We were happy to see 74 people attend the Open House to learn more about the project. Our petition signatures shot up the next day to 8068 (woohoo!) so we think a lot of the "undecided" people who came to the event got the facts they needed to take a stand. And people are still spreading the word! It was good to see a lot of new faces, including people who have just learned about the project and are as horrified by the tree devastation as many of us were when we first heard about it. We are continuing to grow in number every day.
We will be updating our website soon to include the presentation that was shared at the Open House along with as many of the displays and source data documents as we can. What was great about the format of the Open House was that we had the actual source TIRZ and Gauge documents to show people the facts behind every one of our statements. A lot of project proponents prefer to make claims on social media without evidence. We brought the receipts!
Dialogue with the other side: We also engaged in some good, productive dialogue at the Open House with several supporters of the project. We really appreciated them coming out and talking with us. They didn't bite and neither did we! Proves that civility in civics is still possible.
Here were my observations from those discussions:
+ Sometimes we just had an honest difference of opinion about how much mature trees matter vs. having a wide sidewalk for those who want to be able to cycle on Montrose Blvd. One cycling advocate said to me "Trees can be replanted. Dead cyclists can not." He did not agree that there are other, safe nearby routes available for cyclists. He also felt it was unnecessary and not fair to expect any analysis of the actual usage of existing bikeways in Houston before continuing to expand them wherever possible. He preferred to speak about national statistics that show "if you build it they will come". He believed that until we have many more bike paths, including converting many traffic lanes to bike lanes, we will not know what's possible in getting Houstonians to forego their cars in favor of biking. He believed the number of vehicle miles reduced by this project would offset any loss of the mature trees. We agreed to disagree on whether that desired outcome would be true for Montrose Blvd. And we strongly, but civilly, disagreed on whether the loss of so many trees was worth it when other nearby bike routes exist that could be improved and expanded.
He also felt strongly that Houston should be narrowing traffic lanes all over town for greater traffic safety. Finally, he didn't think there were any other ways to design a bike path on Montrose that could work around the existing mature trees. In his view, taking down every single tree on both sides of the street and endangering the median trees were necessary trade-offs that were worth it in exchange for having a 10-foot-wide shared-use sidewalk. Again, we agreed to disagree. He had no response about the heat effect of so much concrete.
+ Sometimes the proponents just had an incomplete or wrong understanding of the project facts. One person who very badly wants Phase 1 to move forward as-is, believes that the 10-foot-wide sidewalk will stop forever at W. Clay. They said that was as far as was needed for cyclists coming from the neighborhood to connect to the Buffalo Bayou trail and so the TIRZ will stop there. They insisted the wide sidewalk would not go any farther south. This is demonstrably incorrect.
We had available print-outs of the actual documents submitted from the TIRZ in Feb 2024 that clearly state their intention to continue 10-foot-sidewalks south to at least Westheimer. Those same docs also describe the plan to expand sidewalks all the way to US 59, with less clarity about the width and tree loss after Westheimer. But some people don't want to see any factual information that refutes their strongly-held belief system. We were unable to get this person to look very closely at the actual documents.
This also seems to be the case for the people who insist that there were MANY opportunities over 4 years for the public to weigh in about this project. At the Open House, we had downloads from the TIRZ website of the meeting schedule and agenda topics for all of the TIRZ meetings back to 2020. We also had the report written by Gauge that documented how and when the design changed from Jan to Aug 2023 such that the trees would now all need to come down.
This evidence PROVES that no citizen could have known about the tree loss until Sept 2023. The Sept 18 2023 TIRZ open house was the first time that a count of the tree loss was included in their public materials. So how could the public have had all these opportunities to weigh in about the tree-razing design when no one knew the trees were in danger?
And most tellingly, once the tree devastation was disclosed, the TIRZ received an overwhelming amount of comments and emails opposing the project.
~90% of the 315 comments the TIRZ received at their meetings or via email to info@montrosehtx.org from Sept thru Nov 2023 were OPPOSED to the project moving forward with the current design. These comments are posted in a Comments & Response Matrix on their own website, but they didn't bother summarizing, nor analyzing how many people opposed the project.
This public commentary info, documented by the TIRZ themselves, seems to be ignored by not just by the TIRZ, but disappointingly by Abbie Kamin who continues to claim that most of her voters want this project to move forward as-is, with the current tree-devastating design. We sent one of our printouts of all 315 of the TIRZ received comments home with Ms. Kamin's staffer who attended the Open House. Let's hope council member Kamin reads it and adjusts her stance.
One last example of people believing what they've heard and not being open to hearing facts that contradict their preferences and beliefs: When distributing flyers for the event one of our group met a parent from Wharton Elementary who believes that the Safe Routes to School improvements will not happen unless the Montrose Blvd. project gets started immediately, as-is. This is just entirely incorrect.
TIRZ Chairman Joe Webb confirmed at the April board meeting that the two projects have zero inter-connection from a funding or construction viewpoint. This is just a scare tactic being spread by one of the project proponents (who is also a TIRZ board 14 member). We are trying to get the facts out every way we can about this. But some parents have it stuck in their heads and will not question what they've heard.
It is frustrating to see all the misinformation being spread by the project proponents while they simultaneously accuse us of spreading misinformation. We are willing to have our assertions scrutinized. We are willing to bring the data. ASK US ANYTHING: savemontroseliveoaks@gmail.com
NEXT STEPS:
The TIRZ will hold their next public board meeting on Monday, May 20 at 6:30pm virtually via Zoom and in person at St. Stephen's Episcopal Church (1827 W Alabama St, Havens Center, Houston, TX 77098). For Zoom please register at https://tinyurl.com/25f7u3vx
If you live in District C, please email Abbie Kamin and ask that her office reply to confirm that you are being counted as opposed to moving forward with the current plan for Montrose Blvd. Send to Abbie Kamin: districtc@houstontx.gov
Email the mayor to thank him for putting the project on hold and doing a careful design review. We can not undo the removal of these trees. The right design in Phase 1 will set a precedent that we can all live with going the rest of the way down to US 59. Approximately 300 total trees are in jeopardy (as recently confirmed by Gauge engineer David Greaney in the Chronicle as well as TIRZ Phase 2 plan submission to H-GAC). 57 just in the two blocks that are Phase 1 (per the TIRZ 100% plan) Send to Mayor Whitmire: mayor@houstontx.gov