Chaos in League City

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Tragedy might have been avoided: The county dispatcher sent a call through to EMS in League City – a frantic call had been received – a baby had stopped breathing on Fenwood Street in the Glen Cove neighborhood. The ambulance raced to the scene. Their high-tech GPS maps indicated that Fenwood street could be reached by crossing a bridge, but when they got there, the bridge showing on their map was gone! Puzzled, they sought out an alternate route, and after a convoluted series of turnarounds that took them over several more miles and across private property to reach the victim, they arrived – too late to save the infant, who was later pronounced dead. In the aftermath of the tragedy, family members wondered if the child would still be alive if their city had not given away the bridge that connected them to the rest of the world.
Background: For many years, the Seminole Bridge was at the center of the Glen Cove community. The bridge was built almost 50 years ago by HL&P when they created a canal through the community for their Webster power plant. For two generations, the bridge was the central feature of the neighborhood. In Glen Cove, the little bridge was an important part of life. The bridge connected people with the park, the boat ramp, and their neighbors. In 2003, TxDOT inspected the bridge and decided to replace it with a new one. They agreed to pay 90% of the cost. The State started doing the preliminary work to get the bridge replaced. Meanwhile, further up the canal, or “up the creek”, was the property belonging to real estate developer Nick Scotto. Most of his property was below the flood plain, and by the time the canal reached his land, it had petered out to a “ditch”. Scotto’s scrubby swampland was probably suitable for developing residential homes, but nobody would think of going upscale there. Heck, there’s no way you could even get to it by yacht – because right between Scotto’s patch and the sunny waters of Clear Lake was a major obstacle – the little bridge at Glen Cove.
The deception: One day in August of 2003, City workers came out and barricaded the bridge. A letter received the same day by Glen Cove residents told them that the action was being taken “in anticipation of replacement” of the bridge. The letter said construction of the new bridge would take about a year. When the bridge was closed, people who used to walk to one another’s houses found themselves driving a twisting five mile route to get there. The kids who used to ride their bikes to the park no longer had a place to go. Everyone hoped the construction would go according to schedule, and that they could celebrate 2005 with a nice new bridge. TxDOT had already ponied up 90% of the cost, and all of the plans were ready to go. But this was not to happen. Instead, the city kept asking TxDOT to postpone construction.
In the meantime, Texas Genco, who owned the canal, let the City know that they planned to donate it to the people of League City. With the canal donated, and 90% of the cost of replacing the bridge covered by TxDOT, the folks in Glen Cove were ready to see their bridge rebuilt. The City explained away some of the delays, and finally, in November of 2005, the City awarded the contract to rebuild the bridge to John Reed & Co.
But before the gift from Genco was even made public, League City officials were already plotting to place it in the hands of Scotto and his development company. The Seabreeze has learned from an internal email that on July 13, 2005, five months before the Genco donation became public, interim City Manager Mike Clawson met with Scotto and City Councilman Tommy Cones. In a follow-up email to Clawson the next day, Cones asks Clawson to draft an agreement for the destruction of the Seminole Bridge. He also requests information about how the City can transfer ownership of the canal to Scotto. Cones later received $5,000.00 from Scotto in the form of a campaign contribution. Cones campaign finance report says Scotto was his only major campaign contributor, with no others giving over $500. The report was just filed (late) last month. Some folks think Tommy Cones sold that bridge to Scotto for $5k, though it wasn’t his to sell.
Less than a month after that meeting, Scotto’s consultants submitted their plan to the City. It said in part “The condemned Seminole Street bridge must not be rebuilt… We must have full access to the waters of Clear Lake”. Thus the developer issued marching orders to his obedient minions at City Hall.
On December 13th 2005, League City Council accepted the gift of the Genco canal, which passes through the Glen Cove neighborhood and ends at Clear Lake. But the property was never even transferred to the City. Somehow, the gift ended up becoming the property of Nick Scotto’s company instead, according to documents filed with the State of Texas.
