is better for you, if watering in a different manner than prescribed embarrasses you. It might even help neighborly relations by being outside talking to your neighbor on watering days.

To accommodate my situation, I have to call the JPA and seek an exception. That I have not yet done, but when it is in place, I may be watering some days that are not mandated for my address. I seek to minimize my water usage on my lawn. That is my objective and that is the authority’s objective. The authority understands that goal and certainly supports it.

So look at the possibility of a “permanent” schedule. A schedule is not a permanent restriction; it is a model of usage. It should be thought of as a predictive model where everyone falls into a pattern of use, under a guideline of watering a maximum of twice a week, in all seasons. Then the water district should not face huge aberrations in consumption or water availability. The JPA should be able to manage the water and sewage systems much more efficiently and effectively. This does make sense!

The proposal is to establish a pattern of usage that distributes consumption as it does right now in this drought. That will probably require a model, similar to what we have now, but not necessarily confine us to that model. All that is needed is that we are consistent and water our lawns judiciously and to do it evenly across the community. Lifestyles may be different among households and homes a bit different, so a household is essentially asked to establish a predictive routine and stay with it. Don’t deviate from the model unless there is good reason to however. Exceptions cost administrative overhead.

There is more to this. 40% of our water in the summer is wasted, according to studies. It flows into gutters and into the sewage system. 80% of our consumption right now is estimated to be in irrigating our yards. A huge amount of our precious resource is wasted every day. Unfortunately, there are just a few residents who waste it in large amounts. There is waste in every household, but the bottom line volume consumption rests with a fairly small percentage of homeowners. I know I have some waste. I would say that perhaps 1% of the water applied goes down the street. If we were truly required to save every gallon, I would need to have my automatic system redesigned or just abandon using the system. I trigger it manually when my day comes around, so I can have two back-2-back cycles and get maximum penetration from the application. Managing the edges to zero runoff would be a serious challenge but may be a next step down the road, should water become so scarce that we have to regulate it by the gallon instead of by the tens of gallons.

Managing a drought is different than managing annual consumption, but what we learn in a drought can be applied to the management of the area resources in all seasons.

Isn't part of the problem the St Augustine grass that we use throughout the state? Where is A&M's solution to this problem? I do not support having a program at the spigot if we don’t have a long-range plan to deal with the root of the problem. There are two roots to the problem - people and landscape material or devices.

People are wasteful. Those who significantly overuse water should be interviewed and ways found to lessen their use of water. How do we know they are out of line in usage? There is a way to measure it. Abnormalities could be identified through an index method, which I will describe later. Maybe there is also a technology gap. I don’t assume that rain controllers, mulch and St Augustine are the solutions, and perhaps the technology used is not what is available now for the problems we have. For example, is there a better way to water the edges of the lawn to deliver water but not waste any water? Or can we use native or native-modified grasses, instead of St Augustine? For some families’ style of life, such an index may not be seem practical, but everyone can treat the limited water resource in a judicious manner. Where there is serious concern, there is always a practical solution. It is well known that misuse of water by some residents is the probable cause of our current issue, but must everyone suffer on their behalf? If it is true that 40% of our water is wasted, then why not find that 40% and find workable remedies to that problem? To me, this is a different issue than distributing the use of the water over days of the week.

St Augustine grass has always demanded considerable water to survive, although it will take a beating and usually grow back when the water is more available. Nonetheless it is susceptible to disease and drought. Is it time we change? This is a problem for Texas A&M. It is an issue all along the Gulf Coast. Grass helps to control flooding and is very useful, not just an aesthetic component of landscape. As water becomes more and more precious by short supply, shouldn't we begin to abandon our love for St Augustine and replace our grass with something requiring less water? . I am told “no’ by the GM of JPA. ¹Maybe Texas A&M could research a better St Augustine that survives drought better. Drought is a Texas normality. St Augustine is not a water-inefficient grass. As I stated in another article, there are issues with the other grasses but at the same time, there are alternatives and opportunities.

Our wells are not producing what they once did. We have to drill deeper into the reservoirs sometimes to make them produce at the required rates. I have never heard of any water wells in this general area that have maintained production without intervention. Population growth here has been tremendous, but we have not had an apparent water pressure issue, mostly because of drought interventions in the summer. I have witnessed serious urban water pressure issues elsewhere and that was not pretty! It was downright annoying, frustrating and dangerous. If we have to regulate the water, then let's regulate the volume of water used. That is the real issue here, not whether we are watering on given days of the week, but nonetheless, it is good to have a systematic scheduled watering schedule just to eliminate or reduce the threat of lowered water pressure.

So is it such a bad thing to ask residents to have the same water schedule we currently have throughout the year? That seems a bit of an over-kill to me. Austin² has a set schedule every year from May 1st through September 30th. Maybe we should have it from June 1st to October 30th. I am concerned about watering at night during October however. That will cause fungus. Maybe we can end at the end of September also. Face it any time outside of that window has no watering issues, at least from my meandering around The Woodlands.

Why not regulate growth? This would certainly be a politically explosive strategy. New housing could take on more of the issue, instead of existing residents. If we don’t have enough water, why do we grow? But the point is, we have enough. It is just being wasted.

Personally, I like using educational means to get people to judiciously consume water and when that doesn’t work, slap those who are causing the problem on the wrist. So here is a suggestion – since we know the volume of water used in every household and business, and we know the appraised square feet of each home and the lot size, would it be better to start using a meaningful measure to identify those misusing our resources? If I use 1000 gallons and a huge multi-million home uses 100,000 gallons, which one is over using water? Both have to maintain their homes and their landscape. You use a normalization technique. Say my home site is 3000 sq feet and the big home is on 20000 sq feet. Now who is using more than their share of water? Then I use 3000/8000 or .35 gallons per sq foot per month while the other homeowner is using 5 gallons per square foot. So is the large home wasting water? Not necessarily. However, what is reasonable and not reasonable can be determined from looking at the population of homes in the community and this usage index. I would say that anyone having more than twice the median index of the total population might be overusing water (just a shot in the dark). This may not be very close to an answer, but something like this is what we need to be doing.

Performance indices are one of my favorite subjects. The JPA has not publicized any yet and probably do not have one in the works. It would be worthwhile to contract an effort to assess a better way to manage this precious resource in our community. I know this can be done and it should not cost us an arm and a leg. Then metaphorically we could slap those who abuse the resource on the wrist and even break an arm if it comes to that.

This article was rewritten and published on July 22nd.

Resources
¹ Joint Powers Agency - Mr. James Stintson, P.E., General Manager
² Austin water regulations

County Bonds - Not going to happen. What a dilemma!

2009-07-17T08:41:00.000-05:00

Earlier this week, the Montgomery County commissioners drew up a bond proposal to consider for the coming budget process. $300+ million is needed to finance a fairly long slate of needed county road major projects. Here in The Woodlands, it would involve the replacement or resurfacing of Grogan’s Mill, West Panther Creek, Woodlands Parkway, and possibly others. Although we need some work on all of these, and with the extent of traffic volume on Woodlands Parkway, the price is just too high to issue such a bond right now. The county judge says, “it isn’t going to happen.”

We do have some advantage of doing this now. Construction bids are coming in about 30% down from last year. However, now is simply not a good time to do it. It is a risky proposal, given the state of our economy and the related voter apprehension. We cannot afford a failed bond issue at the polls. Increasing taxes by 7-9 cents (or 17%) would be exceptional, especially in this soft economy, which has not yet recovered from a near disaster. “There is at least one respected financial analyst predicting that the economy will almost totally fail, that the disaster has not been averted, and that that we are still headed for a depression.” noted County Judge Alan Sadler.¹. He went on to say “This bond will not happen”, meaning that the county will not go forward with such a bond. The judge is concerned that there is just too much risk of the bond failing. We need to find alternatives and find some means to fix our roads. “For example, the asphalt-constructed Walden Rd is having significant problems and needs to be replaced with a concrete construction. Yet when we first built this road according to state specifications, the state funded 80% of it. Now, we have to pay for the entire replacement road without that subsidy. This is a big dilemma for all of us.”

We are between a rock and a hard place. What happened in Austin in this legislature has hurt our county. How is it that we had federal bailout money injected into expansion projects and we are now sitting in this position to maintain our existing roads?

Today, there is no pass-through money available from the State of Texas for our bonds. TxDOT has absolutely nothing for us this time. That means we will have to finance all of it ourselves without any subsidies. We get no help. When we originally constructed Walden Road, we got 80% of it financed by the state. If existing residents have to pay for the county’s growth, something is wrong. Just imagine. A resident moves here and is asked to fund road maintenance at a high tax rate. The payments should be spread out over 20 or more years of tax base. Interest rates are low. High routine maintenance costs also drive taxes up, so we have to invest in quality projects. We need durable quiet roads. Contractors and their equipment burden some of the roads, causing wear and tear that residents eventually must pay. Roads decline because of subsurface material and they simply fail because we use them so heavily. Who rightfully pays? The county would construct a class “B” concrete road to replace the asphalt Walden Rd, which lies on top of clay. That would have one layer of iron rods, not two as in Class “A”, but strong enough to hold together on top of a clay roadbed.

What to do? Go to the hard place or go to the rock; either way it seems to me that we are in the middle and squashed.

Maybe we could get the commissioners out together on each proposed road with a budget cap of $160mm and come up with a “now” proposal with a limited budget? That would probably be well worth the effort. I think that might fly. Face it, the current proposal will not fly and the commissioner's court sees that. Maybe there are even alternatives to repairing some roads. Then after all the economic issues subside in three years, try again. Keep the property tax below $.049! Isn’t it a good idea to have very stringent criteria for inclusion of projects and a budget cap for the bonds. It isn’t so much that we have some repair to do, but it is the extent of it. We have people here on fixed incomes. We have people here worried about keeping their jobs. It is definitely a time to be conservative! Maybe not everyone is equal. Some people can afford it and some cannot. Homes continue to increase in value. Each taxpayer is paying more to the county even without an increase in the tax rate. Tough choices are coming in the county budget meetings.

