Letter to the Mayor

The following is a letter that I recently sent to the Mayor of Galveston. I thought you might like to see it. I will post the response.

T

June 14, 2007

Mayor Lyda Ann Thomas
City of Galveston
P.O. Box 779
823 Rosenberg
Galveston, Texas 77553

Dear Madam Mayor,

I am writing to bring to your attention an issue that has had a tremendously negative impact on our small neighborhood on the west end, Sunny Beach. We are located just south of 3005 and east of 8-mile road. 8-mile road is the only access to our neighborhood, and the access to the public beach parking area.

We are aware of the difficult task the planning department had bringing the island into compliance with the Texas Open Beaches Act. However, the beach access plan instituted last year has unfairly burdened our neighborhood. The plan more than doubled the Sunny Beach T head parking area. The increased traffic load is substantial.

Now this year beach pocket park #1 has reopened as a PAID parking area to our east. Beach pocket park # 2 just to our west is also a PAID parking facility. The distance between the two is less than 1.5 miles with our FREE and enlarged T head sandwiched in-between. You can imagine the FREE traffic we get. The public works department has helped at least slow the traffic with the placement of speed humps, but it’s not enough.

Many of our neighbors use 8-mile road to walk to the beach. It is no longer safe for our residents, their children and guests to make that walk down the side of 8-mile road. We are respectfully requesting the City of Galveston’s help to mitigate a small portion of the negative impact the cities plan has caused in our little neighborhood.

We would like a sidewalk placed adjacent to 8-mile road the entire length of our neighborhood, from 3005 to the beach. (approx 875ft) We also want a barrier between the traffic and the pedestrians. We have a design of posts and a rope fence in mind. It would be economical and form a safety barrier for the pedestrians, while maintaining an aesthetically appropriate beach friendly appearance.

We all want to co-operate with the cities plans for the future, and understand some of the problems created by growth. Please take this opportunity to help mitigate a problem created by city staff. Feel free to contact me at any time if you have concerns that need to be addressed. We look forward to helping the cities public works department in completing the sidewalk project in any way we can. Time is of the essence; the summer season is upon us. Your help and attention to this matter is greatly appreciated.

In addition, we are requesting written notification to any meetings or discussions of modifications to the current beach access plan.



Sincerely,



Tom Empey
President
Sunny Beach Neighborhood Association
11221 Bernice Drive
Galveston, TX 77554
409-741-2455
713-410-9672 (mobile)
tempey@houston.rr.com



Cc:
Dianna D. Puccetti
Steve LeBlanc
Brandon Wade
Jerry Mohn
Honorable Bryan Lamb
Ray Newby, GLO
Wendy O’Donohoe

June 19th Planning Meeting for Marquette Project

Letters came out for the next Planning Commission meeting for the rezoning of the property to the west of us. June 19, 2007 4pm City Council Chambers second floor of City Hall. Let me know if you did NOT get two letters.

Also, if you want to hear and see the information on the development this Saturday (June 16) West Galveston Island Property Owners Association is meeting at the Galveston Country Club beginning at 9:00 AM. The meeting will include:
80th Legislative Session update
City Council report
Windstorm Insurance
Innovative beach stabilization technology
Marquette Companies presentation of the "Preserve at West Beach"

Marquette would like a letter from our subdivision supporting this project, in return they will include us with any protection project they do. What are your thoughts on this? What I mean by include ... is they will let us know what they are doing and we can benefit from their research and perhaps surveying information. It looks like this project will happen, and we can perhaps benefit from it.
Let's hear some comments ...

Marquette Development Link

http://www.bermudabeach.org/Development/condo.html

Marquette Group Rezoning Meetings

I'm exhausted from going to meetings!

Monday - Kathe Giebelhaus, Bill Husemann, Gerri Empey, Tom Empey attended a presentation of the master community plan that the Marquette Group is proposing. The questions got heated with some of the people attending. See the article in the Galveston Daily News (Tuesday edition).
Tuesday - 2pm I went to a Task Force meeting with people from Spansih Grant, Burmuda Beach and a couple other subdivisions, Jerry Mohn and, Darren Sloniger who is the Managing Director of the Marquette Land Investements, LLC. At this meeting it was discussed that if or when they put in some sort of sand sock or tube that the properties on the end of these become more vulnerable to increased errosion. At this meeting it was asked of them to please involve or at least let the subdivisions know what they are planning and see if it's feasible to piggy back with them. Tom and I both met Darren Sloniger and have his contact information.
After the meeting I spoke with Darren and they will NOT access 8 mile road from the subdivision west of 8 mile. Also, he said they are going to own where the water tower is being taken out. And I just want to make sure everyone is aware, and understands, that along 3005 on the back row of this subdivision they will have midrises and multi-family units.
Tuesday - 4pm The City of Galveston Zoning meeting. Again if you go to the Galveston Daily News (Wednesday edition) you can read about what happened at that meeting. It has been tabled for two weeks to get some more information. Things that were brought up: Traffic, evacuation,Insurance rates, increased possibility of the island splitting if there are more cuts and digging, only one subdivision backed them up.

*** This is a 20 year plan for this project, the first phase will be on the north side of 3005 and west of 8 mile road (across the street from the Gaff Top) ***
In that 20 year period the city will have to make changes in the infrastructure anyway. I'm sure it will go through, they might be able to ... perhaps not allow the highrise on 11 mile road, but I would think everything else will go forward as planned.
A lot of people spoke at both the Monday meeting and the zoning meeting on Tuesday and although they need more time to think about it, the Marquette group is being very thoughtful and helpful working with the city and citizens to make this a partnership. They have set a lot of land aside for "Preserve" uplands and lowlands and have really been trying to come in and make this a planned community instead of just chopping it up and selling it off.
That's what I think anyway ...
Any questions or comments, let me know.

New Development

As many of you know, there is a new development coming to the island. It will occupy 1045 acres. and will start at eight mile road. It has been a busy week keeping up with all the meetings. Please watch the blog. We will update as we can to keep everything as up to date as possible.