You Decide Part 1: Overview
Summary of the Current Situation
*** Draft for Discussion ***
Version 2.7
as of 9/2/2022
an opinion piece
by Joe Carter
Stephenville Citizen and Taxpayer
contact: carter@SeniorsTree.org
[Editor’s Note: Due to the overt lack of transparency by the Stephenville City Council, it has been extremely difficult to get information about the Senior Center / Council Chambers construction project. The following represents our best efforts at getting information about the project. Before this website was released to the general public, we gave the City Council exclusive access so they could suggest corrections and clear up any misunderstandings on our part. They chose to not comment. More recently, our attorney has attempted to contact the Stephenville City Attorney on multiple occasions starting on August 3, 2022. As of August 14, 2022, the City Attorney has not responded to our attorney’s attempts to contact him. If the Council becomes more transparent and provides additional details that change our opinions, we’ll gladly revise this piece to reflect the changes.]
Introduction
We have uncovered what looks like a massive amount of law-breaking by the City of Stephenville leadership in their launch and execution of the project to build a new Seniors Center. Starting on August 3, 2022, our attorney has been trying to contact the City Attorney about these apparent illegal actions.. As of today, August 14, 2022, the City Attorney has not responded to any of our attorney’s letters, emails and phone calls. For reasons we’ll explain below, time is of the essence. The City needs to get it’s legal house in order on the Senior Center project ASAP. Since the City Attorney is unresponsive to date, we’re forced to go public.
We’ve written up our findings on illegalities related to the Senior Center project in a series of blog posts. We call this our “You Decide” series. It’s “You Decide” because we’re not attorneys. You should make up your own mind on these matters. In this series of blog posts we’ve provided direct links to the relevant laws, documentary evidence and official legal handbooks written for a layman audience. We’ve tried to make it as easy as possible for you to access all the non-opinionated, factual resources an ordinary citizen would need to form an opinion. We trust you can use these resources to decide for yourself whether or not the City has broken state and local laws. We’ve included our own opinions where appropriate, but you should take those for what they are - opinions. Make up your own mind.
In the remainder of this overview, we provide some necessary background information and a reader’s guide to the You Decide blog post series that follows.
Background
Stephenville is in dire need of a new Senior Citizens’ Center. The city has a vibrant senior citizens community. We love getting together for socializing and group activities. Our current facility is terminally ill. Although a bond issue for a new senior center recently failed, a well-intentioned group of city leaders came up with a great solution: a new Senior Citizen’s Center to be located on city-owned property at the east end of Tarleton Street. It would be near the Bosque River Trail and the Historical House Museum. From that well-intentioned beginning, the plan went literally downhill.
The original good intentions of city leaders became compromised as they pursued additional priorities. These other priorities have little to do with the seniors’ needs. They added new city council chambers, new office space for city staff and a private party rental facility to their list of priorities. They reasoned that if they enlarged the Senior Center they could use it for City Council meetings. If they could hold City Council meetings in the Senior Center, they could repurpose the old Council Chambers in City Hall as office space for city staff. If they could locate the center near the Historical House Museum Chapel, they could rent out the Senior Center for wedding receptions.
With all of these additional priorities piled on top of the senior citizens’ needs, the building would have to be enlarged from 4400 square feet to 5700 square feet. Unfortunately, the Tarleton Street location was too small. to accommodate the larger building.
The city also owns a small park on Vine Street, immediately south of Tarleton Street. There are 2 big problems with that site as a building location:
it contains a huge 250 to 400 year old live oak tree. For reference purposes, we’ve named this tree The Seniors’ Tree.
The root zone of The Seniors’ Tree slopes off sharply toward the Bosque River floodplain.
At some point, someone came up with the bright Idea to level up the area between the tree and the floodplain. This would allow them to cram the larger building into the leveled up space between the tree and the floodplain.
Whoever had the idea to level up the tree’s root zone between the tree and the floodplain doesn’t know much about trees. Or they just don’t care about trees. If they did care, they’d know that old established trees don’t like to have their root zones messed with. More often than not, any big change in the land contour around an old tree will kill it. The general guideline is one foot of critical root zone radius for each inch of tree diameter. The ancient tree on Vine Street has a diameter of 64 inches; therefore, it has a 64 foot radius critical root zone beyond its 5+ foot trunk. More details on critical root zone guidelines are provided in our blog post Guidelines for Care of Historic Trees During Construction.
Once the area over the tree’s root zone was leveled up, the larger 5700 square foot building could be crammed into the Vine Street site without cutting down the tree. Unfortunately, the fill-dirt, building foundation, parking lot, sidewalks and soil compaction around the tree would almost certainly kill it over a short period of time according to a certified arborist.