On February 15th 2006, League City Mayor Jerry Shults and developer Nick Scotto signed a contract that made sure the Seminole bridge would never be rebuilt. Over $200,000 was to be paid to TxDOT to cover the State’s expenses in inspecting and creating the bridge replacement plan. With the state paid off, the city “abandoned” the bridge and canal, and the developer was given permission to demolish the bridge forever. Suddenly, Nick Scotto’s swamp was waterfront property on Clear Lake, and the folks in Glen Cove were screwed – only they didn’t know it yet, because all of this was kept secret.
Final betrayal: The folks in Glen Cove still thought they were going to get a new bridge. But there were a few rumors, and some residents requested a meeting with Shults, Cone, Clawson, and City Planning Director Mary Chambers. The meeting was held on Wednesday, October 24 2006. At this meeting, five homeowners from Glen Cove were promised that there was no plan to remove the bridge. On Friday, two days later, League City closed their City Hall at noon – as they always do. But on this particular Friday, an evil plan had been hatched.
At 1pm, with City Hall closed and city employees unavailable, heavy equipment rolled into Glen Cove, and destroyed the little bridge. During that time, no one from the City could be contacted. Residents watched in tears as the structure was demolished. It was a wake-up call in Glen Cove, as residents realized that they had been blatantly lied to by their own elected officials. They responded with letters to the editors, blogs, flyers, and meetings. Then Scotto threw gasoline on the flames. Less than 2 weeks after the demolition, Scotto’s lawyers sent threatening letters out by certified mail to Glen Cove residents. The letters informed them that the developer, MB Harbour, now owned the canal and the land under it. The letters referred to the canal as the “MB Harbour Waterway”. The letters let property owners along the canal know that in order to continue to have piers, they would have to pay an annual fee to the developer and also pay for liability insurance. The letters also said that homeowners would have to abide by MB Harbour’s “architectural standards”. The letters concluded with scare tactics directed at dissenters, threatening legal action against anyone who dared to defy Scotto and his company by making “disparaging” statements.
The weird part of all of this was that Scotto still didn’t have the deed to the property. That didn’t happen until December 6th. Of course, none of the property transfers were the subject of public hearings and residents were never notified. State law does not allow the City to sell or give away property without public hearings. In fact, it took lawsuits by residents to get the records of this fiasco finally released.
What’s going on at City Hall? League City is a place where the Mayor and most of the city government routinely refuse to speak to the press. If they refused to speak to the Seabreeze, we could take it in stride. We’ve been known to expose corruption and kick over a few anthills. But the Mayor of League City and his crew won’t even speak with the mild-mannered reporters of the Galveston Daily News or the Pasadena Citizen. They seem very offended every time they are caught lying to the public, accepting money from people they do favors for, and “hooking up” their friends with taxpayer money.
Consider this: On November 1st the City got a new trash collection firm, Ameriwaste. It is no coincidence that the Vice President of Ameriwaste is Mike Clawson, the mayor’s friend and the man who engineered the Scotto giveaway. The switch became official on December 12th. The new company didn’t have the lowest bid. The company that held the contract previously (IESI) had been assured they would get an extension. Mayor Shults was caught lying about this deal. He claimed there was no advance knowledge that the City was going to replace IESI until it happened. But Clawson, who must be a psychic, somehow knew ahead of time to order a bunch of red dumpsters, which were stashed in Dickinson a few days before the “October Surprise” when his company suddenly got hired to haul the trash.
The CEO of the previous company, IESI, is Mickey Flood. He smelled a rat, and intentionally bid far lower than he would have under ordinary circumstances. He said he had submitted a “lowball” bid to prove that the fix was in for Clawson’s company. If his bid had been accepted, League City would have saved $334,000.00 per year. But his bid was not accepted, because Mickey was right – the fix was in.
Is there a racketeering case here? We are calling on the US Attorney to look into the ongoing pattern of activity in League City as a possible criminal conspiracy operating in violation of the RICO Act. There seems to be obstruction of justice, possible fraud and a strong scent of bribery – all committed under color of law. The worst part is, the perpetrators are brazen about it – they can look you dead in the eye and lie to you – just ask the folks in Glen Cove.