Someone asked me why do I say the city council does not serve all residents? One council member stated that he does serve the wishes of all JV residents. For the past few years, there has been a full-court press by the city council to convince the residents that this is the most transparent city council ever for the city. Granted, today in America even the President says almost every day that he represents all Americans, well except those 60+ million voters that do not support him and his actions.
Truth is that for several years the Jersey Village City Council and Mayors have been chasing a couple of dreams and they are not doing a very good job of thinking through their actions. An even bigger problem is that when they are given a reason to know that a lot of residents do not support their actions, they just choose to ignore them because they know better than the voters. They also withhold from the resident’s information that they have received that they don’t want the residents to know for fear that the voters will vote them out of office.
These two dreams have cost the taxpayers millions in the form of higher residential property taxes for many years while they have been telling them that the city council is doing a great job managing the city. When the city council decided to buy the golf course, the city council did not ask the residents whether they supported that action. When asked about the golf course, the answer is always – “If we did not buy the golf course it would have been high-density apartments!” The truth is that that land was zoned to not allow that and the city has control over any changes of zoning for that and all other areas within JV ETJ. That function is the way JV ended up having to buy the acreage across 290. The zoning committee re-zoned industrial land so that the owners of the property could not build the kind of building the land was zoned for when they bought the land. The city lost the two lawsuits and had to buy the land.
The golf course was originally owned by the city, but it was sold when Cameron Iron made an offer and the majority of the residents were not using the golf course and it was a drain on the taxpayers. The residents were involved in that decision. The golf course was sold by Cameron years later because of the downturn in the oil exploration to an investment group that planned to make it a profitable public golf course. Truth is, that golf course has never been able to make a profit. Since the city bought it back, the taxpayers have never been provided a true financial reporting of all expenses including payments toward the purchase debt and all upgrades expenses. The members of the city council, the mayor, and the city manager do not want the voters to have a chance to vote on the $7.7 million building project that they have been spending money on for many years without voter approval.
The golf course is 18 holes and will still be 18 holes when they get the new building built. There are only so many hours that people can play golf at the course and if new golf tournaments are added, then that eliminates playing time for the public. There does not appear to be a plan for how the increase in operating costs and the building costs can be covered by the future income. We are told that the golf course keeps our property values up and gets more people coming into our community. Well, Jersey Village has some of the highest property taxes in the Houston area. If the golf course cannot make a profit as a business, then that clearly says that it is an ongoing drain on the city to keep it open. Putting another $8 million of taxpayer money into it will not make it profitable.
The other “I had a dream.” Is the Village Center project to be developed in an industrial area that no company has been willing to put their money into it by buying the land and developing this mini Sugarland. The Collaborate project was a failure and the city council did no research on any of the information that was provided during the May “Show and Tell” in 2021. If they had done that, they would have found out that most of what was presented was not truthful. See other documents on this site for details. The city council was prepared to vote to sign a contract for up to $11.5 million to build a New City Hall on that land without putting it to a vote on the ballot. This was only a month after they had been presented with a petition with over 900 signatures asking for it to be put to a vote by the residents. They are quick to say they did not reject it, it was rejected by the City Secretary due to wording. However, not one person on the city council or the mayor has mentioned that a large number of residents want a say in that project. More than $500,000 has been spent plus the $8.2 million for the land and they don’t trust the voters to agree with their dreams. The last mayor just stated that voters make bad decisions so they should not be involved in the actions taken by city hall. Then they say they represent all of the residents of Jersey Village. The current KHJR developer was one of the companies involved with the first versions of the Village Center and they gave false information about other projects and their ability to do what they presented. The information they presented with the new project was false again, but the city council did not do any research again. They don’t want the residents to know the facts.