Reminder that there is a TIRZ public board meeting tonight 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/25f7u3v

CURRENT PROJECT STATUS: Although Phase 1 of the project is on hold by the City pending a planning review, the TIRZ board and Abbie Kamin continue to push hard for the mayor to end the hold and move forward quickly with the current 100% design that includes all trees on the sides of the street coming down, replaced with a 10-foot wide concrete sidewalk, medians narrowed by 10", lanes moved inward, and massive drainage works which offer minimal flooding improvements for the expenditure.  

Most importantly this over-engineered, unnecessarily complex Phase 1 design, which spends $15M on just the two blocks from Allen Pkwy to W. Clay, sets in place a tree-devastation design that will continue to Westheimer, with even more majestic live oaks removed on both sides of the street.  Then more sidewalk expansion is planned to US 59.  Per a recent Gauge engineering quote in the Chronicle, close to 300 total trees are planned for removal. And it will leave most of the sidewalks and street south of W. Clay as-is, with not even basic repairs, much less any improvements, for many years to come.  

FACT CHECK:  If you have a question about any of the facts about the project feel free to email your question to:  SaveMontroseLiveOaks@gmail.com.  We will do our best to point you to the source data documents that prove our assertions.  

WRITE ABBIE KAMIN:  districtc@houstontx.gov   Tell her you oppose moving forward unless/until the design is substantially changed to preserve the mature trees on the sides of the street.  And ask her office to CONFIRM back to you that they are counting you among the opposition.

Abbie continues to claim that most of her constituents very much want the project to proceed AS-IS with no design modification to save trees.  We know this is not the case, based on the continuing increase in petition signatures (now 8075!) and the comments that the TIRZ themselves have most recently documented (90% opposed the project as designed).  

If you would like to copy Kamin's staff their emails are:  Kate.dentler@houstontx.gov, Yucari.Ramirez-Menera@houstontx.gov, Aliyah.efotte@houstontx.gov,  Anna.smith@houstontx.gov, Cole.wilbut@houstontx.gov

Keep the faith and keep the pressure on!

Jonna