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VOL 6 No. 29
FORT BEND FAIR. BALANCED. INFORMATIVE. WEDNESDAY, JULY 17 , 2013
P. O.BOX 623, SUGAR LAND, TX 77487-0623
Official newspaper of Fort Bend County, Missouri City & Sugar Land
Birds of Fort Bend : Wood Storks Sugar Land names 11-member task force to study red light cameras By SESHADRI KUMAR The Sugar Land City Council is expected to appoint a 11-member Traffic Safety Task Force to study the future of Red Light Cameras. The council agenda for this week’s meeting includes a resolution to appoint the following members. Ruth Barrett, Erin Williford, Anne Magoon, Mark Hudec, Mike Wong, Linda Bell Spears, D. V. Kumar, Noel Mascarenhas, Ted Siwierka, Bill Roy and Harvey Zinn. The Task Force will be comprised of 11 unbiased citizens that are charged with conducting an independent review of the Red Light Camera Wood Storks are one of two Storks that visit North America. Fort Bend residents can see these birds in late summer and fall. Also known as Wood Ibis, they are most often found in multispecies flocks feeding in marshes. They stand 40” tall. Mature birds have browner and “woodier looking” bills with no feathers on their heads and necks, while immature and juveniles have more golden bills and feathered heads. Loosely called “migrants” along the Gulf Coast, it might be more correct to say they are roaming for food along waterways and inland marshes and swamps after breeding along the coasts of Mexico and peninsula of Florida. Our photographer Margaret Sloan heard of a flock flying over Sienna and then captured a photo of a juvenile that had stopped at the pond near the spillway on #17 El Dorado on the Quail Valley Golf Course. See it and many more of her photos http://traction.typepad.com/birds
Niagara Bottling Company hosts open house at new plant in Missouri City
Program. They will review the current program, learn about the operations of similar programs, study the effectiveness of the program, receive input from interested citizens and the public and ultimately make an independent recommendation to City Council. The Task force will recommend either: Elimination of the program; Modification of the program or Continuation of the program. Additionally, the Task Force will hold all meetings in accordance with the Open Meetings Act and will complete their work within 120 days of appointment. The City Manager has as-
signed Executive Director, Mike Goodrum to serve as a liaison to the Task Force and provide all necessary resources to ensure they can complete their independent review. It is anticipated that the Task Force will begin work August 1, 2013. Recently, a petition of Sugar Land residents was submitted to City Council requesting a Charter Election to disallow the use of red light cameras as an enforcement tool. The City Secretary determined that the petition did not meet the requirements of the City Charter and was insufficient.
FBISD Board approves three percent salary increase for employees Fort Bend ISD board on July 8 approved an additional one percent salary increase, for a total of a three percent salary increase, for all current staff, not currently exceeding the maximum of their pay grade. The Fort Bend ISD Board approved an amendment to the 2013-2014 operating budget at its July 8 regular business meeting. The FBISD budget is designed to provide educational services for a projected 70,184 students for the next school year. The Board previously approved an increase in the starting teacher salary to $46,500 from $44,750. This budget also provides market adjustments to certain steps on the Teacher Salary Schedule to make sure FBISD salaries remain competitive with other districts.
Recommendations from a Texas Association of School Boards employee compensation study conducted to objectively examine pay equity for all employees were also approved by the Board. The Board approved adding 35 new teaching positions for elementary schools to reduce the student to teacher ratio to 22:1 at grades Kindergarten through third-grade. For middle schools, eight new assistant principal positions were added to ensure that each campus has one associate and two assistant principals. After a discussion with high school principals, the District decided to further study and develop FBISD’s response to House Bill 5. And, the Board added 15 new high school teaching positions to be prepared to add teachers where needed to ad-
dress large class sizes or master scheduling issues. District leaders plan to work with the high school principals on an individual basis to identify the need for additional staffing before allocating any of these positions. The District had more than 9,041 full-time employees before the 2011 state budget cuts. Last year, FBISD had close to 8,000 employees. In 2013-2014, the District expects to have 8,185 employees. Although the Fort Bend ISD Board and staff have worked hard to minimize the impact on classrooms, approximately 86 percent of the District’s budget is for salaries and benefits. The state has not fully restored the $50 million that was cut from FBISD’s budget at a time when accountability standards were increased.