Yep, truly a dilemma! We all are in this together. Hopefully, there will be some middle-of-the-road compromise. And yes, pun intended!

¹ Judge Alan B Sadler’s profile

Financing Woodlands Township Capital 2010-2014 Bonds

2009-07-15T16:28:00.000-05:00

The Woodlands Township Executive Committee voted today to send a bond proposal strategy for a long-term debt management plan to the Woodlands Township Board, for consideration at the July 22nd meeting.

The Township five-year plan will include a number of projects requiring long-term financing. The proposed construction of a new office facility for The Woodlands Township operations is purposely not included in this list, but does not indicate that the project will be neglected in the plan. The project planning and review of facility options and alternatives is still underway and financing options will be considered at a later date.The plan is to reduce the cost of financing Township projects in this time of low cost money, and does not address the 21 million debt of the Economic Development Zones (EDZ) 1-3, which funded the construction of Town Green Park and partially funded the construction of Market Street, among others. These debts are addressed in separate funding programs.

Construction projects in the plan and the refinancing of existing debt include:

Bond Proposal for financing major capital projects in five year plan	Amount $mm
Total estimated Capital Budget 2010-2014	47.6
Refinance TWA and WFD debts	8.0
Refinance WFD Station #6 and Fire Training Facility debts	11.6
Construct Creekside Fire Station	3.4
Construct Indian Springs Fire Station	3.7
Reconstruct Grogans Mill Central Fire Station	6.4
Purchase fire trucks and equipment for new stations	2.5
Construct new parks and pathways in five year plan (Creekside and Town Center)	12.0

The most viable financing option requiring long-term financing, with voter approval, is the issuance of General Obligation bonds (“GO bonds”). GO bonds are backed by the issuing party and carry an irrevocable commitment - the authorizing body (Township) will levy a property tax sufficient to fund the annual debt service requirements for the life of the issued bonds. This enables large projects to be carried for many years, committing but reducing the immediate tax impact of the projects.

GO bonds are typically tax-exempt bonds issued for a period of 20 years or less. They are rated by national rating agencies and are eligible for municipal bond insurance. Considering the Township’s large property tax base and the relatively low outstanding debt, The Woodlands Township should receive a favorable rating and qualify for municipal bond insurance.

Projects and refinancing will be discussed as part of the 2010 budget and five year plan. The first 2010 Budget Workshop is scheduled for 9 a.m. Wednesday, July 29, 2009, and the plan will be presented at the Town Hall Meeting on July 29, 2009. The final decision on the debt management plan will be considered by the Board in late August.

Woodlands Township Townhall Meeting July 29, 2009

2009-07-13T17:12:00.000-05:00

Today, the township announced a township meeting at The Woodlands Waterway Marriott Hotel and Convention Center in Town Center. The meeting will be open to the public. Residents and businesses are encouraged to attend. Of particular interest will be the budget. A Presentation of the 2010 Budget will allow residents and businesses of The Woodlands Township the opportunity to hear a presentation of the proposed 2010 Operating Budget and provide feedback to The Woodlands Township Board of Directors.

“The transition into one government called The Woodlands Township is well underway,” said Chairman of the Board Nelda Blair. “The process is complicated and intricate, and involves uncharted territory in Texas history. This is the first budget in this process that provides a significant opportunity for our 90,000 residents and 2,000 employers to determine their future form of governance.”

Residents have been patiently (and some nervously) anticipating this for some time. Although the economy here has been flourishing even in the depressed national economy, a number of residents remain in a more cost conscious state than in the past. It is the time to step to the plate to make opinions and needs known, if residents want to be heard by the Board of Directors. This will be an evening meeting, especially timed for daytime working residents interested in contributing to their future here, starting at 7PM.

Parking is available at the Town Center Garage at The Cynthia Woods Mitchell Pavilion. The fourth floor of the garage is connected via skywalk to The Woodlands Waterway Marriott Hotel and Convention Center. The meeting will begin promptly at 7 p.m. and will conclude by 9 p.m.

Related articles
1. Woodlands Budget Considerations
2. Newly developed Strategic Plan

Woodlands Taxes and Budget 2010 - thoughts

2009-07-11T14:46:00.000-05:00

After reviewing the "alphabet soup" budgets of 2009, as a resident, I concluded that we needed some sort of consolidated view of them. So I generated one. Now I am sharing the experience with you and maybe you will have an easier time getting acquainted with this subject also. It is my hope that I can get more residents interested in this year's budget process. Later this month, the township will be providing us with information, but it may not provide an easy-to-assimilate view. So embedded in this article are several tools to help - a summary, several spreadsheets and some text of what I have learned. Also is a simple "what if" scenario on taxation. In late August, the township must complete its budget and establish a tax rate. Tom Campbell issued this communique just recently: "There are so many things to work on to complete the establishment of our new government that The Township will have six meetings on each Wednesday at 9 AM from July 22 through August. July 22 will be a regular business meeting. July 29 through August 19 will be budget work. August 26 will be a regular business meeting and the setting of the first property tax rate. Of Course, there will be public hearings announced on the proposed property tax before it is approved. However, you will have your chance to influence the development of this budget at the July 29 Town Hall Meeting."

Summary - Budget 101
This year, the budget process is earlier because of the taxing process. In past years, we operated independently and could schedule everything on a calendar year. Now we must account for the county's process and fit into their schedule. The township has to develop a budget now to set an assessment rate for 2010, in order for the county to administer the assessment process and collect taxes. Remember, we will receive a tax bill this year from the county, not from The Woodlands Association. That bill will contain the normal county and school taxes plus our assessment taxes.

The Woodlands Township will conduct a town hall meeting at the end of this month to present the budget and strategic plan. This will give residents an opportunity to give our feedback. I expect the township to link strategies to budget line items in order to place financial value on the strategic plan or value on the strategic plan, which is composed of community values. How that will be accomplished is unclear to me now. My guess it will be presented in a broad view of the plan. I am positioned to attempt doing the same and may do it in a separate article, just as a exercise to understand the fit and personally share with others.

For now, all I want to do is get the information to my readers and enable you to start formulating your own opinions on what needs to be done, on what tax rates are acceptable and what questions you want answered. I will share some of my own opinions as we go along.

According to my calculations, the consolidated 2009 budget totaled $63.9 million. The consolidated 2009 revenue from all sources was predicted to be $58.4 million. The deficit was made up with reserves as the associations began to execute their plans to dissolve themselves. The TWA had a budget carryover from 2008 and that was not included.

As most of you probably know, an expense budget is composed of two parts - (1) Capital - that which is an asset investment, adding value to the asset, and (2) Operations - that which is required to finance the operation of the asset. To levy a tax for required expenses, a taxing authority must establish what is needed to operate and what can be deferred. In our case, the revenue will be generated by a state sales tax and by an assessed value property tax. Other revenue is generated, just like it is for a resident, including fee collections, bank interest, and other sources. The business of running a municipal government is, in a single breath, to provide value to residents and businesses, to control expenses through leveraged service contracts & process management, and to provide services for safety and to preserve property value. It exists to provide a safe, economical and prosperous haven to live, play and work.

This last year of transition to a new government will bring four operations together under one umbrella operation. Today, the associations have a service company, The Woodlands Operating Company, which they share together, under contract. Service costs are proportionately allocated for the service company to recover its costs to administer the service programs under its contract umbrella. This accounts for the majority of expenditures in each association, but there are also direct costs. I will not go into this aspect of the budget at this time. You can look at the published budget sheets to review what is direct and what is not.

Budget for 2010
Currently, the township is preparing a budget for review by residents and businesses. Village associations are being queried for needed improvements in the villages, so that capital requirements can be determined and projects prioritized. This is the same procedure that has been followed for years. It is also preparing operational scenarios to determine tax rates. I want to be able to correlate the old to the new. As a reminder, we will go back to the original proposal in 2006 to form a township and remind ourselves what tax structure was "promised". Most of us knew at the time that there were some unknowns, and all we had were some rough estimates. Nevertheless, we developed expectations of how we could survive financially with a taxing authority. Many people were nervous about that. Nothing has changed as of this particular moment, but details are being collected and readied for presentation. We should expect government entity consolidation to create a number of opportunities for operational efficiencies within the next two years. I will refer to my original article which supported the formation of the township as the premise for bringing this up now.⁶ There is a need to hold our leaders to a responsible position on their promises. Our leaders include our precinct commissioner, our state representative, our state senator, our county tax assessor and others who helped to formulate the financial view of the proposed township and means to fund its operation. We wrote based on statements made, that we would realize a 31% direct + indirect reduction of assessments through this new organization. Right now, I doubt that we will realize this, based on what I have seen and heard, but from the numbers produced below, that realization seems feasible to me. We will be able to claim our assessment taxes to the IRS, but if you have already been doing that, you obviously will not realize any additional saving from that change in collection. I expect a 32% taxation rate, but hope for less. That will be about the same as before the township was formed. Now to present the spreadsheet.

