For the last few years this blog has served as a source of information and dialog during election season in College station and Bryan. A couple of times in-between elections issues have arisen that motivated posts, but for the most part the blog sits ideal during most of the months of the year.

Having served on the College Station Planning and Zoning commission for a few months now, I recognize, more than ever, a need for our citizens to be more informed on development issues and more than anything to be more involved in a community dialog. I have always been engaged, with things like this blog, in effort to create community dialog. Unfortunately, now that I am in a position to provide more information, I am also too busy to be as involved in these efforts.

I hope to, at least occasionally, use this blog to discuss general issues in the development of our community. It is not my intention to limit this to College Station issues, especially as some of the more exciting development issues are occurring in Bryan. But I am just not as informed of, or involved in, Bryan issues. I will do my best to solicit input from those who are.

There are many reasons, including legal ones, that a P&Z commissioner might not want to be involved in such publically accessible dialog outside of City Hall chambers. In my opinion those with the most direct access to information and decision making should facilitate the discussion. As we have a dearth of community dialog on most development issues, I see this as part of my job as a commissioner.

I enjoy serving on the Planning and Zoning Commission for lots of reasons, foremost of which is the quality of people that I serve with. These people are very smart, socially adept and caring. Seldom do political bodies serve to assuage cynicism in me, this one certainly does that.

This is not to say that they agree with my perspective on development, or change. With great kindness and respect they tolerate what I can only guess seems like eccentricity from me. I have come to be known as Mr. Six-to-one, as my vote is frequently the lone impediment to consensus. It has been my experience that in College Station, like in other cities, ideas that seem far out can come into the mainstream in a relatively short period of time, even though they are at first perceived as tilting at windmills. The key for this to happen is to put them out there and allow discussion to occur.

There are several of these kinds of issues that I try to bring up in the course of commission deliberations. My hope is that by talking about them, in time some of these ideas will seem less out of the ordinary. One such idea is that gated communities are bad for College Station. Some of the more obvious reasons for this are that gated communities disrupt connectivity to both auto and pedestrian movement. By isolating themselves they create a decidedly anti-community atmosphere.

My guess is that most of my fellow commissioners may agree that they would prefer not to have gated communities in College Station, but they see it as beyond their reach to suggest such a change. Some probably also see it as beyond the reach of Council to determine such issues. There seems to be a strong sense on Council and in the Commission that such things should be determined mainly by market forces.

My hope has been that if I am somewhat redundant in talking about the pernicious nature of these kinds of development, in a couple of years we may be able to bring the issue up for consideration.

Last week’s P&Z meeting was the first for new Commissioner, Winnie Garner. Actually she has served on both P&Z and City Council in years past but has not served in several years. In the course of just one meeting I have already learned important lessons from Winnie. When the issue of gated communities came up, she indicated that this issue had come up years ago and that re recollection was that P&Z had suggested to Council that gated communities be stopped. Evidently that Council did not agree or they felt the pressure of the development community.

Later in last week’s meeting, when new agenda items came up, Winnie asked that the issue of gated communities be put on a future workshop agenda. Wow, I was impressed. No two years of trying to gain some level of acceptability for the idea, let’s just get it out there and deal with it. I think that I’m going to like serving with Winnie. The other thing that I learned from Winnie’s presence was that there was a time when community forces were given more credence in development considerations.

We went through about an 8 year period when the developers swept in and before anyone knew it they had managed, through heavy spending, to get several very pro-development people elected to City Council. Over the course of the last several elections the voters of College Station seem to have reversed that course. Nonetheless, a great deal of precedent has been set, which is difficult to change. College Station now has the sort of leadership that can bring our focus back to a point that quality of life is the goal and quantity of business is seen as a tool to serve that goal, rather than the other way around. The best way to insure and hasten this transition is to have a well informed and involved electorate. Read more!

I love the idea of a community center. As Larry Ringer points out this is basic quality of life stuff that we expect here in College Station. So, why am I PROBABLY going to vote against proposition 5 that sets aside money for a community center? In short, because it is not well thought out or well articulated. Here are just few questions that I have not seen answers to:
Where will it go?
Who will use it?
What currently existing uses would be served by this community center?
What new uses would be served by this community center?
How would the community center be administered?
What are the projected operating costs?
Will this facility be accessible to low income residents?

I am quite familiar with the idea of presenting an idea, to get buy-in, at the concept stage. Unfortunately, this idea has not been developed that far. As far as I can tell this proposal is the remnant of the effort to get a senior center here in College Station. While I would prefer to have a community center that brings together a wide cross section of our community, I would not be opposed to a senior center, if it were brought forth with a good deal more specificity than what we are getting with this proposal.