New owners for TI land likely
Niagara Bottling Company, the second largest private label bottling company in the United States, holds its Grand Opening in Missouri City on July 12. Art Miramontes with Niagara is cutting the ribbon, as Mayor Allen Owen, Company President Andrew Peykoff II and company founder Andrew Peykoff, Sr. look on. State Rep. Ron Reynolds and County Commissioner Grady Prestage, area dignitaries and Niagara Company officials are among others who attended. Niagara Bottling Company, and Open House at the 356,000 day, July 12, as Niagara offithe second largest private label square foot manufacturing and cially “opened for business” in bottling company in the Unit- distribution center in Missouri the “Show Me City.” ed States and officials with the City, at 14810 Fairway Pines The high-stepping Mighty City of Missouri City hosted an in Lakeview Business Park. Eagle Band from Willowridge invitation-only Grand Opening The event was held on Fri- High School performed at the Grand Opening, followed by a ribbon-cutting ceremony in front of the new facility by area dignitaries and Niagara Bottling Company representatives. About 125 people attended the Grand Opening and Open House, held under large tents outside the facility and were served a delicious lunch. Attendees were invited to tour the plant and see the latest technology inside its walls. According to Niagara ofSee NIAGARA, Page 3
By BARBARA FULENWIDER While there is no movement on the Regal Ranch property that’s in Stafford’s extra territorial jurisdiction and is currently owned by Fort Bend County, there is movement on some of the 192 acres Texas Instrument owns alongside U.S. 59 in Stafford. “Right now,” Mayor Leonard Scarcella said, “TI is working with an investment firm called Street Level Investments out of Dallas. The two companies are apparently negotiating the final details on an agreement. It appears that they have signed some papers and are going to close the deal by the end of October on 45 acres along Kirkwood” where they are looking at building commercial tilt-wall warehouses. There are also 60 more acres on Airport and Murphy Road and “apparently they want to do something similar to what Trammel Crow has done across the street,” Scarcella said. What the mayor was talking about are numerous tilt-wall warehouses built by Trammel Crow.
Then there are 85 acres left on what TI calls its campus – where the manufacturing of computer chips occurs. “It will be 2016 before TI leaves their manufacturing site,” the mayor said. There are some environmental issues related to that area that they need to do something about. Indications are, Scarcella said, there are likely to be new owners of the 60 acres and 40 acres after the end of the year. The mayor also said that “TI has drawn its operations down to a very low level and this would definitely invigorate that property. We are looking for a mixed use development with some character & uniqueness to it. We want it to be a transformative development,” Scarcella said. “We want it to be a place where people live, work, play and walk to the shops. We hope there are patio homes intermingled with drug stores, grocery stores, coffee shops, cleaners, etc. We don’t want a big layout of apartments. We want a liveable area. We recognize that the developers want resi-
dential and we recognize that they need some in their development but not a huge number of apartment projects. “Stafford has almost as many apartment units as we do single family homes – about 3,000. Right on our boundaries we have another 1,000 apartment units.” As for Regal Ranch, Fort Bend County paid $1.94 million for the 31 acres for drainage and detention purposes. After the sale Commissioners Court directed the county’s legal staff to recover part of the money paid for the property by selling it to Stafford for a fair market price. The holdup on the sale is the people who leased the ranch out for events had a five-year option to renew their lease and did when their previous lease ended on Dec. 31, 2012. Scarcella said the city is interested in purchasing some 20 acres of the property that would include the facilities on it. When the county is able to sell the property to Stafford with no strings attached, the mayor said, “Get in touch.”