Consolidated Budgets	WCA	TWA	WCOA	Town	Totals
	$mm	$mm	$mm	$mm	$mm
Operating Budget 2009	12.72	14.78	2.00	26.00	53.04
Parks Care and Administration	3.605	4.214	0.458	0.994	9.271
Solid Waste pickup/disposal	2.520	2.493	0.044		5.056
Streetscape Maintenance	1.070	0.918	0.289		2.277
Public Safety	1.069	1.415	0.247	4.675	7.406
Covenant administration	1.016	1.150	0.190		2.357
Firefighting and rescue	0.475	0.721	0.138	14.725	16.059
Streetlights Power/Maintenance	0.473	0.500	0.077		1.050
Other allocated	0.442	0.617	0.111		1.171
Neighborhood services	0.258	0.332	0.058		0.648
Community relations	0.201	0.258	0.043		0.502
Other expenses	0.053	0.056	0.001	0.045	0.155
Payments to Conroe, Houston				0.959	0.959
Transition to new govt				0.600	0.600
Marketing &economic development				0.933	0.933
Community&Environmental Svcs	0.218	0.284	0.050
General Administration	0.893	1.122	0.199	2.383	4.597
Other associations (Carlton)		0.186
Transportation (trolleys_etc)					0.00
Other_Operations&staff	0.429	0.517	0.094	0.685

Capital_Budget_2009	1.80	2.10	1.90	2.54	8.34
Park projects	0.702	0.808	1.891		3.400
Pathway Projects	0.750	0.578			1.328
Pathway improvements	0.000	0.335	0.008		0.343
Landscape improvements		0.080			0.080
Aquatics Facility Improvements	0.226	0.097			0.323
Signs/StoneWalls/Landscape	0.078	0.123			0.201
Athletic Facility Improvements	0.038	0.073			0.110
Other	0.003	0.003	0.004		0.010
Transfers and Capital				2.540	2.540

Total Budget 2009	14.52	16.88	3.90	31.08	63.92

Discussion

There are several assumptions made to produce this table. It is only created to put together the numbers from the published 2009 budgets^1,2,3,4 and provide a means to assimilate all of them in one concise view. I encourage all interested parties to review those documents as well, but this should be the quickest way to get your feet wet. Different account models are used in the association and the township. The association uses an older self-developed model, while the township uses a method known as the GASB method.⁵. In doing so, the township does not present the information in the same way, so I have chosen to do that as close as I practically could without losing information. The Chart of Accounts of all merging entities are being merged into one Chart of Accounts as part of the transition, so I hope to see this same information in a more readable format from the accounting system in the near future.

There are one time and ongoing expenses which are expected once again to be in the township budget. In 2009, we had a line item for $600,000 in the township budget as a one time expense. I did not back that out in my 2010 "guestimate". I did back out interest accumulated by the WCA financial reserves, since they no longer will exist. WCA had a low assessment rate for 2008 and 2009 because of their strategy to spend down the reserves before dissolving as a governing body. Therefore, to obtain an idea of what the income would be under normal circumstances, I normalized the income to an assessment rate of 32 cents per $100 assessment. I did that for WCA and WCOA. I also added in a guess for property value increases into the equation, as well as a guess for sales tax revenue growth.

Scenario I	WCA	TWA	WCOA	Town	Totals
...............................................	$mm	$mm	$mm	$mm	$mm
Normalization for 2010
Normalize WCA @ 0.032/100	13.62
Normalize WCOA @ 0.032/100			2.83
Reduce incomes from banks	(0.24)
Added assessments guess	0.68	2.47	0.21		3.36
Added sales taxes guess (5%)				13.08
Guestimate income change	0.45	2.47	0.21	13.08	16.21



2010 guestimate Operating Budget					58.35
2010 guestimate Income					71.01
2010 guestimate reserve build					3.00
2010 guestimate available for capital					9.66

The scenario presented here has a large increase in operating budget for the first year of operation. That is, the consolidated budget is increased by 10% in the spreadsheet, yielding a generous $58.35 million operating budget, increased by more than $5 million. The scenario assumes a 10% increase over the 2009 normalized budget in revenue. There are certain complications in the changes that are to take place, so here we are just showing that income should be increasing by more than just sales taxes, but it is unclear how much, therefore the scenario assumption. An assumption is made that $3 million is sufficient for establishing a first year operational reserve. That will supplement the existing reserve. Then a capital budget exceeding 2009 is placed into the budget. If cuts are to be made at this time, it would likely be in the capital budget. As you will notice, I have not included a municipal office building for the government and will likely be part of the budget proposal. Another significant expected increase in service that will be costly will be the additional police protection likely to be proposed. I do assume we can become more efficient by this merger, so in 2010, I would expect to see contracts leveraged better and township operating costs reduced per household to begin the process of becoming more efficient.

So this is my current take on the budget, just to get my and hopefully your feet on the ground, to have a reference point for the coming discussions. I have not run additional scenarios but may do so soon. To expedite this information into the hands of residents, I will go ahead and publish this as it is.

Resources

¹WCA 2009 Budget
²TWA 2009 Budget
³WCOA 2009 Budget
⁴WoodlandsTownship 2009 Budget
⁵GASB Model of accounting
⁶Commentary Article on expectations of a new government - Tuesday Elections 2007
⁷My Decision and what I considered in reaching it

Let me know if you want more or have feedback on this subject. Most of you know how to reach me and if not, it is in my profile. If you want to post notes in Facebook, you are welcome to do so in The Woodlands Commentary. Just look it up in Facebook.

Draft of The Woodlands Strategic Plan

2009-07-09T12:35:00.000-05:00

This document is an early draft of the strategic directions being formulated by the township. It is being prepared for the coming town hall meeting on the budget. When I have a link to the publication, I will provide that here. This document will drive the decision making for the budget, so it is considered very important to the process, that is, taxes and spending strategies and decisions will come from this directional document.

Introduction

Based on the results of the historic governance process, the Board of Directors of The Woodlands Township implemented a strategic planning process. The Woodlands is in a period of dynamic change relating to how it is governed, funds itself, and provides services and amenities. The purpose of the Strategic Plan is to keep The Woodlands Township on course during this time of change and beyond.

Vision for the Future

The first step in developing a strategic plan is to determine what is desired to be accomplished. For a company, this might be reaching a sales level or industry position. For an organization like The Woodlands Township, which is responsible for making decisions on behalf of an entire community, this process starts with a Vision for the Future.

The Vision for the Future is the ideal desired condition of the community at some future point in time – typically decades away. The Vision is a dream rooted in reality that may contain some existing conditions to be preserved along with future ambitions to be strived for.

The Woodlands Vision should be referred to regularly to ensure decisions being made are consistent with its contents.

The Woodlands Vision

The Woodlands, our dynamic hometown within a natural forest, is known for its balance between man and nature. We are a thriving business community and a premier destination for visitors – a place where generations live, work, learn and play.

The Woodlands…
…is a place where we feel safe and secure
…achieves prosperity by promoting economic development and quality of life
…cultivates the relationship between urban needs and environmental sustainability
…provides premier services and activities, superior educational opportunities, a diversity of jobs, and vibrant public spaces, events and entertainment for all
…is a place that welcomes everyone from everywhere to grow and thrive

Organizational Mission

To pursue The Woodlands’ Vision for the Future, organizations, agencies, businesses, and citizens will need to work collaboratively with a focus on the future. Leading the way will be the community’s local government, The Woodlands Township. To carry out the business and myriad of tasks necessary, it is important that the Township has a clear mission.

The Woodlands Township Vision for the Future and Mission together provide the foundation for the Strategic Plan.

The Woodlands Township Mission

We fulfill The Woodlands vision by:
· Protecting the well-being and safety of our residents, visitors and businesses
· Achieving the highest standards in service delivery
· Partnering with others to sustain the vitality of our region
· Communicating with our constituents and partners
· Attracting and retaining a talented and innovative staff
· Serving as the community’s political voice
· Powering economic growth through community investment
· Promoting continued vitality of neighborhoods and commercial areas
· Maintaining transparent governance
· Serving as financial stewards of the community’s resources
· Evolving a governance structure to meet our goals
· Promoting sound environmental policy

Focus Areas, Goals, and Key Initiatives

Focus Areas, Goals, and Key Initiatives provide the structure for the Strategic Plan. Focus Areas are broad “containers” into which the vast majority of The Township’s activities and responsibilities will fall. These Focus Areas, in no prioritized order, are:

1. Service Delivery
2. Communications
3. Organizational Support
4. Governmental Representation
5. Economic Development
6. Governance Structure
7. Environmental Sustainability
8. Fiscal Policy

Within the Focus Areas are bolded Goals which establish what is desired to be accomplished. The Goals are long-term pursuits that encourage new and more effective ways of operating.

Accompanying the Goals will be Key Initiatives that provide broad, action-oriented direction. Through the Focus Areas, Goals, and Key Initiatives, the Board of Directors has clearly stated what it desires to be accomplished. The professional staff of The Township uses this direction to formulate specific programs, projects, and actions it will take to pursue the Goals and implement the Key Initiatives along with identifying necessary resources.

Focus Area 1: Service Delivery
The Woodlands community operates through a multitude of service providers and The Township plays a critical role in directly providing several basic services along with supporting and coordinating many others. The Township often serves as the first point of contact for residents and businesses even though it may not be the service provider.

