© 2003, Guidry News
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© 2003, Guidry News
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Stories: Galveston Park Board of Trustees Clear Lake Area Chamber of Commerce Galveston Livable Communities Steering Committee Galveston Park Board of Trustees Clear Lake Area Chamber of Commerce Galveston Livable Communities Steering Committee Galveston Park Board of Trustees Clear Lake Area Chamber of Commerce Galveston Livable Communities Steering Committee Galveston Park Board of Trustees Clear Lake Area Chamber of Commerce Galveston Livable Communities Steering Committee Galveston Park Board of Trustees Clear Lake Area Chamber of Commerce Galveston Livable Communities Steering Committee Galveston Park Board of Trustees Clear Lake Area Chamber of Commerce Galveston Livable Communities Steering Committee Galveston Park Board of Trustees Clear Lake Area Chamber of Commerce Galveston Livable Communities Steering Committee Galveston Park Board of Trustees Clear Lake Area Chamber of Commerce Galveston Livable Communities Steering Committee Galveston Park Board of Trustees Clear Lake Area Chamber of Commerce Galveston Livable Communities Steering Committee Galveston Park Board of Trustees Clear Lake Area Chamber of Commerce Galveston Livable Communities Steering Committee Galveston Park Board of Trustees Clear Lake Area Chamber of Commerce Galveston Livable Communities Steering Committee Galveston Park Board of Trustees Clear Lake Area Chamber of Commerce Galveston Livable Communities Steering Committee Galveston Park Board of Trustees Clear Lake Area Chamber of Commerce Galveston Livable Communities Steering Committee Galveston Park Board of Trustees Clear Lake Area Chamber of Commerce Galveston Livable Communities Steering Committee Galveston Park Board of Trustees Clear Lake Area Chamber of Commerce Galveston Livable Communities Steering Committee Galveston Park Board of Trustees Clear Lake Area Chamber of Commerce |
The Galveston Park Board of Trustees has spent $648,673.02 thus far on legal fees related to the park board's law suit against the law firm of McLeod, Alexander, Powell and Apffel. The information was provided on Wednesday in response to one of two open records requests filed by Guidry News Service on January 22, 2003. The second request, for a list of applicants for the position of acting director of the park board, has not been honored. Acting Executive Director Lou Muller detailed the legal expenses, which do not include legal fees for litigation with Bettah Beach on issues related to the MAPA lawsuit. Listen Although Muller agreed immediately to provide the information, he said it took several days to compile it. The list of applicants for the executive director's position still has not been provided. Attorney Carla Cotropia of Mills Shirley Eckel and Bassett, who was retained as park board attorney to replace Dan Vaughn of MAPA, said on Wednesday that she was unfamiliar with provisions of the Texas Open Records Act, which clearly requires that applications for public positions be provided upon request. Cotropia
said she was confused by a controversial state law that
permits school districts to keep secret the names of
applicants for the position of superintendent. Correction: Beaumont City Council voted 6-1, with Lulu Smith opposed, to not terminate City Clerk Susan Henderson. Mayor Evelyn Lord, who had detailed complaints about Henderson's work in a memorandum, voted with the majority after a four hour public hearing. The motion allowing Henderson to keep her job requires her to provide an "action plan" to address the concerns of the city council. Listen
to an excerpt
of the public hearing. Houston
City Council Houston City Council voted 9-2 on Wednesday to defer action on the proposed sale of a portion of Herman Brown Park to the Texas Department of Transportation to be for the U.S. Highway 90/Wallisville Road Expansion Project. During a public hearing, the Sierra Club presented an alternate plan, which will be analyzed over the next two weeks. The city council delayed action for one week on contracts with Star Disposal Systems, Inc., Waste Pro Services, L.L.C., and Gulf Coast Environmental because the companies owe back taxes to the city. The city council approved several other contracts for waste disposal. The city council referred a proposed contract with Accurate Transportation Services, Inc. back to the administration. Several
items were tagged, or delayed for one week, at the request
