NRH Letter from Larry Cunningham,
City Manager to Maury Siskel – NRHONLINE editor comments
added in italics
and red print.
Mr. Maury Siskel
Dear Mr. Siskel:
Thank you for presenting your comments
to the City Council Monday June 14th. The
City Council and City management
certainly welcomes information and input from North
Richland Hills citizens. However, some the
information you presented is inaccurate or
there is a misunderstanding regarding
many of the points you brought up. (If there are
inaccuracies or
misunderstandings, they are in this response as follows.) I hope this
letter will clear up these issues, and
provide a more clear understanding of the issues
you mentioned.
First, you mentioned that the City
had intentions to purchase the old Food Lion building
without public input or approval from
voters. (This is
fact that is substantiated by this
very letter.) In fact, the City has purchased
this property, and the City Council approved
the purchase of this building in open
session at the
Subsequently, there was a news
article in the
This article reported the purchase
price and stated that the facility would be used to house
City offices that
will be displaced when
be displaced
by the expansion of Hwy 820. See the
actual plans for the expansion in city
offices.)
The purchase of this land was discussed in a closed session of the City
Council
which is allowed under section 551.072 of
the Open Meetings Act which states:
"A governmental body may
conduct a closed meeting to deliberate the purchase
of real property if deliberation in an
open meeting would have a detrimental effect
on the position of the governmental
body in negotiations with a third person."
But, as stated above, the purchase
of the land was approved in open session.
While there are no specific plans
for the use of this building at the present time, the City
does intend to use this space for City
offices that will be impacted (notice the change
in wording
here) by the
center in the southern portion of the City
when the main Library and the
move to a location that is central (by central he must
mean to all the folks in the expensive
new homes on
the north side of the city) to all
the lack of input or voter approval regarding
this purchase, voter approval is not required for
the purchase of real property by a
governing body. I can assure you that the Mayor and City
Council, who are elected by the
voters to represent the citizens of
the decision to purchase this property
because they felt it was in the best interest of the City.
The second point you made was that
"the City is mistakenly assuming that the Library
and
speaker is
referring to the Library/Recreation Center Building not the parking lot which
will
be marginally
affected as follows below. When dealing
with city officials, if you want a straight
answer you have to
be very careful to explain to them exactly what you mean. Since you
are only
allowed two minutes to talk to them, this is quite difficult.) The City's
knowledge that this expansion will in fact
impact not only the Library and Recreation
Center but all City offices housed
in this facility (Municipal Court, Parks & Recreation
Administration, and Citicable) is based on a thorough study of the Texas
Department of
Transportation (TxDOT)
expansion plans, meetings with TxDOT engineers, and a
thorough assessment of how this will impact
access to these facilities and use of these
facilities. In fact, the reconstruction of the
the
elimination of some of the parking space available
in front of the Library. The
expansion project will eliminate 55 parking
spaces on the northwest side of the facility
and all of the parking spaces (45) to
the north of the facility (total of 100 parking
spaces). (This leaves an estimated 500 parking spaces
still available for this building
and the
facilities contained therein.
Modification of an entrance is far less costly than
a $10 Million
new facility.) In
addition, this project will severely limit access to this facility
from the service road. With the widening
and removal of parking adjacent to the service
road, the north entrance will have to be
re-oriented. As you know, the community services
provided at these locations are heavily
used. Last year, the Library experienced 273,225
visits, (which calculates to 748 per day or 93 people
per hour on average.) 290,700 (which
calculates to 796 per
day or 80 people per hour for a 10 hour day on average.) people
visited the
programs and use the exercise facilities,
and Municipal Court processed 24,893 (or about
100 per work day and about 12.5 per hour of operations) violations which resulted in visits
to either pay fines or participate in court
proceedings. With this kind of activity at this facility,
you can see how the loss of 100 parking
spaces will severely impact its use, (give us a
break) this is in addition to the fact that
the current main entrance to the
would have to be relocated if the
would require major interior renovations. (Major renovations would be far, far less costly
than $10 Million
for the new library plus the cost of developing a “sub library” for citizens in
the south part
of the city. Add to this the $21 Million
for the exotic new
and the costs
associated with renovation of the
lots of changes
at a much, much lower cost.) The City does have plans to relocate
the
Library and the
this area to become our City's
"downtown". There are no plans
to relocate City Hall. Plans
for
significant amount of media attention. (Much more to be
written on Hometown NRH and
Project as well as a time line of
media coverage and articles that have appeared in the City's
newsletter since the inception of the
this project began in late 1997 and
there have been over 60 public agenda items
including public hearings, public meetings,
and/or public agenda items before the City
Council as well as two public forums
held at the onset of this project. The public forums
included citizens, stakeholders and any
other interested parties. These public forums
were held to receive input and ideas
regarding
to locate public facilities such as
the Library and
generated. There were also a number of public
hearings and meetings before the
Planning and Zoning Commission, and
a joint public meeting of the City Council, the
Planning and Zoning Commission, the
Park and Recreation Board and the Land Use Ad
Hoc Committee held on
items related to the creation of the Tax
Increment Financing (
including the Northeast Lions Club, City
Boards and Commissions, and information
broadcast on the City's cable channel. A
number of other public meetings were held
with the governing bodies of the other
entities involved in the
(51) articles
regarding
have appeared in the Star Telegram, the
Dallas Morning News, the Dallas Business
Journal, the Fort Worth
Business Press, and
Regarding your question about
concessions to Arcadia Realty, you mentioned that there
were a total of 29 consecutive approved,
unopposed concessions to Arcadia Realty (as
reported
by the current President of
what you are referring to in this
statement, but I would be happy to discuss this with
you.
several other improvements such as streets.
The City also agreed to maintain
these, approved drainage plans, and
approved plats and zoning. But, I am uncertain
what you mean by concessions as this
implies that considerations were made without
public benefit, which I am not acquainted
with. Again, there have been several City
Council agenda items and Planning
& Zoning Commission agenda items related to this
project including the approval of site
plans, changes in site plans, and the establishment
of zoning for the Town Center
District. If you are referring to these items, there is public
disclosure of these items as part of our
agenda posting requirements and notification of
public hearing requirements
I want to reiterate that there are
no current plans to relocate City Hall to
anywhere else in the City. There is a small
section in the
Agreement related to City Hall. This
was identified in an original plan as there were
thoughts that further highway expansion
might render City Hall unusable, or the land
along
not interested in relocating City Hall
when the Home Town Project plan was developed,
nor is it now. There are no current
plans to relocate City Hall. The City is aware of the
impact the Loop 820 Expansion will have on
City Hall, and it is not significant enough to
justify relocation. (The highway 820 widening is the same on the
North and South sides
of the
freeway. Why then is the impact
significant for the Library and
but not City
Hall? Why are the current developers of
Hometown NRH publishing information
about
a new “town hall” with artist renderings in their literature?) You also asked about any
remaining debt on City Hall. The City does not
have any debt on City Hall. (This question
should have been
phrased differently to see if there are outstanding bonds issued to finance
construction on the
current city hall. I believe such debt
does exist and Mr. Cunningham
can legally
escape the question because the bonds are not tied directly to the city hall
building.)
I hope this information has
addressed your concerns and answered your questions.
Please feel free to call me if this
is not clear or if you need additional information. I
would be happy to discuss this with you.
Sincerely, Signed by Larry Cunningham, City
Manager
cc: Mayor Oscar Trevino
City Council
Inaccurate
or Misunderstanding – I wonder why?