Maintaining a high level of service has been indicated as a priority in resident surveys and as the role of The Township evolves and changes, it must be in position to continue to provide superior services.
1.1. Protect the well-being and safety of constituents
1.1.1. Maintain and continue to explore options to provide a high level of proactive law enforcement visibility, effectiveness, availability and awareness
1.1.2. Support law enforcement public safety efforts with other kinds of security support in public areas
1.1.3. Explore, develop, and implement options that improve safety and educate residents on the role they can play in making their community safer
1.1.4. Maintain lighting to meet performance and safety standards
1.1.5. Maintain safe public facilities and amenities
1.1.6. Take appropriate steps to minimize the impact of various emergencies and disasters that occur and prepare the community in the management of response and recovery options for large scale emergencies
1.1.7. Work toward Fire Department ISO 1rating
1.1.8. Maintain and continue to provide a high level of fire prevention and emergency medical services
1.2. Provide superior parks and recreation amenities, facilities, programs and services
1.2.1. Ensure high quality programs and services remain affordable and cost effective while facilities are still effectively used and maintained
1.2.2. Provide a parks system with amenities that reflect the diversity of our population, provide accessibility features and preserve The Woodlands environment, quality and excellence
1.2.3. Provide a pathway system that promotes healthy lifestyles, reflects the commitment to preservation of The Woodlands environment, and adequately connects the entire community for transportation, health and wellness
1.2.4. Provide for quality, diverse, life span recreational programming and opportunities
1.2.5. Provide special event opportunities that foster community spirit, family values, and healthy lifestyles
1.3. Provide and promote efficient, cost effective and environmentally responsible waste disposal and recycling community wide
1.4. Enforce covenants and standards to maintain neighborhood and commercial area vitality
1.4.1. Develop and maintain the structure to enforce covenants and standards
1.4.2. Update standards as technology advances
1.4.3. Research and provide programming and policy options to maintain vitality as the community ages
1.4.4. Promote clean, well-maintained properties and preserve architectural integrity
1.4.5. Maintain and improve community, village, and neighborhood signage, medians, and entry ways to promote village and neighborhood identity
1.5. Improve local partnerships to provide effective services
1.5.1. Serve as a resource for our constituents in dealing with issues that impact quality of life
1.5.2. As needs arise, identify and establish alliances with organizations that will help us achieve our vision and carry out our mission
1.6. Maintain appropriate levels of support services, infrastructure and other resources to carry out the functions of the Township

Focus Area 2: Communications
Providing effective two-way communications with The Woodlands’ constituents is essential as the community’s leadership and operating structures evolve. As the long-term governance structure is solidified in the coming years, it will be important to develop an atmosphere of trust and transparency within the community.
2.1. Ensure effective communications with the community and partners
2.1.1. Expand public service announcements and information outlets
2.1.2. Improve and maintain emergency operations communications plans
2.1.3. Effectively utilize other entities and programs to disseminate and collect information
2.1.4. Provide feedback opportunities such as surveys and opinion polling
2.1.5. Provide ability for the public to communicate to the board
2.1.6. Communicate accurate and timely information on the activities of the Township to the media and the public
2.2. Provide an inclusive atmosphere to enhance transparency and trust
2.2.1. Hold town hall meetings
2.2.2. Maintain relationships with Village Associations
2.2.3. Effectively communicate financial information to the public
2.2.4. Compile and make available Board meeting records
2.2.5. Encourage awareness of public meetings
2.2.6. Promote and recognize volunteer and community accomplishments

Focus Area 3: Organizational Support
The Township’s ambitious vision and mission cannot be implemented without highly skilled, trained, and motivated people. Ensuring the highest degree of effectiveness and customer service at all levels is a high priority. In addition to providing facilities and resources to ensure a productive work environment, a culture of innovation and creative problem-solving must be maintained.

3.1. Provide education and training opportunities and a supportive working environment for Township staff
3.1.1. Provide a working environment that promotes productivity and high morale
3.1.2. Encourage education and training opportunities and continuing professional development
3.1.3. Educate employees on the Township vision, mission, and services provided
3.2. Position the Township to attract and retain high quality employees
3.2.1. Develop a progressive succession program that encourages internal promotion
3.2.2. Maintain a formal staff evaluation program
3.2.3. Provide competitive benefit and compensation packages
3.2.4. Provide employee recognition events to recognize accomplishments and tenure

Focus Area 4: Government Representation
As the recognized local government entity representing The Woodlands, The Township and its leadership need to be active participants in addressing regional issues and planning efforts. The Township also needs to be represented and visible at all legislative levels.
4.1. Participate in local and regional planning and advocacy efforts
4.1.1. Identify participation opportunities
4.1.2. Prioritize and assign board and staff representation
4.2. Ensure that The Woodlands is represented and visible at governmental and legislative bodies
4.2.1. Identify participation opportunities
4.2.2. Prioritize and assign board and staff representation
4.3. Maintain and expand local, regional, state, and federal partnerships with other governmental entities and stakeholders
4.3.1. Assign staff to specific entities to build relationships
4.3.2. Coordinate representation to ensure maximum participation

Focus Area 5: Economic Development
The Woodlands’ viability as a community and ability to pay for services and amenities is based on a strong local economy. The Township supports efforts to attract and retain employers and quality businesses to create jobs and also to position The Woodlands as a premier destination for visitors and travelers to expand the local tax base.
5.1. Attract, retain and promote high quality businesses
5.1.1. Proactively maintain contact with local and regional employers' issues and concerns
5.1.2. Maintain active involvement with other organizations, entities, and stakeholders to promote the local economy and secure economic development incentives (i.e., Chambers of Commerce, Economic Development Partnership, etc.)
5.2. Encourage expansion of employment and education opportunities in The Woodlands
5.2.1. Support strategic infrastructure improvements
5.2.2. Explore and develop viable incentives to attract employment and education opportunities to The Woodlands
5.2.3. Act as a liaison between private organizations and local governmental entities to facilitate development incentives
5.3. Support events, venues and programs to bring visitors to The Woodlands
5.3.1. Support convention and visitors bureau
5.3.2. Support public/private partnerships to increase visitors
5.3.3. Expand, support and create new cultural, sporting and entertainment venues
5.3.4. Expand collaborative efforts with other regional visitor attraction entities
5.3.5. Expand Hotel and Occupancy Tax revenues and tax base
5.3.6. Produce and sponsor high quality community events
5.4. Develop an integrated mobility system that is seamless within and surrounding the Township
5.4.1. Explore funding sources and partnerships to maintain affordable transportation and transit options
5.4.2. Examine options to provide transportation to village and employment centers
5.4.3. Work with transportation agencies to identify potential road system improvements
5.4.4. Continue to enhance bicycle and pedestrian transportation
5.4.5. Expand accessibility within the Township

Focus Area 6 Governance Structure
As The Woodlands’ journey toward effective self-governance continues, viable options including their impacts must be explored and evaluated with the results communicated to the residents and business community for feedback.
6.1. Continue to explore governance alternatives and clearly quantify and communicate potential impacts
6.1.1. Continue with research to identify the best alternatives for the governance structure
6.1.2. Perform a comprehensive impact analysis of viable options
6.1.3. Develop and implement a comprehensive communication, public input and education process to ensure understanding of governance issues, alternatives, and implications
6.2. Consider changes in the existing governance structure
6.2.1. Identify options to streamline covenant administration review processes
6.2.2. Identify improvements to the Township’s regulation making authority
6.3. Develop appropriate legislative strategies to deal with future governance structure issues

Focus Area 7: Environmental Sustainability
The community is committed to the stewardship of the environment as a critical element of its quality of life. The Township plays a key role in supporting and in some cases leading local and regional environmental preservation efforts.
7.1. Proactively address environmental and conservation issues
7.1.1. Support efforts of the municipal utility districts, San Jacinto River Authority, and others to achieve superior water quality, conservation and reuse
7.1.2. Expand environmental education
7.1.3. Support conservation initiatives
7.1.4. Encourage and communicate the value of the creation and retention of natural forested areas on private property
7.2. Adopt policies and standards to encourage energy efficiency and use of renewable resources
7.2.1. Investigate opportunities and communicate with homeowners and business
7.2.2. Identify grant opportunities
7.2.3. Improve energy efficiency of the Township fleet and facilities
7.2.4. Explore options for development standards that promote conservation and environmental sustainability
7.3. Preserve and protect the natural forested areas of the community
7.3.1. Maintain policies to protect native vegetation and wildlife habitats
7.3.2. Support reforestation and forest management planning
7.3.3. Enforce Covenants to ensure the proper maintenance and retention of green space and reserve areas

Focus Area 8: Fiscal Policy
The Township must maintain a financial position to allow it to meet current and new needs in a cost effective and accountable manner while ensuring the maintenance of existing assets as the community ages.
8.1. Maintain sound fiscal policies and budgets that allow the Township to address evolving service needs and maintain community quality
8.1.1. Plan for and identify funding for services and long term maintenance of public facilities and assets
8.1.2. Establish reserves for appropriate working capital, replacement of capital assets, and economic development opportunities
8.1.3. Explore budget philosophies that prioritize and align resource allocation to the Strategic Plan
8.1.4. Explore funding sources and opportunities
8.1.5. Maintain policies and programs regarding the collection of fees and taxes
8.1.6. Maintain a fiscally responsible management system to address funding requests from outside organizations and individuals
8.1.7. Maintain an effective long term debt management strategy
8.1.8. Conduct an annual audit of financial statements
8.1.9 Plan for future funding requirements as Developer phase-out occurs

Plan Implementation

The success of an organization is measured by the results of its decisions. An important tool for effective decision-making is the Strategic Plan. The Strategic Plan must remain current and relevant through regular review and updates. Based on the challenges and changes on the horizon for The Woodlands Township, using the Strategic Plan to remain on course and keeping the plan up-to-date are critical.

The Strategic Plan is integrated into the day-to-day organizational operations of the Township. The Board of Directors uses the plan to provide strategic direction, prioritize expenditures, and evaluate proposals. Township staff used the document to develop action plans and budget proposals.

Staff is also responsible for conducting an annual Strategic Plan Audit. This activity and subsequent document consists of identifying accomplishments and progress made as well as implementation challenges faced throughout the year. Plan Audits also include any new information or changes that should be considered by the Board of Directors during their Strategic Plan update process.

Prior to the annual budget process, the Board of Directors will update and adopt the Strategic Plan.

In addition to annually updating the Strategic Plan, the Vision and Mission that serve as the foundations need to be periodically assessed. As The Woodlands grows and matures and as new people enter the community, it is important to periodically check-in with the residents so that the governing body can be confident they are leading in the desired direction.

Through systematic and diligent implementation of the Strategic Plan, The Woodlands Township can help ensure that The Woodlands continues to be a highly desirable place for generations to live, work, learn, and play.

