League City Council Candidate Greg Gripon's Platform

Based on the Chris John Mallios sympathetic interview with Greg Gripon, we finally know what his platform consists of (besides #LeagueCityProud #HomeGrown).  And it's got some serious flaws.  Yes, it's time to get back to the issues as we analyze the PRIMARY reason Greg Gripon is wrong for League City's future.  And it's because his only desire is to fight to keep us in the past by implementing regressive liberal policies of centralized control and misguided environmentalism run amok.   Outside of talking about his dad and sharing stories of the good old days, Greg Gripon expressed his top 3 priorities for the city, as

1. Traffic
2. Maintaining support for the Police Department so it remains "The Best"
3. Centralized government-mandated master-planning of the development of the remaining 50% of League City he identifies as not built out on the west side of the city.

With respect to traffic, he seems to believe that right-turn lanes on 96 would solve a lot, but expressed no plan to add these, he simply complained that it was built without planning for them.  Never mind the fact that the roads were probably built to be as wide as possible to allow for water drainage without encroaching on private property any more than was absolutely necessary (you know, to protect property rights as Brian Brown has stated is his desire).  Outside of this, the only plan put forth by Mr. Gripon was to add a website, managed by the city, to communicate upcoming traffic projects to the residents.  Now, I've seen plenty of traffic and road maintenance/construction notices on the Facebook page the city maintains, and I've seen electronic message boards on the streets, and I've seen updates on the city website already.  So I guess Greg's brilliant plan is to just duplicate this information on a dedicated website.  Now, I'm not opposed to this, but that won't actually FIX any traffic problems.

With respect to maintaining support for the Police Department, outside of paying lip service in gratitude for the police union endorsing him, he said nothing else.  Honestly, does this mean he plans to buy more new equipment, improving their benefits, increasing funding for training, what?  It's really easy to say you're going to maintain support for something, but that's not a plan.  That's a goal, at best, but most likely just lip service.

Now, onto the centralized government-mandated master-planning for development of the west side of the city.  If this doesn't stink of liberalism run amok to you, then you lack a nose.  Here's a few quotes and points from Greg on this topic:

•  The city needs a document that specifies roadways, zones for buildings, homes, schools, a complete plan
• Anyone who wants to build something must get approval from the city that it is in accordance with the plan
• This will "control growth in League City"
• Architectural restrictions must be in place, as the city, "...must control what's going to be built"
• The city needs to "Make that area grow the way you want it to grow"
• "People come to League City because they love the green space in this town."

Now I don't know about you, but, like Brian Brown claims, I believe in private property rights.  It's one thing for the city to look at what land is available and within it's budget to acquire to provide amenities for the citizens.  It's one thing for the city to find land to acquire to meet the needs of the citizens (retention ponds, water treatment facilities, water towers, etc), road widening and new roads, etc).  But it's completely something else to micromanage an entire area of the city to built according to the plan.  Is Mr. Gripon to tell churches which land they can actually build on and where they can't?  Is Mr. Gripon going to tell a retail developer that they can only build a restaurant, not a laundromat?  Is Mr. Gripon going to tell investors that their investments are now worthless because that land is zoned for an ice cream parlor and they wanted to open a hair salon?  This unchecked level of control is absolutely terrifying.  Keep in mind, most zoning laws the city HAS enacted, only applied if property is transferred to someone else.  If Mr. Gripon's plan maintains that restriction, with no retroactive zoning enforcement, then it's going to be completely toothless.  If it IS going to restrict even the current land-owners, then it's absolutely draconian in nature.  Furthermore, it's completely hilarious that the SAME people who are complaining that the city is attempting to develop wasted land in the historic downtown area into a parking garage that is masked/framed by retail shops (something which would provide a service to the residents with the parking garage, and more importantly, shift the tax burden to retail sales tax revenue instead of homeowners taxes by bringing in more shoppers from outside of League City) are now supporting this unchecked level of centralized planning that echoes Stalin's five-year plans to tell farmers which crops to grow (and we all know how well that worked out).   As part of the centralized master planning, Mr. Gripon also insists that all developers should be required to develop with the pipes for a reclaimed water system.

