Sunday, May 06, 2007

Why I Voted NO on Fort Bend County Proposition 1

I sometimes have difficulty focusing on something to write about. I had several irons in the fire today but they all fizzled. Then I thought I’d better empty my mailbox. I empty my mailbox once a week whether it needs it or not.

What do I find in and among the other items? Not one but two campaign mailers from the Keep Fort Bend Moving campaign. One is an 8 x 10 glossy full color on one side mailer. The other . . . the other is a new one for me.

It was a DVD.

Keep Fort Bend Moving sent me a DVD with a 6 minute message on it. Someone here in Fort Bend County, Texas REALLY wants me to vote yes on this bond issue..

Someone really well funded.

And I smell Republicans and construction companies.

I couldn’t make heads or tails out of Dan Roach who is the campaign treasurer. He is below the radar. But the chairman of the campaign R. C. Brown, III is very much on the radar screen. He is president of R. C. Brown and Associates and sits on the Board of Directors, along with Christine DeLay, of the Rio Bend Project, a project to build a colony of foster care homes in Fort Bend County. I’ve been by there. The development pays no property taxes to Fort Bend County. None.

Brown also sits on the board of directors of the Fort Bend Economic Development Council, whose secretary and treasurer are owners of an engineering company (Brown and Gay) and an engineering and survey company, respectively.

You don’t suppose these guys have it in mind to be successful bidders for some of these road projects, do you?

I really don’t mind that these guys are just trying to earn a buck. But really. Can’t they just send me a simple bulk mail black and white postcard with something like this written on the back:
"Dear Hal,

We’re a bunch of fat cat road builders and surveyors who want to feed at the public trough that your county commissioners have presented to you in County Proposition 1. 156.2 million dollars is a lot of bread and we sure could use a piece of it. So please vote yes on Proposition 1. You won’t regret it."
Yeah, just like I didn’t regret voting for the last county jail construction bond issue last May that saw a not so insignificant chunk of mazooma go right into the pocket of Judge Vacek and his partner Jeffrey Hoffman with a unanimous vote of the county commissioners last October.

Nope. Not this time, guys.

That’s why I voted NO on this bond issue. I will not vote for a county bond issue again until I see that little squirrelly things like that will never take place again.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

Hal--Some serious investigations need to go on regarding Hebert and his dev. buddy PACs. We filed one with the state commission on judicial conduct against one of his judges whose daughter works for one of these dev. company lawyer vendors. The state expanded to investigation to another judge (Hebert appointed) and Hebert himself. They seemed to think it needs looking into, but they said unless Hebert confesses to all this more than likely he will get off. Sounds a great deal like when he lead the MUD-ECO scandal last year that got buried by the DA (remember that FBN piece). What a crony list this guy has and it's no surprise he is on board with the TTC controversy. We need to work across party lines (yes I'm a reform anti-neo-con repub) to get this EDC backed bast___ out of our taxes/bonds/etc...

Anonymous said...

I seem to remember that in the 1970s the Fort Bend County Chamber of Commerce slogan was, "Country living close to the city!" Then in the 1990s it changed to, "City living close to the country!" Now it's, "Hey, that wasn't there yesterday!" This is progress?

A Fort Bend County Republican goes to the doctor and is told he needs an operation to remove "a malignant growth." The patient promptly reports the doctor to the Medical Board as a quack because, "Everyone knows that growth is good."