Developing role of the village associations in The Woodlands

2009-06-07T10:32:00.000-05:00

Here we are in the middle of the last year of our alphabet soup associations. The primary resident associations, homeowner associations, the TWA and WCA, will no longer be available for residents as a means of action on issues. Additionally, they will no longer manage deed restrictions. These associations have in the past managed the budgeting process and monies collected as association fees. They also, on the most part, have managed the service company, the corporation formed to provide us daily services such as garbage pickup, green area and park maintenance, area improvement projects, service contracts, area-wide events such as fun runs, nature lectures, deed enforcement, maintained a database of issues and parsed them to appropriate service entities, provided a community website, and other services. Our associations have listened to major resident issues and been the owners of community property. Deed restrictions have been and will continue to be governed and managed by a cooperative and structured group of people elected by residents. Residential and deed restriction enforcement services will be provided by the Township starting in January. The service company provides monitoring and analysis services for those elected officials in the community. The service company employees will be transferred to our governing body, The Woodlands Township in January.

Our village associations, on the other hand, have helped residents on minor issues and have functioned as social organizations to bring the neighborly and hometown spirit to neighborhoods. Village associations have directors and representatives elected just like the Residential Design Review Committee's (RDRC/DSC) with one major and significant difference. RDRC's and their umbrella DSC are official government entities and must conform to the Texas Open Meetings Act whereas the village associations are not. Some of our association presidents have stated their position is that they do not want to have to conform to the act. Their position is based on the fact that the village associations do not carry any decisions on taxpayer money. They have a budget appropriated by the association and in the future, the township to spend for social activities, including scholarships, school projects or other events for the good of the community. Therefore, the more relaxed informal atmosphere of a village process must be considered in the context of a governmental function as we explore the role of the village in the future of The Woodlands governing processes as a whole. A summary of the act is presented in this link.

A couple of months or so ago, a team was commissioned by the township chairperson, Mrs Blair, to come up with a workable proposal to provide a communication link between the Township and residents of the community. With the loss of the Woodlands Association (WCA,TWA,...) and the imminent transition to a new governing body, the need to define how this should work became more urgent. A business interface had already been established through the Chamber of Commerce, but there would no longer be an organized government channel for the residents. How would the residents get to the board of the Township with significant issues? The township board has many significant issues and cannot handle day-to-day issues at their board meetings. These folks are volunteers, elected to govern the community, and many of them have full time day jobs also. However, it is essential that they understand residents' issues in order to make sound decisions for budgeting and for approving expenses. So this committee was commissioned to solve the issue. On this committee are a number of people who have influence in the community, especially in the village associations, and have an interest in setting a path for linking residents to the township board of directors. There is representation from every village on the committee to make sure the diversity of The Woodlands has some voice in the outcome. There are two areas not actively represented - the exclusive gated areas such as Carlton Woods who generally take care of themselves, and the elderly section, off of SH 242. Steve Lackey is the project leader.

After a review of the draft proposal by some of the members of the township board, the project moves forward this week, as members of the committee begin taking the near finalized proposal to their respective villages for comments. The proposal is presented below and a survey for your input is included after that.

Proposal

“The Parties acknowledge and agree that the Village Associations of The Woodlands have played an integral and significant role in providing for grass-roots resident input and representation related to the operations of the Associations…” The Woodlands Township Transition Agreement dated February 1, 2008.

Objective
To develop a framework to facilitate effective communication and meaningful interaction between The Woodlands Township Board of Directors and the Boards of Directors of The Woodlands Village Associations.

Background
Presently the interface between the village associations and the governing residential boards, The Woodlands Association (TWA) and The Woodlands Community Association (WCA), is based upon TWA and WCA board members participation generally as non-voting members of the board of directors of the village association from which they are elected. In addition, the village association presidents give an informal verbal report during the monthly meeting of their appropriate governing board. Individual residents are entitled to address all boards during the “public comments” agenda period.

The Woodlands Township was approved by the voters as the eventual governing entity for our community. The major responsibilities of TWA and WCA are being transitioned to the Township in phases defined by a written transition agreement between the boards.

Once this transition is complete, and TWA and WCA cease to function as major governing boards (and in fact may dissolve entirely), the present linkage between the village associations and their parent boards will concurrently disappear.

Therefore, to ensure/improve the present village association role, a formal communication and interaction linkage must be established between the Township Board and the village association boards of directors. It is the purpose of this project to develop, in partnership with appropriate stakeholders, this new linkage.

Project Team
A project team comprised of twenty-two elected directors/officers representing the seven present village associations has met five times to formulate this communication linkage. Ideas have been solicited from all village association directors and many other Woodlands leaders. Senior Woodlands leadership has served as project team advisers. Following is the proposed board linkage structure as of June 5, 2009. It is important to note that this is a work in process and that future changes/revisions may be made.

Village Associations
A Village Association Township Representative will be assigned by each village association, at its discretion, to interface with the Woodlands Township Board. Candidates should have a high interest in community involvement, have good communication skills, and be available to attend most Township Board posted meetings. Duties will include reporting to the Township Board on significant village news, critical issues, major events, etc.; and Township Board news to their respective village association. The representatives may meet on an occasional, as-needed basis, but will not constitute a formal group with any responsibilities.

The currently successful Parks and Recreation Advisory Council (which is assumed will continue) should be used as a model to devise appropriate Woodlands Township Advisory Councils, both “permanent” and ad hoc in nature. Each village association may assign a board member to a council at its discretion. Council leadership will have authority over the final composition of a given council. Councils should be devised to provide informal support to senior Woodlands Township personnel and will have no authority. It is anticipated that they will be few in number. Potential areas that may be appropriate for consideration include transportation, public safety and finance.

Village association board members could serve, at village association board discretion, as non-voting members on appropriate Township Board committees and/or Township staff teams. Candidates should have relevant expertise and/or interest in the particular area of focus and be able to make the time commitment required. It is understood that committees may or may not be necessary when the transition to a seven member Township Board is complete. But working with appropriate Township staff, teams would still be of value to our community. The Township budget process could be a target area.

Woodlands Township
The role of the Village Association Liaison persons currently representing the Woodlands Community Associations should be revised to include Woodlands Township news and information. It may also be appropriate to expand the liaison role to include problem solving functions currently provided by community association directors that will discontinue upon transition January 1, 2010.

Woodlands Township Board Directors and/or senior staff members will attend, and report at, village association meetings. While it is envisioned that this would occur on a regular monthly basis, a particular village association may elect to do so less frequently. Furthermore, senior Township staff members may also attend village association meetings on an as needed basis for a particular subject of interest.

Woodlands Township Board should host periodic evening Town Hall Meetings similar to the session held in November, 2008.

A “Receive and consider reports from Village Association Township Representatives” agenda item should replace the current “Receive and consider a report from the Community Associations of The Woodlands” agenda item at all posted, regular Township Board meetings. Village association reports will be given only on an as-needed basis so not all village associations may report at any given meeting.

Next Steps
This proposed plan will be presented to each village association during June, 2009 for consideration and approval. Following the village reviews, the project team will meet to review and make appropriate adjustments. The plan will then be presented to the Township Board for consideration and eventual action. Implementation of the final linkage structure will occur January 1, 2010.

Your input
You may provide your input to the "experimental" poll below anytime throughout this month. I will freeze input on July 15th and report the results to the committee.

Poll at SurveyMonkey.com: Click Here to take survey

Private vs Government Enterprise

2009-05-22T10:50:00.000-05:00

The Woodlands has been moving in a dangerous direction. Government enterprise! There seems to be a trend these days, started by participation in the financing of the expansion of the pavilion. Collection of taxes was the rationale for the Pavilion; the facility was disabled by hurricane Ike, and there was a shortage on financial support. As a contractual agreement with the Pavilion for financing part of the renovation of the Pavilion, the township gained the right to have a rink on its property. The Township is now taking bids on building an ice rink.

Will this reduce our taxes? It seems to be piling on! An ice rink has limited usefulness. Normally, such facilities are financed and operated by private enterprise. Why should we be engaged in government enterprise? Is this part of the new era of taxation? Are we watching our finances carefully? I am uncertain that the payback on the Pavilion will be as advertised. Will we get a bond for this and then have to pay out of our pocketbooks? Remember the tax relief we were going to get with the Township? Perhaps this is a way to reduce our taxes or not.

Decison-making in The Woodlands - part 2

2009-02-24T07:11:00.000-06:00

The seven phases of a project are:

Proposal: overview of a proposed budget item, defining the problem, a solution, estimated cost and expected benefit. On large projects, this consists of substantial analysis and networking with people.
Defining the alternatives and selecting the preferred alternative. Refine cost estimate. Produce general plan. Select contractors for contracts needed in detailed planning.
Detailed Planning: define schedules, resources, contracts, execution plan with tasks, milestones, cash flow and other resource consumption. Refine cost estimate. Bidding and selection for execution contracts. Financing.
Execution: construction or development phase. Monitor cost and resources, manage contracts. Report progress and issues routinely. This is where the highest costs occur and what many people believe is project management.
Implementation: bringing the deliverables into their useful state to realize anticipated benefits. This is where success is usually defined, so that the next step can be executed at the appropriate time or times in the future. Measuring tools are put into place to monitor expected benefits. Project documentation for operation is generated. What went right, what went wrong, abstractly develop learning experience. This is where the project team learns from each other.
Operation: Start-up processes are executed, staff trained, operational budget is monitored. Benefits delivered to stakeholders.
Look-back: measuring success. This is where promises meet reality. It is where project manager and stakeholders can learn how to do the job better. It usually occurs months or even a year or two later, depending on the nature of the project.

A project can be effectively managed amidst other projects by a management team by using a gated approach. Between each phase of the project, stop at the gate to discuss progress and decide to proceed to the next phase or if more preparation is required first. The execution phase can be divided up into two separate sub-phases or even more, if the project is very expensive. All this sounds like excess overhead and it is sometimes, but it saves a lot of money and time in large capital projects. In small projects, one must decide what is appropriate for the value to be derived, not necessarily on the cost alone.