Now, the city is already working on requirements that subdivisions that are built will have reclaimed water systems to irrigate common land, the entrance-ways, and parks.  If that's all Mr. Gripon is talking about, then he's talking about changing nothing and taking credit for it.  Now, if he's talking about requiring it for every single residential house, this is a MASSIVE cost increase.  Byram Lass claims that Mr. Gripon isn't opposed to growth, but increasing the cost in this nature can be viewed as NOTHING but an opportunity to resist growth, and in Mr. Gripon's own words, this will, "control growth in League City".  But let's look more into whether this reclaimed water system makes sense.  First, Mr. Gripon claims that 80% of the water use in League City is for irrigation systems, and only 20% is used for bathroom and drinking water.  First of all, that's not true.  The city's own website states that it CAN be as high as 50-80% of residential use IN THE SUMMER MONTHS (reference: http://leaguecity.com/index.aspx?NID=1585 ).  So, 25% of the time, it CAN be as high as 50-80%.  The rest of the year, it's virtually none.  But let's do the math more generous to Mr. Gripon, and say that summer is a full half of the year in League City and that the 80% figure isn't an upper bound but the average.  And let's say it doesn't drop to zero the rest of the year, but let's say it drops to 50% of the use (even though that's likely VERY high).  50% of the year we're at 80%, 50% of the year we're at 50%, that would STILL cap our irrigation usage at 65%.  Perhaps Mr. Gripon get's his figures from global figures from Wikipedia (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Irrigation_statistics) which includes places that use FAR less water in bathrooms and kitchens, and has far less natural rainwater yet still needs to grow crops.  But here in League City it's not 80%.  Moving on to even more mistaken claims, Mr. Gripon stated that the water would be free of chlorine and fluoride, and this would make the grass happy.  However, very few water processing facilities remove chlorine or fluoride from the water, and most still ADD chlorine to attempt to control bacteria in the "purple" reclaimed water system (we'll come back to bacteria in a minute).  In other words, this claim is mistaken.  Now the reclaimed water is usually going to be higher in minerals and salts, some of which are good for the grass, but the levels can get too high, and proper treatment of lawns will be difficult to manage.  Additionally, the minerals and salts will make for very "hard" water, and this puts a much heavier strain on the valves, pipes, and other equipment in the systems, and reclaimed water systems require much more maintenance (reference: http://www.rainbird.com/landscape/resources/webinars/Reclaimed-NonPotable.pdf ) and on-going operational costs than our current water system (thereby decreasing some of the savings).  Additionally, there could be impacts such as challenges in scheduling the early-morning youth sports at parks, as you need to limit human contact while the grounds are still wet from reclaimed water.  And for those concerned about our environment, a lot of studies are starting to come out that reclaimed water systems are breeding grounds for anti-biotic resistant genes by passing on antibiotics in the wastewater and providing a breeding ground for bacteria due to lower levels of disinfectant.  (reference: https://vtechworks.lib.vt.edu/bitstream/handle/10919/23863/Fahrenfeld%20et%20al.%202013%20Front.%20Microbiol..pdf;sequence=1) , so this system would be a safety risk for our community.  And one final point on the reclaimed water mandate that is part of your platform - who is TRULY going to pay for it?  You can say that it's going to be a mandate on developers - but they don't ACTUALLY pay for it.  The end consumer of the work the developers do will pay for it.  For one thing, running the water and sewer is usually funded by a MUD, which is a tax the homeowners will pay.  If it's not, then the developer will pass the cost on with the price of lots, and the homeowners will be paying higher for their houses.  In other words, people will stop choosing to build in League City, because Friendswood, Dickinson, and other areas will be most cost effective.  But of course, your goal is to "control growth", so that's REALLY what this is all about, isn't it?

Mr. Gripon, sure some people come to League City for it's "green space".  But the majority come here for the following:  League City has safe neighborhoods with good schools, there's lots of job opportunities in the area, there is a reasonable cost of living and a high level of convenience.  Your plans will increase the cost of living and decrease the level of convenience. You see, evidence from other cities that have created too many restrictions on growth and micro-managed the "master plan" to the level Mr. Gripon is proposing, have started to realize bipartisan criticism.  Liberals lament that the plan has lead to an increasing level of segregation and a widening inequality between the "haves" and "have nots", as the restrictions on development create barriers that prevent the lower-middle class from being able to live in nice towns (reference: http://www.nytimes.com/2016/07/04/business/how-anti-growth-sentiment-reflected-in-zoning-laws-thwarts-equality.html).  Meanwhile, the right has shown that zoning laws have limited the economic growth of our nation (reference: http://www.forbes.com/sites/timothylee/2011/09/19/zoning-laws-are-strangling-silicon-valley/ ).  You see, Mr. Gripon, we need to shift our city revenue to be derived from retail and industry instead of homeowners.  This will help keep our area with a reasonable cost of living.  If we fight growth, we drive up our taxes on homeowners to find the infrastructure improvements.  If we fight growth, we artificially drive up property values, pricing out the working class.

So, folks... it's about CONTROL.  Do YOU want the control, or do you want to hand it over to the government?  If you want your cost of living to increase while your conveniences decrease, vote for the Green Team (Gripon/Salcedo/Millican).  If you want the control, and you want to LOWER your taxes, not increase them, vote for someone else who will support the City Manager and the rest of our City Council as they implement an ACTUAL plan that is seeking to diversify the tax base to decrease the burden on homeowners.