Port O’Connor, We Did It!
Submitted by: Leon S. Brown, Jr.
Texas Commission on Environmental Quality (TCEQ) stipulates that rate increases established by the Board of Directors can be appealed if 10 percent of the ratepayers sign a petition to appeal the rates.
As of January, 2014, there are 1,384 ratepayers in POC. We would need 139 signatures to be able to appeal.
As of March 14th, we have over 300 signatures! Our appeal will be heard in Austin!
Thank you to all that took the time to sign the petition, to those who have helped distributing flyers and those who have spread the word in our community.
Leon S. Brown, Jr.
I have questions.
I am real curious as to when the Port O Connor Mud board received their Top Secret Clearance? It must have been prior to the Feb. 20 meeting of this year because I attended that meeting and was told I could make a statement but no questions would be answered. I know for a fact that Mr. Leon Brown had applied for, and was granted a spot to be on the agenda (Item D number 3) but was told by the board that they would not answer any questions related to the application he had submitted.
I don’t know if the questions the public has are so far out of context the board considers them unanswerable and feels they have no need to respond. Or could it be that there is too much that needs to be kept from the public, that they will not answer any questions. If this is the case than it makes me very suspicious as to the operations the board is conducting. Any time someone is taking money out of my pocket and won’t answer a question as to what they are doing with it, yes I get very suspicious, and when I get suspicious that only raises more questions.
An interesting question I have heard is, if this is an Improvement District can we improve ourself out of existence? Why would someone want to come to Port O Connor as opposed to some place else along the coast when the cost of their water service is going to be more than what they would have to pay for electrical service. This alone would have a detrimental effect on property to be sold here. (Like , I really like it down here but the services are way too expensive.) Rockport, water and sewer 32.37 with a 2000 gal min Port Aranasa, water and sewer 31.00 with a 2000 gal min (they are on an island) Palacios, water and sewer 32.00 with a 3000 gal min Port O Connor water and sewer 124.00, and that is only if you do not use a drop of water, even if the water is turned off to the house, you still owe this rate. It will only go up from there.
Some may say this rate includes trash pick up. Ok,,,,, try this, call the MUD District and cancel your trash pick up, not a problem. But your rate will remain the same because the MUD dist.does not charge for trash pick up, they only charge a service fee. I know, I am still scratching my head over that one myself, but that is what I was told when I called.
In closing I don’t think the board is thinking about the community , only their self , and they have left way too many questions unanswered to be trusted with our well being as a small community trying to be that best kept secret on the gulf coast.
Marshall Bradford
Dear Dolphin,
I am writing because of an issue I feel needs to be addressed. The POC Ladies Service Club sponsors two HUGE garage sales each year. The Spring sale is in April and the fall sale in November.
All year long, these hard working ladies collect donated items to sell for raising money for community projects and scholarships. That being said, I have noticed that more and more often people are literally “DUMPING” UNUSABLE, WORN OUT, and down right “nasty” items by our county barn. (for the garage sale ?) There is no possible way ANYONE would or could use these things. Most recent “donation”, a used toilet? There have been old mattresses, pillows, totally worn out items, too numerous to list in this brief letter.
To the people donating things to the community garage sale, , I urge you PLEASE donate items to the sale that are in GOOD, CLEAN and USUABLE CONDITION. The hard-working women of the POC service club work tirelessly all year long going through YOUR donations, sorting, organizing and “weeding out” the unusable items. It is extremely difficult on the ladies when so many UNUSEABLE items are dumped. I use the word “dumped” because if the stuff can’t be re-sold at the garage sale, it IS JUNK! It takes extra time , and work hours trying to properly dispose of the unwanted, unusable stuff.
It is not fair to the dedicated women who must then try and find PROPER DISPOSAL of the things that can’t be used. The ladies are “volunteers” and their time is valuable.
