Rockwall City Council 6 April

Interest meets Anger meets Monday: City Council!

Special Thanks to Mr Glen Farris for the shout out on Twitter!

Margo Nielsen opened short and sweet, let's get this party started right!

Open Forum night at the Apollo. I was hoping for some really angry folks, but no such luck. All three speakers were happy with what the city has done. Guess they don't have a newspaper. One even sang a song of thanks. At least I think it was, once I'd recovered from the shock of someone suddenly and loudly singing in council chambers, I had missed all the words. Must have been good though, she did get a standing ovation from the council. I guess they REALLY like people singing songs of praise about them to them.

Consent agenda, pulled items:

13. TxDOT want's some money to do something they forgot and left out of their scope of work regarding some stamped concrete on Alamo. Seemed like a lot of cash ($178,000 I think?), but it was approved after lengthy discussion, Margo voted against. The city engineer was he who was questioned and he was pretty-well, but not-quite prepared to answer most of the councils questions with very definitive repsonses.

14. Time to renew our agreement with the county for septic inspections. The county gets $500 from whoever needs their waste hole and related items inspected. Glen wants the county to justify what he perceives as a high cost. It goes to the ever diligent, hard-working, never arbitrary and completely reasonable county Environmental Health Coordinator.

What is an Environmental Health Coordinator? He is responsible for:

• Inspections of septic tanks
• Enforcement of Texas Health and Safety codes
• Enforcement of Texas public nuisance laws
• Enforcement of illegal dumping laws
• Enforcement of junk car ordinances
• Flood plain management

Having lived in an unincorporated area and having dealt with the department many times, I know how hard the department works. I had a neighbor behind me who for about 8 years (at least 4 times a year) whose sewer would back up and drain into my yard. Every time I requested assistance, I was always able to get the Coordinator to come over and very definitely guarantee that it was in fact feces water! He would then go over and speak to whoever was living there and tell them that they can't let poop-water flow into my yard!! At least I assumed that was the case, as he didn't speak Spanish and my neighbor didn't speak English. But sure enough, within a month, all that possbily hepatitis ridden fluid would suddenly vaninsh!

That's where the money goes, Glen! Crap water magic tricks!

Appointments: Yawnsville.

Site Plans/Plats: Somebody wanted something or whatever. After a marathon 17 hours of questioning, something was approved.

Action Items:

1. FINALLY I can sleep at night. THE CITY HAS APPROVED THE FONT TO BE USED ON THE GREEN INITIATIVES LOGO!!! Parade to follow. I would like to know what those initiatives are. Will it be actions the city will be taking to truly reduce the amount of energy consumed by the city? Some feel-good, tree-hugging action, like making everyone at the city offices wear green on earth day to raise awareness of global warming that is definitely NOT caused by the 10,000 °F constantly erupting nuclear bomb 93 million miles away, but caused by hairspray and plastic bags? Or will it be draconian ordinances forced onto citizens and businesses, existing and new, while the city remains exempt?

Also, the slogan is something like "We're all in aGREENment!". It's like, "We're all in agreement!", but they used the word GREEN inside of agreement!!! Cheesetastic!

Who agreed to who to do what now?

2. Watering restrictions. The recommended restrictions are April to October, the hot months. This prevents wasted water through evaporation. Matt wants year round restrictions, because, well that's what he does.

3. Changing a site plan north side of town, all covered in the first post. This was first reading and it passed. Seemed like some on the council may have been advocating for non-residents of the city, but maybe not. But maybe. Just wait till they get annexed. That'll be fun!

Side note, 99.9999999999999% of the time anyone says, "I am such-and-such, but....", their actions will contradict such-and-such.

4. City bureaucrats think some things are noisy and like to subjectively say so. There is now a more quantifiable definition of "loud". Excluding AC units. I think. Sometimes the verbosity of the council makes me forget what the hell they were talking about or what the motion is. Did this pass? Whatever, you'll know when some ding-dong with a sound meter is standing on your property line.

5. ???? Boring I think, but not irritating. I think.

