A summary of the Aug 30 special meeting with Rep.Culberson was prepared by Ron Kelm for the Spring Valley First email-list (below). Your presence at the council meeting, your comments, and your letters are making a difference. Thanks to your efforts, Rep.Culberson is beginning to understand that a significant portion of his constituency would like a reconsideration of the current plan and another serious look at long term mobility solutions that will actually benefit their families and their communities. He needs to hear from all of you:

Contact or visit Rep. Culberson anytime by setting up an appointment through his assistant, Jan Crow. Contact - Tel. 713-682-8828, 10000 Memorial Dr. Suite 620, 77024. (He said his door is always open.) You may also email him or send a fax (713) 680-8070.

Polly Ledvina Katy Corridor Coalition www.katycorridor.org 713-524-4578

Dear Spring Valley First Members and Neighbors, Below is a summary of the special council meeting held at city hall 30 August 2002. For the official agenda, see here. This special meeting was held with US Representative (Texas, 7th District) John Culberson and both Spring Valley and Hilshire Village councils. The purpose of the meeting was to apprise Rep Culberson of concerns both villages have with the current TxDOT proposal for the Katy Freeway Expansion. Note that Mr. Culberson is considered the top civic leader pushing the current proposal for the Katy Freeway expansion, a proposal that negatively impacts both villages.

Press

To read two related articles from the Houston Chronicle this past week, see: here and here. Reporters from the Chronicle and the Sun were present at the meeting on 30 August, so expect coverage in both papers on Thursday.

Procedural

The meeting went from 12:10 to 2:10 PM with a full room of 60-70 at SV City hall. The councilors sat around the conference table and had lunch with Rep. Culberson and his assistant Jan Crow. Present from SV were Mayor Canon, and Councilors Glanzman, Trammell, Spain, and Conroy (Councilor Sears was absent). Present from HV were Councilors Kahanek, Border and Castro (Mayor Redd, Councilors Denninger and Tucker were absent).

After adjournment, Rep. Culberson took questions from the citizens for an additional 30 minutes. Then when that ended, he took quite a few one-on-one questions from citizens until after 3 PM.

Summary

SV Council hoped to have a seated roundtable discussion with the congressman. However, Rep Culberson obviously had another agenda in mind. Earlier that morning on his weekly talk show with Jon Matthews (Fridays, 8-9 AM on Houston radio AM 700) he asked for his supporters of the Katy Freeway Expansion to come to the meeting in SV. When the meeting opened, Rep Culberson immediately stood and gave a 20-minute presentation to the audience. After his presentation he never sat down nor ate his lunch.

Then, council members (sitting and eating) one-by-one posed their concerns about the current TxDOT plan for widening the Katy Freeway. All had major concerns. As he answered each, Rep Culberson continued to address the audience as he sometimes -stepped around the council members' direct questions. Rep Culberson's initial air of confidence dropped as the citizen's pelted him with their concerns over the current proposal. It did not appear he anticipated the amount of opposition that was shown. Toward the end he started changing his responses (say in the example of sound walls) from "I will do all I can to get you sound walls," to "I will get you sound walls." However, he later backed off on that promise at the insistence of his assistant who told him he could not control TxDOT since they have rules and regulations they must follow.

Rep Culberson's Comments

Some points made by Rep. Culberson during and after the meeting:

• Contact or visit him anytime by setting up an appointment through his assistant, Jan Crow. He said his door is always open. Contact - Tel. 713-682-8828, 10000 Memorial Dr. Suite 620, 77024, jan.crow@mail.house.gov .
• In 30 to 45 days the expansion project will be totally funded.
• The main reason for bringing in the toll road option (and removing the HOV lanes) was because he was short $500 million for the $1.4 billion project and Harris County had the money to give. Judge Robert Eckels offered him $250 million in cash along with another $250 million in bonds. Rep Culberson said without this money, it would take 10-12 years to complete the expansion but with the toll road money he believes he can get it done in 4-5 years, and he is shooting for four. (with this statement we have now seen the construction schedule go from 12 years to 4 years or one third the original estimate)
• Metro is kicking in $50 million to reinforce Harris County's toll road structure to accommodate a possible future transit option if the voters decide they want it.
• He plans to make sure the toll road becomes free after it is paid for.
• Construction will begin along the north frontage road. He will try to get sound walls up before it begins. There will always be a minimum of three through/fast lanes open each direction during the construction period.
• The recently built tall interchange at Beltway 8 will need to come down to make room for the new construction.
• He would like to see Metro absorbed into Harris County Commissioners Court so that Metro officials would be elected rather than hired, making them accountable to the citizens.

