You’ll get a chance to say it.
Harris County Judge Ed Emmett on Wednesday announced a series of public meetings to seek input from residents on an estimated $2.5 billion flood infrastructure bond that commissioners plan to put before voters on the anniversary of Hurricane Harvey in August.
“On August 25, the voters of Harris County will make one of the most important decisions, I think, in our history,” Emmett said.
Throughout June, July and August, the county will hold public meetings on the bond in each of the county’s 23 watersheds.
[…]
Flanked by Harris County Flood Control District head Russ Poppe, Emmett said the $2.5 billion sum is a ballpark figure, and projects may be added or subtracted before commissioners decide on a final amount on June 12.
Emmett said the county intends to publish a list of planned projects by the first week of August, when early voting on the bond begins.
An initial list of possible projects and information about the community meetings can be found at www.hcfcd.org/bondprogram.
See here for the background, and here for a list of the meetings that have been scheduled so far. There’s one for each watershed, though as you can see most are not yet on the calendar. There’s a lot we need to know about this, and just two months before we start voting on it, so find a meeting near you, learn what you can, and ask questions. We all need to know what we’re voting on.
At first glance it seems to make your contributors rich projects, and help the Trump areas. Will keep an open mind but what type of input would they listen to? They already know what they intend to do, but will wait until a few weeks before the election to tell us what the projects will be.
I did look at what they had posted.
For instance want to plan where to go for the meetings, good luck – https://www.hcfcd.org/bond-program/community-engagement-meetings/
Flooding is a danger to everyone. Better drainage helps everyone. This is one issue where blue vs red ought not to matter. This really should be a multi-county bond (with at least Ft. Bend and Brazoria also voting on their own drainage bonds), but at least it’s a start. I’ll go to the Clear Creek one of the schedule works.
@Fly:
Better drainage doesn’t necessarily help everyone. If you improve the drainage of one area, you possibly or probably are making it worse for another area. As with most things, drainage projects create winners and losers.
Although, I do agree with you that efforts need to be multi county. You mentioned Clear Creek, and it is a big problem during flood events. If you widen and channel upstream areas, you just get more water volume overtopping downstream. This is Friendswood’s big problem. Even if you get everyone together and say, OK, we are going to really go to town on Clear Creek, if there is a storm surge in Clear Lake, then your work helps others, but adds misery to Webster and League City.
Drainage is one area where it’s not generally win-win. Somebody will lose.
Better Drainage will help the City of Houston.
As Flypusher points out, drainage is a regional issue, and ought to be addressed on a regional basis (particularly since rivers and streams often form the boundary between jurisdictions). Fort Bend and Montgomery counties are in some ways ahead of Harris County in addressing things like detention; it’s certainly on every county government’s radar around here. Along with money, the bigger problems to overcome are the “I got mine, you figure your own stuff out” mindset of some of the larger developers, the territorial instincts of the different local agencies, and the deeply ingrained idea that water is some sort of evil substance that must immediately be moved elsewhere.
Flypusher I have to agree with Bill, drainage is not the solution. Like Bill said it will help some people but not others and in fact could make it worse.
When the Medical Center flooded they did a lot of work in that area and they have not flooded again, McGregor did. They built levies and other things to keep the water out, but it did not help the people upstream, the flooding in the Meyerland area,for instance, has happened more often. Coincidence? Remember rule #39, NCIS. https://www.cbs.com/shows/ncis/photos/1003066/gibbs–rules–the-complete-list-from-ncis/70310/