6. McLendon-Chisholm would like to "access the regional sanitary wastewater system." I think this means the want to put their poop in our poop-pipe (well, not MINE. My poop belongs to AquaTexas.). This would allow them to grow from 1600 current population to 17,000. The only real "concern" came from Matt Scott who thinks this could prove detrimental to our ability to grow and put a strain on the school district. Matt is afraid that M-C could grow to 17,000 "overnight". 17,000 residents is the maximum population we would allow M-C to have putting their sewage into our pipe (<---- again, not MINE) at which time we could or would renegotiate the agreement. The fastest growing cities in the nation in one year do at best 10-11% growth. Plano, consistently one of the fastest growing cities in the metroplex went from (roughly) 73,000 in 1980 to 129,000 in 1990, and 255,000 estimated for 2008. 1990 to 2008 was about 100% increase. 1980 to 2008 was about 250% increase. It took Plano about 40 years to increase 1000% in population. It's not impossible for the M-C to grow that fast. But, seems unlikely they will break any growth records anytime soon. (Housing starts down, recession, Obama policies, etc.) I don't think we have too worry about them using our sewer for the time being. 6. Annexed some land. 7. Screening and buffering requirements discussed at length. Great length. For perspective it took less time for our founding fathers to agree to the wording and contents of the Declaration of Independence. Even then the founding fathers ended up VOTING ON SOMETHING. I did learn from the city staff that a 6 ft masonry wall can block smells from a KFC onto a residence. I took the time to illustrate how this works:
9. Hotel/Motel subcomittee recomendations. Basically, jjpv o rjho erok o voikjn ijvovor voiervorenkj hvo reov eirvok eivnk. orhvo erion ovnoa nv niern on rognrm vqjoaer mvo fo dt nbbvs thkjdf nj keyho oihknv oia o jvn ai hdfdf. nif iui hr o o h govojvva. orovofdn oj ajv oihvoi aoo voijg oioerrhv ohrv pojnj. sonbso bn sno ti bnso kbn soi joiorijgj morj osinb o sn oern gaorinvo iain voijh arj. oejehvnk ah vo ahvhj aerporpiij goiarejj n arejernv o. jnv aeirhjaou hfoo anl hvna r hj av oavvoanvn.

In conclusion, what the hell did they talk about? There may or not have been a motion, which may or may not have passed.

10. Budget reserve subcomittee recomendations. Several council members were for some parts of this, while others had reservations. But all could agree that something was discussed and the motion either passed or failed or both or neither.

11. Rockwall Zoo has made the agenda AGAIN!!! My fellow caged friends will be so delighted! There are buildings which some claim need to be torn down as they are "dangerous". What's "dangerous"? Only someone unqualified to determine so could tell you. Is a buidling "dangerous" if someone lives there? Will they be kicked out if the city deems it "dangerous"? A building could be deemed "dangerous" regardless of current occupancy, but the city won't or can't do anything to these buildings. Still not sure what the dealio is, but I know it's in my best interest. It must be, they keep telling me so.

Other things: Some councilmembers think the city doesn't do enough or hasn't done enough, but what they have done is greeeeeeeeeeat! As a resident, I say they've done plenty. The city coming into the neighborhood is like getting a hair cut from your dad. You may not like it while he's doing it. It may hurt and irritate you. But in the end, the fact is you needed a haircut because he said you did. But, at least you'll hate it. And you have school in the morning.

David Sweet thinks it's time to disolve the LRE subcomittee (Mayor Cecil, Margo Nielsen, and Matt Scott). I agree. This was formed to aid the transisiton for annexation and it is time to disolve it. How many of the hundreds of neighborhoods in Rockwall have a subcomittee dedicated to them?

We are citizens of the city now. We want and expect no more or less attention from the city. Time to stop targeting my neighborhood. We don't need a dedicated code enforcement in our neighborhood looking for ways to pick (and nit-pick) on my neighbors.

It seems the city staff and some council act as if there has been no plan for LRE. Not that I want one from those knuckleheads. But, as a member of the "LAKE ROCKWALL ESTATES SUPER TASK FORCE OF JUSTICE", I'm still not sure what part of the plan the 40+ members of that task force concluded. Oh, and the $100,000 spent for the annexation transition, not sure where that money went.

I also learned from Matt Scott that everyone else (one councilman in particular) was too ignorant to discuss anything about the Rockwall Zoo. And if anyone on the council needs any information about the Zoo they should ask the Omnicient Keeper of LRE Information, Mr Matt Scott (praise be to him). He knows more about that neighborhood than anyone EVER EVER PERIOD END OF DISCUSSION NO TAKE BACKS. Pbbbbbbbtt.

Special recognition and thanks to Cliff Sevier for wanting the targeting of the neighborhood to stop, and to treat code enforcement (and other things) as the city staff does for the rest of the city.

12. Shoal Creek. Seemed to me that some people live next to park land. They don't like seeing people using this park land. Or don't want it as anymore park land. Or want to ban anyone from using it for anything. Sort of reminded me of the people who want to ban people from using a public beach after they moved in to their new beach house.

If you live near a park or park land (green space), you should not have a reasonable expectation that no one will ever be on it. Move away or don't move there in the first place.

Also this issue had come before the parks board and was (as I understood) denied 5-0, went before the council (last year I think) and was voted down 7-0. Now it was approved 4-3 (Farris, Sevier and Nielsen or Cecil against). One seemed to vote base on a personal bias he has with Mr Farris. I have my disagreements with many on the council, but that doesn't negate the fact that when they're right, they're right. Put your petty feelings aside.

Why didn't this go before the parks board again before coming to the city council? Well, I can guarantee it has nothing to do with the fact that one of the whiners works with Matt Scott's wife. So don't think for one second Matt was passionate about this with any conflict of interest, I forbid it.
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P.S. City, I live alone in a house slightly less than 1000 sqft. My water bill this month was $130 (and change). My neighbor (2 adults) was $140, and my sister (2 adults and a 6 year old) was $153.

Thanks for something. Oh, yeah, TWO trash days a week now. Really great.