Again with this discussion, as in the last two City Council elections, we are being confronted by the phantom people who are opposed to growth. I have yet to meet a single person in this community who is opposed to growth. One has to assume that this wide net is being cast for red herring. The seemingly intended implication of such spurious claims is that those of us who want well planned growth, really want to stop growth. That is simply not true. This is the sort of divisive politics that needs to stop and from which we need to heal.

If Mayor White can come forth with five people who have made any effort to stop growth in College Station, I will invite them and Mayor White to my house for dinner so that Mayor White and I, together, can try to convince them of the advantages of growth in our community. Perhaps if those people do not materialize, Mayor White would be willing to host five people at his house for a discussion on why we need to include quality of life as a concept of growth in College Station. Read more!

Vote no on proposition 6 on November 4th

While I am generally in favor of most bond issues that allow us to invest in our community, if you live in College Station, I encourage you to vote “No” on propositions 6 on November 4th. This proposition is for $26,300,000.00 to be used to construct a new City Hall.

It is true that our City Hall is way too small, city staff deserves less cramped quarters and the existing council chambers seldom accommodate the crowd of interested citizens that attend meetings. But this is a particularly bad suggestion for solving the problem.


Currently City Hall is at the core of the city, immediately across from the university. Not only is this convenient, it also contributes to keeping density at the core of the city, which reduces traffic and urban decline. The city owns the whole large bock that city hall sits on, more than half of which is either undeveloped or in open parking. If the city were to sell this land, as has been proposed, the city building would likely be razed and hauled to the Landfill. Additionally the new development on this block, if any could be found, would probably be less dense and of lower quality.

While our developing comprehensive plan calls for more intensive master planning, this proposition calls for just sticking this new building on a very large piece of raw land. While it has been said that the “idea” is to have a campus setting, I have yet to hear any articulation of a real concept, much less something that would constitute a master plan.

This is the one proposition being put forth that would result in the raising Taxes.

Over the last several years the citizens of College Station have done a great job getting rid of City Council members who served at the pleasure of the development community and replacing them with Council members who serve the whole community. While I see this initiative as anathema to the tide of sentiment that brought this council to office, it is important to keep in mind two important points. First, this City Council pretty much inherited this project from past Councils. And second, these ballot initiatives were not just the whimsy of Council, they were bought forward by a citizen committee. I’m not sure what process was used by this committee, but it is likely that these were not so much recommendations for projects that should be built, as they were recommendations for projects that we should be given a chance to decide on.

The one good thing that proposition 6 may do is bring together liberals and conservatives. Conservatives will oppose this proposition because it is wasteful spending that will raise our taxes. Liberals will vote against this proposition because it will result in sprawl development, the unnecessary destruction of raw land and a perfectly good building, and the degradation of what little density that College Station has at its core, which will bring a whole host of bad consequences such more traffic, less walkability and less pull for future redevelopment at our core.

Like proposition 5, which I also oppose, the idea behind a new city hall has not been developed and articulated. The people of College Station have made it clear that we are paying attention and we want smart governance and smart development. Why are we being asked to vote on a 26 million dollar project that will raise our taxes without better justification being put forth? I fully support the expansion of our current City Hall, even if it means raising our taxes. Or hard working, dedicated city staff deserve better than the cramped conditions that they are now working in. But I would hope that any such plan would be much more thoroughly thought out and developed before being brought before the voters. Read more!

From Discussion on Eagle forum

Black is the comments of an anonymous poster at theeagle.com forum. The Blue is my reply.

Okay Ann, let's compare: 1) Local companies may return three times the PERCENTAGE of their profits to the local economy, but they decidedly do NOT return three times the amount of revenue. The volume of business generated by franchises produces more circulated revenue, more sales tax revenue, and more local salaries than locally owned establishments, and most frequently at a lower price.

I’m sorry but you are just wrong. While there are several studies that have duplicated these results the most frequently cited study comes from Austin. If you would like to read the full study you can find it here.

2) Unless local businesses buy all of their products locally, they too ship money out of our local economy.

Of course that is true. The point is that they ship far less of it out of town.

3) How many solely local businesses provide the professional jobs you listed? Yeah, that's what I thought -- not many.

All of them do. While most small local businesses do not have an accountant or an attorney on staff, they certainly do hire those services here locally. Cumulatively local businesses support local professional and chains do not.

4) There are local companies that go out of business -- but not for no reason. They would also go out of business if another better, cheaper locally owned competitor opened. That's called "competition."

While it is true that competition from other local businesses can cause some businesses to go out of business, this is a little like comparing the common cold to cancer. Big boxes come in with tax abatements and other incentives. Wall mart coaches their employees on how to take advantage of government subsidized health coverage many of them are on food stamps so we are all subsidizing them. This may be competition, it is just not fair competition.

5) Tax abatements, tax increment zones, and other inducements typically are offered to non-retail businesses. When a retail business is offered this type of enticement, it is usually because no such local enterprise exists.