So why go through all this trouble in a government? Because the process allows stakeholders to participate and guide the results. It is a logical process where the stakeholders know where the project stands and where it is going at what speed. Even in a small community, the process should not the allowed to be lax. The community has few dollars and wants the results of their selected projects to have highest value, just like a large corporation. Due process does not to have to be terribly constraining so that nothing gets done. It just needs to be logical and able to be replicated.

This will be continued in part three.

Let's Talk Incorporation

2009-02-15T09:30:00.000-06:00

Sometime or another we need to start talking about this subject. Might as well be now. I have leaned toward incorporation for our community from the time I came here. That inclination has never been abandoned. However, the cost of doing that will probably drive my final vote, if it ever comes to that. In the meantime, you as well as I need to understand where we are and where we are going, relative to any futuristic vision that includes incorporation of our community.

The Woodlands Texas is engaged in a two-pronged transition. One prong got off the ground a couple of years ago when the community voted to form The Woodlands Township. This prong was intended to develop an interim government until we can decide on a permanent one. The township could be a permanent form of government, but many doubt it will serve us very well in the long term. For now, we are changing from an association-centric community to a special-district governed community. The primary difference between the two is that the special district acquires revenue via taxation, whereas the association acquires revenue through a fee. Another notable difference is the much smaller number of township representatives from the community engaged in major decision making. And similar to municipalities, this difference also affects the number of residents who are involved in the decision making processes of the community. From a tax perspective, the new government won't be much different in that our fees have always been based on property assessments, basically the same as our new government, starting in 2010. The primary difference is in tax exceptions. Abatement to corporations will be part of our tax structure if we get legislation this Spring, but abatement to homeowners will not, except for veterans and perhaps the elderly and disabled (I do not like to use that word).

The other prong is our long term solution. This subject is discussed in many circles but action is dormant for now until the first prong is settled. What will the government look like after 2014, the year in which we can first apply for incorporation?

That is the sixty-four thousand dollar question and the reason I have written this article. Will we look like Oak Ridge (inc 1979) or Shenandoah (inc 1974 by de-annexing The Woodlands) or Conroe (inc 1904) or Tomball (since 1800's)? Those are our closest neighbors who incorporated decades ago.

If we are to shape our community into one that we want, we must participate in the spirit of a hometown, something similar to Tomball's vision approach for their downtown district. Those stakeholders, those who live there, are openly invited to participate in determining the future of their downtown area.

So what governing components do we have today versus those of a municipality? That is a starter to consider. So I have generated a comparison table as a basis to begin this consideration.

Special District	Function	Municipality
Board	Tax representation	City council or equivalent ¹
Manager	Business management	Mayor and comptroller, or city manager
Contract	Garbage and Waste	Garbage division of city services, contract optional
None, deferred to County & State	Legislative	City council ², county commissioners and state legislators
None, deferred to County and State	Judicial	City, county and state courts ³
MUD district	Water & Sewage	City department
District fire services	Fire & EMS	City fire & EMS services (same)
Contract	Law enforcement	Police department, contract optional ⁴
Contract	Parks and recreation	Parks and recreation department, contract optional
???	Charter	Home-rule or General Charter ⁵
None, Deferred to County	Health	Health Department
None, deferred to County	Regulatory Domain	Zoning, buildings, signs, nuisances, and subdivision development
Ad valorem tax & district sales tax & borrowing (bond sales)	Revenue sources	Municipal sales tax, property taxes, occupation taxes, fines collected by the municipal court, fees imposed for utilities such as water, solid waste pickup, waste water, etc., state and federal revenues, and borrowing (bond sales)
Only through state legislation	Annexation Powers	Unlimited within 5 miles of city limits, assuming the "home-rule" model ⁶

Table notes

^1,2An alternative is a City Commission where city administrators manage legislative duties as well as direct reports (employees).
³Required to enforce city ordinances. There may be some room to contract this function to a county court.
⁴This service is considered by many to be necessary to us by the Township employing policemen, but we should also be able to contract the service out to county law enforcement agencies, if the contract includes enforcement of city ordinances.
⁵Texas has a default charter for small cities that is sometimes utilized in the absence of a city charter. "Home rule" implies that a written city charter exists.

Some thoughts about the variables and what might occur in the community as we debate a new government:

Policing our community would likely be a hot topic when considering a new government. Some folks want our own police force. That means a payroll, asset management, local enforcement techniques, control processes, ethical guidelines, etc etc. I have a story to tell about city police forces, but it will wait until another article.
Ordinance making would also probably be a very hot topic. Right now the "shoe" is made to fit the county. Our community is vastly different than the rest of the county. It seems only right that we would have our own ordinances so the "foot would fit our customized shoe" properly. But when this is debated, we are almost sure to discover things that we have not thought about before.
Manager or Mayor? It is not clear what path we would take on this. There will be varying opinions and reasons to have one over the other. I expect this to also be a political mine field.
Council or Commission? This will not likely be a hot topic but it could. Most people envision and assume a mayor/council type of municipal government purely because they are accustomed to it.
Home-rule or default charter? I think the home-rule will dominate but who knows? Most cities in Texas defer to the default state-defined city charter.
Representation - by the people (at large) or by the village or both?
Service Company - continue to contract or build allegiance through full time employees? This will certainly be a hot topic. Many will want to continue as before, but costs and allegiance issues may drive the model to an employment one.
City Hall - a process is underway now to study this and come up with a recommendation and decision. This is being driven by the timing of land development and availability of resources. We could be forced to have the cart before the horse.
Water - here is another $64,000 question. We are in the midst of change. The area has grown so fast that it is steadily depleting the underground water reservoirs. We must transition to surface water. That will be another large capital expenditure which may prevent us from having a city water system, or it may have the opposite effect. This is an issue I would like to pursue further. In addition, typically, a city manages to acquire additional funds through service fees which are "hidden" in the water bill (last I saw, the bill is high in Houston with just fees.) This is the type of thing one must watch out for when choosing a municipality model for a government. Residents often pay additional fees on top of taxes.
Mass transportation and traffic management - it is inevitable that we must move to improve transportation within the boundaries of The Woodlands, but how will we do it? We face many issues, and it is unclear how we will solve them.

Finally, for now, we need to examine ourselves to see if we have an open mind. The Woodlands continues to be very unique in Texas. Modeling our town after Tomball or Conroe or any other small town does not see to me to be a good idea. We need to take it from the top. That requires careful thinking about what we want our service and jurisdiction table to look like in order to best serve this community. Again we need innovative thinking, not necessarily creative, not emotional, but logical and fact driven. If we go for incorporation, we may face significant political resistance in Texas by those who feel threatened by full incorporation.
References
1. City of Sweeny - Government defined

Woodlands Payment to Houston - Where is that money going anyway?

2009-02-14T10:00:00.000-06:00

These are the projects that we are helping to fund with the capital provided by the recent bond sale and probably with this year's sales tax payment to Houston. I have wondered about these projects ever since we signed the agreement with Houston, so I have done some research to share with you. Chime in if you have additional information to share. I ask myself the question, how will we and the region benefit as a whole from our investments?

You know, there is no guarantee that residents of The Woodlands will benefit in any way from these payments, but to be fair about it, Houston is willing to put our money exclusively into projects that benefit the region's shared use of facilities. You can see the rationale when you peruse the projects below. These are included as part of the infrastructure improvement program of the City of Houston. They are considered to have regional benefit, including Houston proper. In simple terms, for now, our money is targeted to benefit the users of the medical center and major parks. These projects were included in the original agreement between The Woodlands and Houston and have been programmed into Houston's 2009-2014 Capital Improvement Program (CIP). All the project names below are in the Houston Capital Improvement Plan and were included in an attachment to their agreement with us. In 2008, Houston asked the township to approve them in a separate memo, according to the process of the agreement, which we did.

The Agreement with Houston; these are the exact project names in the agreement

Herman Park - $200,000
Memorial Park Pedestrian Bridge - $500,000
Lake Houston Park improvements - $4,500,000
Holcolme Reconstruction ² - $3,723,000
N McGregor Way Reconstruction - $2,600,000
Cambridge Paving - $400,000
Bayou Drive - $3,800,000 (apparently a new road)

In addition, there is another project not listed but already underway.

Hardy Toll Road Extension - $300,000,000 (We expected to contribute $5,000,000 during the project execution. This is a multi-year project, and was targeted for completion in 2011, but more likely in 2012. There is a lot to it, including the permanent closing of streets.⁴

What I have been able to discern from research:

Herman Park
There are several projects underway for this park according to the City of Houston's website.¹ Our money is designated for one particular planned project. Supporting the park is worthwhile to us. Our residents do visit the zoo and other facilities in and around Herman Park and many of their projects do affect our residents, although I would think in a small way. The park's capital improvements over the 2009-2013 plan amount to $2.5 million, with The Woodlands contributing some $700,000 to that plan for 2009-2014 through our initial payments.
Memorial Park
Memorial Park is used extensively in the region, but not likely by most residents of The Woodlands. It is shared regionally. We are not a very big part of the benefactors of this large park. Memorial Park Pedistrian Bridge is found in the Houston capital budget for $4,158,000. We fund $500,000 of that. Ground breaking occurred just recently. The scenic bridge will be covered in greenery and is intended for safe pedestrian passage.
Lake Houston Park
Lake Houston Park Improvements - $4,703,000. Some of us could be users of this 5000 acre park over time. It is the closest to us of all Houston's major parks. It has no frontage to Lake Houston, so there are no boating ramps to or on the lake. There is access to Peach Creek and Caney Creek, both of which empty into Lake Houston just north of Kingwood. It is close enough for a pleasant day trip from here, offering fishing, canoeing, horseback, biking and a nature center. George Mitchell funded the nature center. "The first phase of our development of Lake Houston Park will be an entry gate, roads, visitor center, parking, cabins and more campsites" to be completed in late 2010. This is one of the more interesting projects to me. Lake Houston Wilderness Park is part of Houston's Capital Improvement Project program supporting the Kingwood area. Now you see the story. Kingwood annexation by the City Of Houston was the primary reason we organized to fight annexation. So our payment to not be annexed is in a large part going to help the Kingwood area. How do you like "them apples"? This park became part of the Houston parks system in 2006.^7,8
Holcombe Reconstruction
This medical center project will provide better drainage and traffic flow on Holcombe Avenue. At the beginning of 2009, the project was in phase 3 of 4. At the end of this, the street will be repaved with a better mobility configuration. The last stage will be to improve water transmission to the medical center. 57 trees of 283 will need to be removed, but the project will plant 80 seven-foot trees in their place. ⁵
N MacGregor Way Reconstruction
There is no project by this name in the Houston capital improvement plan. However, there is one named N MacGregor Way Realignment, which is safely assumed to be the one referenced. The Houston Zoo web page shows the two names synonymous. This project was budgeted for 2008 but continues to be a work in progress. It realigns the roadbed with S MacGregor Way to make 10 acres of valuable unused parkland available to the public and also makes the roadbed available for a wide path or riding trail. It has a beautiful archway of trees along both sides of the roadway. This $2.6 million investment is tagged as a mobility project to improve traffic flow to the medical center and Hermann Park.⁶
Cambridge Paving
The capital improvement plan has this as "Cambridge Paving: Holly Hall to IH 610", a $2.1 million dollar project, $400,000 of which is budgeted in 2009 (our payment), to be completed in 2011. Scope is approximately 1,600 feet of Cambridge Street to a four-lane concrete roadway with curbs, sidewalks, street lighting, and necessary underground utilities. This is also a mobility project, to provide less congested access from Loop 610 to Herman Park and the Medical Center. It widens the narrow Cambridge road to four lanes.
Bayou Drive
Tagged as "Bayou Drive: From South Street at Myrtle to Quitman" in the capital improvement plan, this 5.9 million dollar project begins in 2009 and ends in 2010. I was drawing blanks on defining this project until I found myself physically at the Medical Center, where I noticed a sign advertising the project. I will update this article when I find out more. It was a 3.8 million dollar black hole of Woodlands money until I discovered the sign where the road will connect. I could not find this project on Houston's website or any other source. It has to be out in internet-land somewhere.

Hardy Toll Extension
This $300,000,000 project is four miles of railyard, residential area and integration with Elyssian. It is being designed in 2009 and construction should begin in 2009-2010. Houston has tagged $5,000,000 of our dollars for this project, but it is not listed in the regional project list they sent us. This one has high relevance to resident commuters traveling into the Houston downtown area. I may be out of date on this one. Funding seems to be as a toll road, not as a public sector financed road. I am seeking clarification of this as well.

I noted a lack of recognition that The Woodlands is funding some of these projects. I am not sure why, perhaps political.

References:
¹ 2009-2013 Capital Improvement Plan City of Houston, Parks and Recreation, form "E"
² 2002 study "Transportation Master Plan for The Greater Texas Medical Center Area"
³ City of Houston Mobility Capital Projects ⁴ Houston: Hardy toll road extension gets final approval
⁵ Holcombe Blvd with drainage map
⁶ 2007 City Council Notes, p 11-12.
⁷ Kingwood The Observer "CIP meeting in Kingwood discusses future projects", Feb 2009
⁸Lake Houston Wilderness Park - official site

Decison-making in The Woodlands - part 1

2009-02-08T11:46:00.000-06:00

I have been saying for a while that I have a position which calls for due process in our decision making. It is time to explain that a little. My background as a professional project manager makes me more aware of this matter than many people, yet most residents understand this conceptually. I call the core of the value presented in due process, with respect to our money, "capital stewardship".

When we elect a public official, we elect them as stewards of capital, whether it be the budget of the Township, the Association, county, MUD district, school district, or state. But capital is not always measured in dollars either. We give stewardship to individuals to maintain the value of our homes through home and property maintenance standards as well when we elect RDRC residents.

Our expectations are that those who are given stewardship in our governments, assume responsibility for their decisions and become accountable for them, as if it were their own money.

Now I would like to put this in the context of project management. Project management is an organized means to dutiful stewardship. Some people mistake the term to mean "on time and on budget", but that is a totally false perception. It means taking responsibility for all the decisions from beginning to end, which minimizes risk to stakeholders and which provides the right deliverables to the right customers at the right cost at the right time. I can go into this at great depth, but only want to get the bare essentials out in the open at this time.

Sometimes projects are defined from the wrong direction. The solution (or deliverable) defines the problem. You will see what I mean when we discuss incorporation of The Woodlands at a later date. Project management is a process which needs to begin with a clear and relative definition of some problem or issue. If I don't see that clearly defined and I hear about solutions, it immediately raises a red flag to me. "It is a solution looking for a problem."

Projects provide value. If the value is not defined and cannot be compared to the value of another project, our capital is not being managed. One cannot manage if there is no perception of relative value. Without value, there can be no investment. Investments yield returns and before one goes to spend our money, they must tell us the value of their proposal.

So we have defined two critical parts of a project proposal - definition and value. They may seem obvious, but I have seen them forgotten several times in my lifetime. A proposal goes much deeper than these two items of course. There are actually 6 phases of a project. I will tell you about those in another article.

Legislation for The Woodlands Township

2009-01-28T18:20:00.002-06:00

postscript at bottom added 01/30/09
I don't know about you, but I for one, have been concerned about the ability of the Woodlands Township to fully transition in 2009. There are a few basic legal hurdles that need to be leaped for us to pull through the transition by 2010. Our township board has most of them, if not all, outlined in a legislative wish list and prioritized. ¹

Tax Abatement - this is a very important item and is considered essential by the board to proceed as planned. There are about eight businesses with abatement contracts here. What is our contingency if we cannot honor these by law? I have not heard of any. The township must be able to continue to provide the abatement contracts by law. Otherwise, we would not be able to execute our taxation plan. We would be on hold until the next session of the Texas State Legislature. The urgency is quite apparent.
Quorum of the board - in May, 2010, we will fill the last of the elected board members and go to a seven member board. It will be very difficult to have all board members there for every meeting. This is also considered an essential change to be able to operate.
There is another essential item, but perhaps we can manage without it. We cannot directly employ fire fighters because of its union and the legal requirement for a vote among the citizens served prior to doing so. Right now we have a separate legal entity employing our fire fighters (our fire department). There may be federal legislation trumping the state law on this soon, so its importance could be reduced, yet we cannot depend on anything outside of our control. Waiting an additional two years for exception legislation would not be a great idea.
Covenant Administration - The lack of legal definition on this matter will likely force the association to remain in place, yet it is considered to be a non-essential item in the draft documents provided to the board of directors from the Governance and Nomination Committee. The Township will need to take over this function if the association dues are to be levied by the township in the form of an ad valorem tax. It apparently does not have authority to perform this function yet. This could be a sticky issue.
There are a few minor ratifications that would be helpful but not necessary. The one area I wonder about is the conditional exclusion of the Harris County parcel. It is in the non-essential section. I am unsure how this falls out but it certainly sounds urgent.
Also, there are a few financial issues that should be clarified/included, but are probably of minor consequence.
A very important issue is the dissolution of the Township and enabling a replacement government. We know that we should not depend on legislation in any given session. The legislature always has its hands full. One cannot predict where Texas politics will go on any issue. Any one session can be full of politics, and we may not have the leverage to get what we need out of it. We must have legislation to be able to prepare a municipal charter. Without it, we will have to wait until 2011 or 2013. Our political leverage may be over by 2011. This needs to be brought forward now in my opinion. We need to have the option to go forward with planning municipality in 2011 and know that we can do it, before we spend a large amount of time on a final form of government project and discover we cannot get the appropriate legislation passed. We should have learned enough lessons in the current government change, to ensure that we plan far ahead next time, leaving sufficient time to correct issues we find along the way. We also know that the strategy in leveraging our representation in the Senate and House should be to utilize our strength while we have it. The session is short and only comes every two years!
Additional legislative issues include tax exemption authority. This is an important item for certain groups of residents. Shenandoah has asked to play a role also. Delinquent assessment authority by the county has not been settled either. Whether we can legally act on delinquency or not, needs to be settled to avoid the cost of lawsuits and to enforce our covenants.

From my seat, we need all of this taken care of in this session, but then again, I am not a lawyer nor pretend to be. I hope we get all township gears engaged in 2010. The legalities of all this is like spaghetti. It seems to get all tangled up in the pot.

Postscript: What is missing? We cannot levy ordinances nor have a court system. Therefore, we must use county ordinances. Since we have two counties, The Woodlands will live under two sets of legal rules until we become a municipality or we get legislation to be one. This limits what we can do to achieve the quality of life we all expect. For one, we need a noise ordinance for barking dogs, loud cars and trucks. I am sure we can come up with other issues needing an ordinance. Adjoining cities have such ordinances and here we are allowing about anything, as if we were out in the country, and of course we are not. Yes, we can have rules, but that does nothing for the more needful situations.
References:
¹Draft 2009 Legislation Agenda for The Woodlands Township

Vision of The Woodlands Future depends on scope

2009-01-24T16:46:00.000-06:00

Just like any government, the township is now embarking on establishing a new vision, to drive future policy and strategy. We as residents or as proprietors of businesses in the township should pay close attention to this activity. This past week, the executive committee voted to recommend consultants be hired to facilitate the development of such a future vision.

This vision must be all inclusive. It cannot be short-sighted; I do not personally believe our township leaders would allow it to be such. The vision must include certain priorities of the residents. I will list a few possible priorities that readily come to mind.

Township must have a vision that includes an option for being a municipality.
Ordinance capability must be a part of its vision.
Court capability must be part of its vision.
Role of the village associations and resident representation.
Policing the community.
Fire protection.
Traffic expectations within the boundaries of the community.
Tax regimes - retirement and elderly tax breaks plus controls on spending.
Property value and assessments - relates to resident's worries about being able to live here or not in the future.
Development and zoning.
Assumed roles of county vs roles of the interim and long term government.