He said that the new freeway (i.e., the fast lanes + feeder lanes + toll lanes) would consist of 18 through lanes plus the auxiliary lanes and shoulders. This means there will be as many as 26 or 27 paved lanes at a given location. (Note, the total 475 ft proposed right of way equates to an equivalent of 40 lanes, assuming an average lane width of about 12 ft)

Council Questions/Comments

Council members from both villages asked excellent questions of the congressman, demonstrating both cities have major concerns with the impact of the proposed widening. Each member got one opportunity to ask a question. The questions/comments included:

• SV Councilor Spain had concerns of wasting taxpayer money to spend $50 million to beef up the toll road now, in case it becomes a transit system in the future, or for tearing up the new toll road 15 years later to make room for transit. Rep Culberson did not acknowledge the waste of money there. Councilor Spain also said he believed congestion would still exist even with the wider freeway under the currently proposed plan.
• Both villages have had major communication problems with TxDOT. HV Councilor Castro said, "We are not getting answers, we are getting blown off!" HV Councilor Border said TxDOT is a moving target. He further indicated how poorly organized they are by stating, "If they were in business, they would be broke."
• SV Councilor Trammell wanted to know why the city should support Rep Culberson's plan when it includes almost all negatives for the villages with the only positive being a promised reduction in congestion (which some present obviously thought was debatable). The negatives he listed were noise, flooding, air pollution, health problems, loss of property, loss of property values, and general inconvenience during the long construction period.
• Both villages said they want sound barriers all along their frontage. Where there is commercial, they want it behind the commercial. They want continuous tall walls in front of residential erected before any construction begins. And they want the walls to be aesthetic. They also want shorter sound walls on the freeways at the fast lanes, at least on the elevated portions.

Citizens' Questions/Comments

After hearing from the last council member, Rep. Culberson said he wanted to hear from the citizens. SV Mayor Canon adjourned the meeting since citizen questions were not on the agenda. 12 citizens got to speak before everyone stood up and started leaving. All that spoke were in opposition to some part of the proposed widening. Some of the citizens' concerns were:

• That congestion will worsen rather than improve by simply widening the freeway, and that this is a well-proven fact (This was in dispute of Rep Culberson's earlier statement that there would be no congestion for 20 to 30 years after completion of the proposed widening).
• The Environmental Impact Statement (EIS) by TxDOT is deficient because it did not address health issues of those living close to the freeway. (Rep Culberson thought the EIS covered this and seemed surprised it did not)
• Betsy Till of Hedwig Village said, "We are paying for 1960's technology" with this plan. She said that we want alternatives presented that include transit and less paving. She said she was at the TxDOT meetings years back and those alternatives had not been offered (disputing what Rep. Culberson had just told the crowd). She said that by pouring more concrete and adding to congestion, "you are condemning us all to nothing but a car."
• Bill Martin of Spring Valley said that Rep Tom Delay had gotten appropriations approved for installing transit on the Katy Freeway many years ago, but that (then) Houston Mayor Bob Lanier used the money for other projects instead. He told Rep Culberson that he could get financing for the same transit system that has already been designed and approved for this corridor. Rep Culberson seemed genuinely interested in the proposal and asked to arrange a private meeting with Mr. Martin to discuss it further.

- To voice your opinion into the public record on any of the above issues, you can send one email to the mayor, council, city administrator and city secretary using this address: - Please pass this email to an interested or concerned neighbor. - If you would like to also be on our Katy Expansion email list, please send an email to us@kelm.us

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Ron Kelm - Spring Valley First http://www.springvalleyfirst.org 8339 Winningham Ln. Houston TX 77055-7529 T: 713 468 8100 F: 713 468 8184 E: us@kelm.us ******************************************************