Again, you are just wrong. Many of our large franchise businesses have these incentives. I’m not sure, but I bet you the new target has incentives.

6) I can't respond to this assertion, because I have no idea what you're talking about, and I suspect that you don't either.

I’m not quite sure why you failed to understand this rather simple idea nor am I sure why you would think that I don’t know what I am talking about. Several studies have shown that big box developments drive up crime rates and increase the cost of police service. They also burden our infrastructure and cause more of it to need to be built. Have you ever noticed how much trash pours off of these sites?

7) Ignoring for a moment the fact that local business also operate in ugly strip malls and that many strip malls are, in fact, locally owned, many franchises construct very attractive buildings with architectural standards that locally owned businesses eschew.

I did not mean to imply that franchise businesses were the only culprits of ugly development nor that there are not some franchises that have attractive buildings. But clearly they are the majority of it.

8) Again, skipping the fact that two of the larger shopping centers in town are owned by Stalworth Real estate of College Station, why would you believe that locally owned businesses of comparable size would produce any less aggregate parking area or run-off? The amount of parking spaces is a product of the amount of business that stores serve, not who owns the company. As an example, compare the size of the parking lot at Texas Roadhouse (a franchise) and Wings N More (a locally founded business).

I would agree that the Culpeppers have not been the best stewards of community. Local businesses do tend to produce fewer parking places, as they tend to be smaller and more neighborhood appropriate, which means that not all of their business is coming via auto. Also they tend to disperse the parking so that mammoth parking lots are not created. This does a few beneficial things. First of all it means that runoff is not nearly so concentrated or polluted. Second, it creates more walkable spaces so that people willingly walk further benefiting their health and the urban landscape. There have been a lot of interesting studies done over the last ten years correlating obesity to the change in our urban landscape. Also breaking up parking areas means that there is likely to be more green space reducing the heat mass and providing shading. While you can find local businesses that also contribute to some of these problems we are looking at trend here. What is the impact of this kind of business to our overall economy and quality of life?

9) We’re not Fredricksburg. We never were and we weren’t going to be. B-CS has a lot to offer. We are more than just a community that can only distinguish itself by restaurants and retail businesses. We are NOT Anytown, USA!

No we are not Fredricksburg, we are a college town. Most college towns are mindful of the unique opportunity that they have to create a strong since of place and walkable communities that benefit students and attract visitors to come and spend money in unique shops and restaurants. We are becoming anytown USA. It is important that we understand and take pride in the character of our community. That character is reflected in many places but probably nowhere more noticeable, especially to visitors, than in our locally owned independent businesses. Our history, both Bryan and College Station, has always been reflected by businesses like Loupots Books, Holicks Boots, The Chicken, Lesters, Heritage Men’s Wear, Catalina Hatters. Texas Roadhouse, Wal-Mart and Target all make us less distinguishable, less interesting and less economically viable.

10) This is your most egregiously arrogant assertion of all! People who work in franchises in B-CS are members of our community and care about it as deeply as those who work for locally owned businesses. The idea that they do not contribute as volunteers is patently ridiculous (and you should be ashamed for suggesting it). As for the contributions of franchises, Wal-Mart makes several thousand dollars available to local organizations every year. Golden Corral and Texas Roadhouse are well known within the community for providing fundraising opportunities and assistance to local organizations. McCoy’s, Lowe’s, and Home Depot have been regular contributors to Habitat for Humanity. Franchise names are found on the backs of Little League players in every local league and on every outfield fence. In short Ann, you’d like to return to the ‘50’s when local businesses were all downtown and small. Be sure to tell me when the ‘50’s come back around again.

Again, you are just wrong, though I’m sure not arrogant. I did not say that large companies do not make any contributions. Suggesting so is a rather “egregious” leap. While it is true that major corporations make nice splashy contributions and even some local contributions, it does not compare to what local companies do as a percentage of profits. The difference is even more marked when it comes to volunteer time. No one is suggesting that people who work for franchises are unworthy, but they do tend to be less connected in the community.

Thank you for trying to inform me about what I’d like but again, you are just wrong. The values of hometown, a since of place and business at a community scale are not isolated in the 50’s in fact it would be easy to mark the 50’s as a decade that started us down the road that would lead to the degradation of community in a way that would allow some people to try to measure quality of life in tax revenue - a rather detached and dehumanizing perspective. I am thrilled that people are rediscovering the value of community and that in the Brazos Valley we are acting on those values.

Read more!

I appreciate the owner of this blog giving me front page privileges. I will do my best to violate what is expected. While this blog is assume in many respects, it is very narrow in range. The owner, Hugh, asked me to keep to local politics. For someone who seems like such a renaissance guy, that seems like a strange request. Doesn't everything resonate at from the local? Aren't we all impacted by Bush's war, energy policy and general idiocy? Why not relate that all back to our neighborhood? What about poetry, science, hard throbbing sex and human frailty? Is our dialog here to be sanitized of all of this?

