Lately here at LooseTopics we have been discussing how the city may spend bond money from 2008. Our last article involved Destination Bayfront wanting left over bond money to fund its project. You can read that article below.
Now the city itself wants to use tax money designated for one thing on a completely different project.
A seawall improvement account, which is funded by a 1/8th cent sales tax, that voters approved in 2000. This account has a balance of 20 million dollars as of right now and is expected to keep growing.
Maintenance work and major seawall improvements have been delayed while our city debates whether its better to spend money on new projects, that would protect our city from a hurricane storm surge or put these dollars towards the horrible streets.
A little bit of history here: the seawall improvement fund was set up to pay for the 43.4 million dollars of construction and restoration of the seawall. That was completed in 2007, but the fund continued to grow even after completion. Two years ago the city's Business and Job Development Corp. Board, which oversees the spending of the seawall money (with council approval), recommended a 4 million dollar seawall maintenance fund be set up to protect the earlier work and pay for smaller projects such as repairs, cleaning of debris, and extra concrete on weak parts of the seawall. Our council supported creating this fund, but this was never voted on so the money was never designated and maintenance work has never been done.
In 2009 the same board endorsed additional seawall improvement projects, which included a 8.7 million dollar project to raise the elevation of the barge docks, a 7.1 million dollar project to repair the bulkheads that protect the Art Museum of South Texas. Work on these projects was suppose to start in the fall of 2009 (because the fund had the money for the projects already). Our city council, again, only approved a 1million dollar project to maintain a salt flat levee system. Yea that seems real important. The other projects were not voted on at all. Is it this just procrastination or do our council members have other agendas for that money?
Yes our seawall was repaired by using the seawall improvement fund, but no maintenance or other projects have been done since.
Now the city would like to use the 20 million dollar balance and future revenues from the seawall fund to fix our streets. They would use this revenue until the debt of the seawall is paid off (since tax payers must actually pay it off) which could happen as soon as 2018. Then the city would have to let the citizens vote again to approve the use of this tax for the streets. If they do not use it for the streets the seawall improvement fund would continue to grow and be able to be used for seawall improvements until 2026.
Do our streets need repair? Absolutely, they are in bad shape. A study a few years ago showed that it would cost 1.2 billion dollars to repair our streets citywide. Another 88 million dollars a year would be needed to maintain the streets. So of course our streets are a concern. But our council contradicts itself so many times it is hard to know when to trust them. Just last week our council members stated that the use of the hotel tax money is a short term answer to a long term problem. Well what do they think this is? This is not the answer to the street problem and it takes money away from other needed projects. When will our council get it together.
So do we rob Peter to pay Paul? By that we mean, do we neglect maintenance and repairs and projects to our only protection against a storm surge and flooding from a hurricane?
Some council members have stated that they believe since the seawall was fixed some years ago, that project is over. That is one of our problems here. We build or repair things here in this city and completely forget about maintaining these things.
Maintenance and repair projects to a system that protects this city from danger is needed. We cannot just say "look we fixed it years ago, we haven't made any repairs or maintenance to it since then but we are going to spend the money designated for these repairs and maintenance elsewhere, even though we know it will put our citizens at risk". Yet that is what our council is saying and we should not allow that.
Do we need to find a way to fund the repair and maintenance of our streets? Again absolutely. Do we need to put our city at risk of major devastation to do it? No we don't.
A assistant city manager has stated that these seawall projects are needed. Will the council decide to spend the money, that is already available to us in the fund, that voters approved the use of that money for, we will have to see. But if history repeats itself, and we know it does, we know they wont.
What do you think about neglecting our seawall? What do you think about our city trying to use this money for our streets? Is this the answer to our street problem?
Tell us.
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