The Senior Center Location Blackout
Either by incompetence or intention, the City Council managed to shield the location of the Senior Center construction project from public knowlege until bulldozers began work at the site on May 4, 2022, putting the tree at immediate risk. Except for a few privileged insiders, barely anyone else knew the Senior Center was being built adjacent to The Seniors’ Tree until the dozers showed up. Information about the new location on Vine Street near the tree was mysteriously absent from news stories and public meeting minutes. Concerned Stephenville citizens would surely have opposed the site prior to commencement of the construction work if they had known this heritage tree would be in danger .
More details on the information blackout about the site are provided in our blog post The Tree That Didn’t Bark. We’ll leave it up to readers to decide whether the blackout was intentional or accidental. It certainly looks like the former. You decide for yourself after looking at the evidence.
The City’s Disregard for The Seniors’ Tree
The City had planned to place the northwest corner of the rectangular building about 15 feet from the base of the tree. This was well within the danger zone for root damage. Two huge limbs would have been sawed out of the tree canopy to accomodate the building envelope. After our arborist pointed out that these depredations would surely kill the tree, they reconfigured the building into a less efficient L-shape and moved it back to 35 feet from the building. We initially thought this move might have given the tree some slim chance of surviving. Our hopes were quickly dashed.
In a Monday July 18, 2022 meeting, the Council gave great lip-service to their plans to safeguard the tree’s root zone. The very next night in a Tuesday meeting, they announced plans to eliminate the anticipated increase in Senior Center traffic congestion on Vine Street, the location of the new Senior Center and the tree, by widening the narrow residential street. The street-widening plan totally negated everything they had said about safeguarding the tree’s root zone the previous night. The street runs north to south 10 feet from the tree’s trunk. Widening the street and/or adding curbs would eliminate way too much of the root zone for the tree to survive. Our comments at the City Council’s August 2, 2022 meeting describe the full impact of the City’s street widening plans. These comments are published in our blog post, A Dying Heritage Live Oak Tree, Gov’t Taking of Private Property, and Neighborhood De-Revitalization for a Sub-Standard Senior Center
The current council couldn’t keep their story straight on safeguarding the tree for 24 hours. What’s going to happen to their promises when a new Council inherits their promises? The City still hasn’t provided any plans describing layouts for parking lots, sidewalks, dumpster pads, hvac pads, etc within the root zone. We have no idea what kinds of impacts these other root zone intrusions will have.
The Goofy Senior Center Site
Having failed to persuade the City to move the project in order to save The Seniors’ Tree, we pointed out the other inherent problems of the site as a Senior Center location. We documented the site’s unsuitability for its intended purpose in our blog post Vine Street is a Goofy Location for a Seniors Center.
The primary shortcoming of the Vine Street location as a Senior Center venue is the parking arrangements. We documented the sorry state of parking at the small site in our blog post What’s the Parking Plan for the New Seniors Center? In it, we point out that the site is too small to provide sufficient on-site parking spaces. It would be too small to handle demand at the old Senior Center. There’s no way it will handle the increased demand at the new Senior Center. Overflow parking from the small lot will be at a remote lot over 30 yards downhill and across the street to the southwest.
In addition to capacity issues, the parking plan contains other showstoppers for seniors. The small parking lot will be above-grade from the building, requiring seniors to use stairs and/or a ramp. Also, the lot can’t be salted in winter because salt will kill the tree.
The City’s intransigence about relocating the project away from The Seniors’ Tree is all the more frustrating because the city owns several other better-suited vacant properties around town. One especially promising city-owned property, for example, is a large empty lot facing Mason Street between Floral Street and Vine Street. It’s about 150 feet southwest of The Seniors’ Tree, well outside it’s critical root zone. This lot would be a near-perfect location for the new Senior Center. It's relatively flat and well out of the flood plain. It has ample convenient parking space and it doesn’t impact any 400 year old heritage oak trees. This alternate location and its advantages as a Senior Center location are described in our blog post What’s the Parking Plan for the New Seniors Center? In addition to that location, the City owns several other properties that are better suited than the parkland on Vine Street containing The Seniors tree.
We’re Forced to Resort to Legal Avenues
None of our entreaties on behalf of the tree or on behalf of our fellow senior citizens has been persuasive to the Council. We’re now turning reluctantly to legal avenues. It turns out that barely anything about the project appears to be up to muster from a legal perspective. The project’s launch and execution seem to violate the City Charter, the Texas Open Meetings Act, Texas Municipal Procurement Laws and the Stephenville City Code. Our legal counsel has tried to contact the City Attorney by mail, by email and by phone to discuss these issues starting on August 3, 2022. As of August 14, 2022, the City Attorney has ignored our counsel’s phone calls and messages.