To those who have UNSUABLE things you just want to get rid of , PLEASE DO NOT DONATE THEM TO THE GARAGE SALE. The county barn is simply a “storage area” for USEABLE things. It IS NOT a LEGAL “DUMPING” SITE!
There is a land fill/ recycle center in Port Lavaca at 900 Old Landfill road. Once a month, a large –item roll off trash dumpster is brought to POC. It is located at 16th & Harrison. If you don’t want something, please ask yourself if someone else would. If not, then dispose of it properly.
Your cooperation is appreciated.
Judge Nancy Pomykal
Justice of the Peace, Pct. 5
Calhoun County, Texas
The First Black President
I guess it has occurred to a lot of us that since 2008 when President Obama was first elected, that he seems to have gotten away with doing things that no other president has gotten away with doing. It is now 2014 and his transgressions have become so bold and continuous that we have a tendency to forget that perhaps in the beginning, people who voted for him really believed he was going to change things and there was hope that Republicans and Democrats would work together and blacks and whites would no longer see any division by color. Everything was going to be transparent and we would be a country non-divided by politics, race, or religion. Remember that?
People truly believed this to be true… they wanted to believe it. They needed to believe it. It took the first whole term of his Presidency for some folks to understand that NONE of that seemed to be true at all. President Obama has consistently divided this country. He started with the big banks, the savings and loans, the auto industry. Then there was the 99% vs: 1%. The poor working class Americans struggling to make ends meet vs: Wall Street, crooked CEOs, and big business. What he was really saying was, “Hate capitalism and free enterprise.” He convinced us that the government had every right to take over the automobile industry to protect us from those bad men running companies who wanted to make a profit by producing a product that we all benefit from, and we let him do it. How could that happen?
And what about the dozens of scandals that have been listed by the press as being ‘phony’? Voter intimidation by the new Black Panther Party in 2008, Fast and Furious, both of which nothing has ever been done about. Benghazi…. we have the person largely responsible for that saying she is going to run for president in 2016. Drones. NSA spying on everyone. But this is for our benefit, for our own protection. The IRS is targeting conservative groups. And of course the IRS is going to be the enforcer for anyone who does not comply with the mandate of Obamacare. Oh, are YOU covered now? Or did your insurance premiums go up? Or are you no longer covered at all? How could a ‘President’ force people to buy something they didn’t want and somehow get the justices of the Supreme Court to state that is is Constitutional because it is a TAX?? How could that happen?
And now the latest arrogance by our President is, he has decided the American people are not willing to stand still and wait for Congress to decide their fate. If the Republicans will not reach across the aisle and do everything that he wishes, he will not wait. He says has a pen and he has a phone. He will not bother with Congress anymore. He will ‘executive order’ his wishes from now on. In 2008 he made a speech condemning George W. Bush for granting too much power to the executive branch. Too many executive orders were being written he said. Too much by-passing of the Constitution was taking place. I guess he must have changed his mind, as he proposes openly now on National television to write as many executive orders as it takes to make things as he sees fit. How could that happen?
Consider the violent black mobs who have been terrorizing the cities of the Untied States for months and months. The media ignores them. The ‘Knock-out Game’ has been called a myth by the NY Times. Here on the Internet we can see whites being harassed, beaten, knocked to the ground and worse, but even local police and mayors in those places turn away or say none of it is racially motivated. And… nothing is done about it. People are scared to walk out of their houses in some places, just because they are white. How could that happen?
The answer will appear to be racist. But I submit that Barack Obama has been able to get away with the most blatant outrageous acts against this country, it’s Constitution and it’s people because he is THE FIRST BLACK PRESIDENT. Right from the beginning, no one has been willing to stand against him and risk being called a racist. Obama himself has stated that he is not liked because he is black. That is a racist statement from someone who has been able to do just about everything he has ever wanted to, with no interference, because he is black and only white people are considered racists.
K. Burland Seadrift, TX
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Port O’Connor, TX 77982
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