of individual council members: The city council voted to delay action for one week on a proposed occupancy agreement with Gulf Coast Community Services Association for space in the Third Ward Multi-Service Center. A motion to approve a contract of $594,827 for storm sewer construction with Jimerson Underground, Inc. was referred back to the administration by Ellis. An ordinance approving a five-year contract for $210,000 between the city and West Group for on-line research services was pulled from the agenda. All other agenda items were approved. Council Member Addie Wiseman was absent. The city was briefed by acting Police Chief Tim Oettmeier about investigations into the Houston Police Department’s crime lab and the K-Mart arrests last fall at 8400 Westheimer. Oettmeier presented a fifteen-minute report on the K-Mart arrests, admitting that HPD handled the arrests poorly. Listen “Thirty-two officers have been or will be disciplined,” Oettmeier said, explaining that Captain Mark Aguirre was fired, Sergeant Ken Wenzel retired, and 30 officers, including 13 supervisors, were suspended without pay. Council members questioned Oettmeier for over an hour about the findings of his investigation, especially the disciplinary actions against 18 line officers who may have "just been following orders," and about new policies that might prevent a recurrence of the K-Mart incident. Hans Marticiuc, president of the Houston Police Officers’ Union, took issue with some of Oettmeier’s statements. Listen “The buck has to stop at the chief of police," said Marticiuc. "Why in God’s name do you put a loose cannon like Aguirre in charge of an operation of this magnitude.” Marticiuc said many of the officers who were disciplined are "the cream of the crop," and were victims of the incident. He noted that Council Member Berry was present on the night of the arrests, giving the appearance that the incident was sanctioned by the city council. He contends that the officers had no reason to question their orders that night. Mayor Lee Brown expressed support for Oettmeier’s findings and actions. Listen Brown said that Police Chief C.O. Bradford, recently cleared of perjury charges, “will resume his duties as police chief next week.” Bradford had been on administrative suspension. In his appearance before the city council Oettmeier also reported on the ongoing investigation into the HPD Crime Lab’s DNA laboratory. Listen Oettmeier said that independent testing has shown the lab work to be severely flawed. However, he said that there is no evidence to suggest at this time that any innocent person has been convicted of a crime based on faulty DNA evidence. The department’s DNA lab work is now being handled by the Harris County District Attorney’s office and the county’s medical examiner until the crime lab can be revamped and become accredited, which will be "an expensive proposition." Shoreacres City council voted on Monday to approve the purchase of pagers and mobile phones for a number of city employees. However, on a motion by Dan Blanchard, the city council voted to eliminate pagers for the director of public works, police chief and city secretary; and instead to reimburse them for the expense. The city council voted to participate in the Texas Recreation and Parks Account Small Communities Grants Program. The city council voted to spend $5,600 for the mulching of debris resulting from the Green-Up Clean-Up event. All
other agenda items were approved. Port Arthur City Council voted to continue its designation of the Port Arthur News as the official newspaper for public notices and other purposes, but there was a spirited discussion about the newspaper. Mayor Oscar Ortiz accused the newspaper of "yellow journalism," and other members agreed. "The headline in the Port Arthur News was 'Mayor Ortiz Going To Grand Jury," Ortiz quoted. "When you realized you made a mistake the next day you came up with an article that was this big (indicating about an inch) retracting that statement saying 'sorry, we made a mistake, the mayor is not going to the grand jury." Ortiz also questioned the judgment of the newspaper's editors. "It seems like every time I open the paper, I see an article about the mayor of Port Neches, or the mayor of Nederland or somebody from Port Neches," Ortiz said. "It seems like we don't have anybody in Port Arthur that's worth writing stories about." Port Arthur News publisher David McCollum thanked the city council members for their comments, and discussed the difficulty of publishing a daily newspaper. "Putting out a daily newspaper is an impossible task," McCollum said. "It's impossible to do what we do every day. Imagine if newspapers did not exist." McCollum explained that the newspaper is "a daily history book," but acknowledges that he does not review all of the articles before they are published. He said the newspaper works to provide balanced coverage of the news, and cited several instances of positive coverage. A
recording of the exchange is posted on the Guidry News
Service Online News Station. Listen Clear
Lake Area Chamber of Commerce Harris County Commissioner Sylvia Garcia was the featured speaker at Wednesday's Clear Lake Area Chamber of Commerce General Membership Luncheon at South Shore Harbour Resort and Conference Center. Garcia said she her precinct, in southeast Houston, plays a large role in the economy of the region. "When you think of everything around here, with NASA and Ellington and then the Port of Houston, and then the entire chemical industry - four big economic engines, not only for Houston, but in fact the region and the state - are all in Precinct 2," Garcia said. "I think Precinct 2 has not tooted its horn enough." She said she has met with all of the mayors in her precinct, as well as officials of the chambers of commerce, to discuss ways to improve the quality of life in the area. "What we really need to look at is where we are going as an area," Garcia stressed. "Everything is changing." Garcia had praise for former commissioner Jim Fonteno, who she replaced on the commissioners court. "Commissioner