It may seem ungratefully to be given front page privileges and then to start out by questioning the authority of he who extended this kind offer? All Authority must be questioned. If he is offended and kicks me off I have lost nothing, nor will it denigrate my gratitude for his kind offer. So how about others, do you want to chat about world politics and take a peak up my skirt?
Read more!

What is going on in Bryan?

Wow. The villagers are angry in Bryan. Someone asked me to post something about the row going on in Bryan. Way to go folks!!! Check out the eagle comments section (theeagle.com) about the Bryan council agenda issue. Glad that at least some of you all are getting upset over city council people who are representing personal and business interests rather than community interests. Unfortunately, I do not have time to keep up with this issue. I would love to have Bryan, and College Station for that matter, top level bloggers to help cover this stuff and a full range of community political issues. One of the problems that happens is that people get caught up on single issues and fail to deal with the bigger and more broadly connected picture. If you are interested in being a top level blogger please contact me at hughstearns@gmail.com. I prefer to have people use their real name but I may be willing to overlook that if necessary. In the mean time please feel free to cover this issue in the comments section. I will try to check in at least once a day and bring new topics to the front page if there is a need. I probably will not make it every day. Please don't let your energy die. This is not about a single issue, it is about caring for your community. Connect the issues. Read more!

Cool College Station

Recently Mayor White signed the Cool Cities environmental initiative and now College Station is going forward with green initiatives.
Do you think that this is good for our city?
What sort of measure do you feel are most important?
Do you feel like these initiatives will be allowed to continue if the Developers win a majority of seats on city council? Read more!

Early Voting is Upon Us

Dear Readers,

Sorry not to have posted questions on Thursday and Friday of last week. And to make things worse, I will be out of town next week and do not know if I will have internet access.

Following are a few questions to consider as we lead up to the election.

Early voting starts on Monday. Get out and do your civic thing.

Read more!

Campaign Finance Reform

Many feel that the developers are trying to buy seats on City Council. The Campaign Finance Reports indicate that almost all of their money is coming from that narrow segment of the community. It has been pointed out that these people stand to gain financially from having their preferred candidates on City Council.

How do you feel about campaign finance reform?

A) Money influencing politics is the American way, it happens at every level of government;
B) It may be a good idea in some places but we do not need it here;
C) Allowing undue influence of money gives undue power to the rich, it takes democracy away from average Americans.

Many cities such as Tucson, and Austin have enacted voluntary public financing of campaigns. In these situations candidates must raise a certain amount of money with a cap on the size of contributions. This shows viability. At that point they can opt into the public financing where by the city has established high quality means of distributing campaign information such as public forums. These are only available to those who agree to the restrictions on spending, size of donation, etc. In these cities it is very rare for anyone to opt out of the system. In Austin, where they have an informed and savvy electorate they publish the names of those who do and do not participate. Not only does this reduce the cost of running for office, thereby making it a consideration for a wider cross section of the community, it also tends to increase the quality of election information available. Fewer yard signs and sound bites.

Another thing that can be done is to make it illegal to raise money within three weeks of the election. This means that all campaign finance information is available at the time of the election. As it is now, we can expect candidates with the reputation for being bought to have their last campaign finance reports show much more money, because this report comes out after the election. Before the last period they are taking much of their money in pledges, which are not reported.
Read more!

Will It Work?

Do you think that the students will come out to vote in significant numbers? And if they do, do you think that they will vote for the Developers? Read more!

Dirty Tricks?

There as been a lot of discussion about the student vote. Do you think that we are seeing,

A) Political dirty tricks ;
B) Political maneuvering maybe a little slimier than we are accustomed to but a picture of our future;
C) Common now, this is politics, what do you expect;
D) It was a brilliant move;
E) it probably was not intended as political maneuvering.

For those who are not aware of what has happened. Before the election started Mayor White had an item placed on the consent agenda to move the ballot box from Post Oak Mall to the MSC. This passed without objection. Next, the Mayor and the developer candidates started making appearances on campus. Some would say they were pointedly agitating the students about efforts being considered to control problems with some renters. This was not a new issue; Bryan had already passed in ordinance allowing neighborhoods to vote to limit houses to two unrelated residence. This passed without a peep from the students. It appears that the students may have been coached into indignation. These students in fact passed a good deal of totally false information such as that students would be kicked out of their homes if this passed, when, in fact, all existing rental property would have been grandfathered, not just while those students lived there, but even beyond that. There was no attempt to correct this bad information even when they knew for sure that it was wrong. Many people feel that the developers knew that they could not win in College Station after their attempt to place a super Wal-Mart next to neighborhoods on the east side. They needed to try to get students, who have never voted in any significant number, out to vote. The only way they could get the students out to vote was to convince them that they were being threatened.
Read more!