This is a start to consider the definition of the scope of this project as I see it. Of course I have not addressed the business issue list in this. I know some shop owners; they have issues that need to be addressed as well.

So perhaps you have something to add to this or to contest with this list? I can safely say that I am not interested in doing away with Walmart, as the recent study suggested that is high on the resident's list. That is not on my list. I am still reeling with total dismay over that conclusion!

Woodlands Government Bonds for Refinancing Payment to Houston

2009-01-24T14:55:00.000-06:00

Well, as the board promised, we have now refinanced the payment to Houston by way of government bonds. This was an extensive effort that was initiated months ago. The bond issue report is very large and has a great deal of data supporting the strength of the community and the rationale for the timing of the bonds. Right on its heels is a bond decision by the Conroe ISD to issue new bonds and refinance existing ones to save some money. Now was the time to act and the township was ready.

As it turned out, over the week before the sale, things changed fairly significantly, showing the need to act quickly in the market. For one thing, some of the wholesale brokers decided not to buy the bonds. Citibank and Merrill Lynch both dropped out. However, Edward Jones came to the plate swinging and bought in to the full near-$18-mil value. As it is, the retail structure that Edward Jones offered saved 0.2 points over their competitors, but fees more than make up the difference according to our consultant

The community fared well in the outcome by using the consultant Drew Masterson of First Southwest. He has been working with us for months on this; we have been poised with great detail, to act on his queue to do so. Although we did not get the bonds sold at the lowest market price of the week, we did manage to get a 4.96+% All-in-True rate, just 0.3 points off of the low. Reviewing the trends of the bond market, revealed a downward trend until this past week when it turned around indicating a probable bottoming of the rate. Using what I believe to be an institutional means, a local MUD did better this past week at 0.5 points below us. The yield map of our bonds ranges from 1.25% at one year to 4.5% over 11-12 years. The bonds mature in 2022(50%)and 2023(50%). For a 10 year bond commitment, a yield of 4% is achieved.

I tried to sort out the rationale of the ratings. This is what I heard and I believe to be near correct. Although we are rated at A+ by S&P, the bonds are priced with the Moody index of A3, because of a technical issue with an assessment technique.

To fully execute, the loan to Woodforest bank will be paid next week on receipt of the payment by Edward Jones. There will be no overlap of interest. This waiting period for lower bond rates and financing the payment to Houston by a temporary loan from Woodforest Bank has proven to be a good strategy by the township board. Had we issued bonds in the fall, the bond rate would have been about 6.5%. That is a $1.0+ million dollar saving over the maturity period. I would like to congratulate the board for their prudent management of our money.

I called Edward Jones on Friday to purchase some bonds, while they were still available. One-half of these tax exempt 10-year bonds were already sold by the time I called. I have now invested in our community. Why would I do this at this low rate of return? Because I believe in the economy of this area, that it will be a stable and secure investment during the current economic crisis. I can put money out there for ten years and so I did. Tax free income will be generated, making this an equivalent to a 6.0+% taxable bond yield. Short term bonds likely have cash flow advantages also, depending on your own personal situation.

The contract is found at the township website : Edward Jones 2009 issue. You will find a table on the rate of return for each year at the end of the document.

City of Houston Mayor White and The Woodlands Government

2008-12-16T18:51:00.000-06:00

As many know, the mayor of Houston played a key role to open the door for self determination of government in The Woodlands. His open-mindedness allowed us to be creative in our solution to governing ourselves. The timing could not have been better, since a seasoned mayor was in the position at the time of the government study and election. As a result, we have avoided being a part of that city and have control over our destiny with a government of our own.

Today, Mayor Bill White announced his candidacy for the Senate of the United States¹. Although his campaign is just starting, he shows a very good plate of credentials as a candidate for the Senate. I'm reasonably sure he will get support here.

We recognized from the beginning that the timing of the election was critical in moving forward with the township proposal when we did. It was important to have the support of Houston's mayor. Houston had the right to annex us; very little was required on their part to move an annex plan forward and close it in 2013. The city would get 1% sales tax from Town Center businesses and 2% sales tax from the rest of The Woodlands if it annexed us. Who would know then (when we voted on the proposals) how long the mayor would hold his influential position? Now we see him possibly moving on, vacating the position to someone else.

Visionary is the word. That has been and continues to be the word in major milestones throughout the history of The Woodlands. I still believe in our government and seek its success. Let's see what progress is being made and review where we stand in January. The year 2009 will be a very critical one of transition as the associations wither away and the Township takes hold of all their functions and responsibilities. This will be the year when the taxation process must replace association dues process. In the year 2010, we will be paying Montgomery County our ad valorem taxes for the Township AND our property taxes. Therefore, the timing of assessments will be different, coincident with the county assessments. The budgeting process will be different, because you must know how much is needed in the coffers before you can set the tax rate. As we approach 2010, we must be aware of and involved in the transition and its issues.

So good luck mayor! Your contribution to the formation of The Woodlands Township showed thoughtful leadership and innovation. You showed your ability to perceive a win/win situation, be decisive, aggregate political support and bring your decision into action, in time for it to be effective.

¹Bill White For Texas Campaign Site

Woodlands Townhall Meeting - Nov 18, 2008

2008-11-19T09:58:00.000-06:00

This quarterly meeting is well worth the time to attend. It is one component of the recent changes to provide more opportunities for the public to be informed and engaged in local government activities. Although there was the usual politicking and emotional comment, at the heart of the event was a true town hall meeting agenda. A presentation was made by the new president Don Norrell, formerly of the Woodlands Association, and a discussion by Joel Deretchin (The Woodlands Association President and Jeff Long (Woodlands Community Association President). Residents were given the opportunity to ask questions and there were many. The questions were fielded by the panel of Jeff Long, Joel Derechin, Don Norrell, Nelda Blair; legal issues were fielded by Mike Page. Residents are showing concerns for the future of the community and their pocket books. It was apparent that some folks share common ideals and others are waving political banners. More than anything, I believe residents just want to hear the story direct from those involved in the daily affairs and leadership of the community. All the newspapers in the world don't substitute for face-to-face communication.

Of the more interesting topics from my viewpoint were discussions on cash reserves, taxes, financial management and community services.

We can expect tax rates to be a little higher than we anticipated back in the elections. Instead of the $0.30-0.33 per $100 valuation, we can expect more like a $0.34-0.35 rate. With the rising assessments of homes in a tough economic era, this is of course a concern to the community. So a home with a valuation of $400,000 computes to as much as 400*$.05 = $200, or as little as $.01*400 = $40 more than anticipated. This is only a ballpark number right now since there has not been a thorough study of the issue yet. That won't come until next year.

Cash reserves sit at about $10 million. It is unclear how much is needed for capital and operating contingencies, so part of the tax rate will have this issue integrated until enough cash reserves are in the bank. The decision of WCA to give residents a tax break in 2008 and 2009 has affected this reserve. Combined with operating savings opportunities and with the economy and its associated risks to the community, we are making rough estimates now which cannot be very exact until the budget is put together for 2010 next year. That first year finalized budget by the way, must be sent to the county by September 1st next year so that Montgomery county can plan their 2010 tax collections and send out notices to property owners. Although the community leaders are optimistic about our economy in The Woodlands, should the economy turn sour, there is no contingency plan and if we need higher taxes to get the same services as now, "we have not considered cutting services!" (Nelda Blair).

The TWA (The Woodlands Association) debt has been decreased by $3mm through some book keeping methods. The $8mm debt will be amortized over 8-10 years to spread out the cost to residents. One cent ad valorem tax produces about $1mm annually. Bond financing to pay the 1/16th cent sales taxes to Conroe and Houston brought out some interesting discussion. Residents want to invest in their community but a privately held bond prevents that. This bond is short lived however and designed to provide the opportunity to obtain a better rate for a long term bond later, when the bond demand is lower. Right now, the rates are too high because of demand. In the Spring, we anticipate lower rates and then the conversion of the bonds should be more timely. Residents at that time should consider investing. Our bond rating is very high, A+.

The plan to proceed towards a future permanent governance model is stated to begin in 2012. That would give the community two years to study, propose, educate and vote when the earliest opportunity to vote for the future model comes on May 29, 2014. However, that tosses out a full year of opportunity to get it right. My take on this is to give this very important matter time to develop properly. Start in 2011 instead of 2012. The community wants to understand the issues to their fullest and make the right decision and not be pushed into it by the leaders her who may (in the residents' eyes) have other agendas. Of course at this time, who knows if we will want to change? Many are adamant on the outcome but cannot back their views with true substance, both financially and physically. Aligning community values to government alternatives must be the educated method to achieve what is right for the community. We have to take out the emotional factor.

In 2010, the community associations will be dissolved. The village associations will not. Interactions and representation with the Township are still ill defined. It is relatively certain that each village will continue to have a liaison representative with the service company to work on issues of the village. What is unclear is on how the village associations will formally operate relative to the Township. The presidents of the village associations have decided to have quarterly meetings but they do not want to be legally accountable for what transpires in those meetings. So the meetings are invitational and not open to the public, not subject to the Open Meeting law. If the presidents or president designates play a formal role in the government starting in 2010, they will likely be required to conform to the open meeting act. This communication/service model needs to be fully developed. Although the Town Center is not officially designated as a village, it will in the future also have a place in this process

Of additional interest to us all was a comment by the water authority on our future requirements for surface water. By 2016, we will begin a program to convert to surface water. This will cost residents of Montgomery County $500,000,000. The Woodlands will have to foot 1/3 of that cost. One way or another, that will have an impact on taxes, whether we are a special tax district or a municipality. We are depleting the underground water rapidly and are now under a mandate to reduce that depletion by 30%.