Fonteno served us, and served us well ,for 28 years,"
she said. "He did so much in this community that quite frankly
in some areas there is little left for me to do." Livable
Communities Steering Committee The City of Galveston Livable Communities Steering Committee reviewed a draft of a letter of understanding with the Brown Trust for a proposed transportation terminal on the Brown's parking lot at 25th Street and The Strand. The letter acknowledges a discussion with Jack Brown in November. "During that meeting it was clear that any future development would involve the Brown family to protect your existing revenue stream derived from parking activity on the site," said Wayne Cook, who attended the meeting with transportation consultant Barry Goodman. The
committee voted to ask Galveston City Council to appoint
Historic Downtown Strand Partnership President David Murphy
and Galveston Historical Foundation representative Leslie
Sommer to the committee. Galveston College President Dr. Elva Concha LeBlanc was recently appointed by Texas Governor Rick Perry to the Texas Statewide Coordinating Council. The council is a voluntary 17-member organization with five ex-officio members and 12 members appointed by the governor. The council is charged with reviewing and assessing statewide health issues related to insuring a quality health care workforce for Texas. A Sage
Source program sponsored by the UTMB Senior Services Office
and the Galveston College Workforce Development and
Continuing Education Division is providing a Spring
Lecture Series for Senior Citizens and Winter Texans. The fourth lecture will be held on Wednesday, February 5, 2003. The program is "Beyond Medicine: Spirituality and Healing" featuring speaker Rabbi Jimmy Kessler. Rabbi Kessler heads Temple B'Nai Israel. He is an adjunct faculty member at Galveston College. For more information, call (409) 944-1344. Galveston College's Black History Month activities begin with "The African American Read-In Chain" to be held on Tuesday, February 4, 2003 at 7:00 p.m. at Galveston College in Room FA-207. Participants will join over a million readers in the 14th National African American Read-In Chain. For more information, contact William White, Jr. at (409) 763-6551, extension 756, Janis Ellis at extension 325, or Erma Phillips at extension 318. Galveston College will present a satellite teleconference on Thursday, February 6, 2003 for college-bound high school seniors and their parents focusing on the financial aid application process. The
teleconference takes place from 7:00 p.m. to 8:30 p.m. in
Room N-119 on the Galveston College campus. A taped
conference in Spanish will be presented the same day at 3:30
p.m. to 5:00 p.m. in Room R-252. College financial aid
counselors will be present at both presentations. Today's
Meetings 3:30 Galveston Finance Committee, City
Hall Room 204 |
Story Links, on the left side of this page, is composed of "bookmarks" to the stories in the newsletter. Click on the link to go directly to the article. Print individual articles by first clicking on the "Print Version" link, then using your regular print program. On The Online News Station, if you click on an audio cut and the photos stop loading, click on Refresh or Reload and they will resume. Gulf Coast E-news, published by Guidry News Service, provides comprehensive coverage of posted public meetings in Galveston, Harris and Jefferson Counties.
This electronic newsletter replaces, and expands on, the mission
of Galveston Fax, established by Jim and Lynda Guidry on
Galveston Island in Galveston County reporters, covering the city council meetings of all 13 municipal governments plus several school boards and special utility districts, include Jinelle Boyd, Drew Gilbert, Shannon Hall, Kristina Weaver, Tom Foster, Jo Ann Gowing and Dedra Kratts. Weaver, Foster, Gowing and Kratts also cover the Harris County entities surrounding Clear Lake. Scott Nowell covers Harris County Commissioners Court, Houston City Council, and meetings of organizations in downtown Houston. Carl Guidry, representing Guidry News Service in Jefferson County, covers Jefferson County Commissioners Court, Beaumont City Council and Port Arthur City Council. We are seeking additional reporters to expand our coverage in Jefferson County. Gulf Coast E-news also will continue coverage of regional organizations in the Gulf Coast area. Gulf Coast E-news is interactive with The Guidry News Service Online News Station, providing coverage of special events and public meetings with photos and audio. Terry Arnold and Barbara Ward are marketing representatives for The Online News Station. Marketing representatives are being recruited in Harris and Jefferson counties. Subscriptions to Gulf Coast E-news are $300 per year, or $75 per quarter, plus sales and use tax. A fax-only version of the newsletter is available for $350 per year or $87.50 per quarter, plus tax. Current subscribers to Galveston Fax or Clear Lake Area E-news will automatically receive Gulf Coast E-news.
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