Time is of the essence to get the Senior Center project legalized and back on track. The City Charter requires that all major capital projects be included in the City’s fiscal year budget and capital improvement plan. The City’s budget approval cycle by law starts August 16. The budget review and approval process by law has to be finished before September 24th. This entire process was by-passed last year when the Senior Center project was initially launched. Most of the current problems with the project can be traced back to that initial budgeting failure at the outset of the project. If we don’t get it right this time, the Senior Center project could be delayed another year.
Our “You Decide” Blog Post Series
Because the City Attorney has refused to respond to our attorney and time is critical, we’re taking our layman’s analysis of the Senior Center’s legal status public via a series of blog posts:
You Decide Part 4: The Senior Center Location Blackout (Work in Process)
You Decide Part 5: Texas Municipal Procurement Law Violations
The City of Stephenville’s Violations of State and Local Laws
We’re not lawyers, and the law doesn’t always function as common sense would dictate, but it looks to us like the city has broken a lot of it’s own laws in addition to state laws. Frankly, we were amazed at the extent and flagrancy of all the probable violations we found once we looked into it. The extent of lawbreaking borders on hard to believe. A short summary of probable violations is as follows:
The City Charter requires that all large capital projects go through a rigorous public review process before approval and inclusion in a fiscal year budget and capital improvement plan. The Senior Center project was never reviewed in a general public forum; it was never formally approved; it wasn’t included in the fiscal year budget; it wasn’t included in the capital improvement plan.
The project’s informal approval process probably violated the Texas Open Meetings Act.
The project’s bidding process may have violated Texas Municipal Procurement Laws.
Finally, and most concerning, the project violates the City’s own Municipal Code which states
Sec. 130.02. - Injuring, cutting trees. “It shall be unlawful for any person to cut, deface or in any way injure any tree used for shade or ornamental purposes standing or growing in any of the streets or alleys, or along the sidewalks, or within any of the public places belonging to or within the city.”
In our blog posts, we’ve provided direct links to the relevant laws and documentary evidence so you can make up your own minds. Since we’re not lawyers, you should forumulate your own opinions after examining the actual laws and documentary evidence for yourself. After you’ve had a chance to look at the primary source materials, please let us know what you think in the comments sections that follow each blog post.
Damages
At this late date, it’s not sufficient for the City to merely go through the motions, properly fund and approve the project and clean up all the missing paper work. The City has significantly damaged The Seniors Tree and it has damaged property owners via concrete financial losses and property devaluations. All of these damages are a direct result of the City having broken state and city laws. Examples of the damages the City has caused to property owners on Vine Street are documented in our blog post You Decide # 6 - Damages. Please let us know in the comment section if you think the City is liable for these damages. Let us know what your reaction would be if it happened to you in your neighborhood.
Remedies
To help make things right, we’ve drafted an example of a plan by which the City and Stephenville Citizens can put things right and get the Senior Center project back on track. This plan lays out a process by which we can ensure that the tree is safe for generations to come, that property owners are made whole and that our seniors have a vibrant, fully-functional Senior Center that meets their needs. The draft plan is described in our blog post You Decide # 7 - Remedies. The plan is in draft form, ready for your input to finalize it. Please let us know what we might do differently to get back on track in the comments section for that blog post.
Crowdfunding a Solution
Our efforts to save The Seniors’ Tree are going to cost some money. In addition to legal fees, we need to hire our own arborist to plan and supervise recovery efforts for the tree. The fill dirt over its root zone needs to be removed carefully down to topsoil. The dirt is several feet thick in places. Removing it carelessly with heavy equipment could just do more damage. Once the dirt is removed, it needs to be re-aerated.
It’s unclear how much of this expense the City will bear; therefore we’ve set up a crowdfunding campaign to help defray costs. The crowdfunding campaign is described in detail in our blog post You Decide # 8 - Crowdfunding Campaign to Save The Seniors Tree. Donations can be anonymous or named at your discretion. Any funds not spent on the tree’s lawyers or for the tree’s care will be returned to donors. Go to https://www.givesendgo.com/seniorstree to find out how to donate.
Summary
To sum up the story to date: The City of Stephenville will most likely kill an ancient heritage live oak tree in the process of building a sub-standard Senior Center in a sub-standard location with substandard parking, and they’re breaking a bunch of state laws and their own local laws to do it. Please join our efforts to save The Seniors’ Tree, save the Senior Center and save Stephenville from the consequences of unwise decisions.
