Hundreds sue engineering firm over Harvey flooding in Fort Bend levee district (Houston: apartment, lawyers)

[jfre81]

Originally Posted by SugLandDAd

If a regional flood district could be protected from the influence of the Developers and Engineering firms, I would be for it, because it is clear that local city/town politicians are not independent enough to be trusted to come up with solutions that are in the best interests of the citizens.

Ideally it would be independent of developer influence. But as a taxing authority it would involve electing overseers for it. Developers could then use those elections to steer influence.

This is where the rub is - elections get characterized as a sort of a horse race but it's more like a roulette table where you can put chips on multiple outcomes, so that you stand to benefit no matter where the ball lands. Donate to all candidates and you will have your guy in the end, no matter what.

[Sugarlandbubba]

i don't see any "corruptions" from the list of donors. If you have evidence of corruptions, then list them. Zimmerman list of contributors is no different from any elected officials in Texas. Why don't you post Candidate Miller's list of donors and clients (some of whom are propably developers)?

You had my ears and attention a few months back but you lost my vote so please stop while you're behind.

[texas7]

Flooding has been an ever-increasing issue in this city. People really weren’t that concerned when it hit lower income areas or people on the coastal side (Not on the coast but the more coastal side). There was zero city-wide compassion. Citizens blamed the homeowners in those areas for building or buying there but now that the problem has reared its ugly head among upper income residents — now people are demanding changes to infrastructure and development changes. It’s not always lack and white when you live in a city built on swamps, bayous/creeks and sloughs and in zoned development running rampant. .

[KingC]

Originally Posted by jfre81

The region, not just a county, should have one flood control authority, but I don't know that the political apparatus in Texas lends itself to something like that.

In Dayton, Ohio there was a massive flood in 1913, and it was one of the hardest-hit areas in a larger regional flood event:

IMG_9922 by James Fremont, on Flickr

This line on the sign is about seven feet above the street. Like Harvey in Houston, it was a citywide catastrophe, and it's an event that still lingers in the local psyche 100+ years later. But in 1915, the Miami Conservancy district (named for the river system that flooded) was formed and, to this day, has managed to not have another event like the Great Flood of 1913 happen, even though many spring storms and snow melts since could have created one - including the rains in SW Ohio just a week or so ago. It's that time of year. The MCD works in cooperation with the Army Corps of Engineers, as opposed to here where we seem to just defer to the CoE to maintain the dams, which have been shown to be insufficient.

Tough decisions got made, and they didn't wait around. This flood project in Ohio included relocating an entire town - Osburn, Ohio - to just outside Fairfield, a town in nearby Greene County. This process was finished by 1921. They eventually merged into the current city of Fairborn, with some of the former Osburn houses still standing as a historic district there. Some of the Osburn town site is part of today's Wright-Patterson AFB, and the rest is in a basin that floods when these large rain events happen. That land even has some historic significance in that it was a proving ground for the Wright Brothers' flying experiments, and the call was made to let it sit empty.

If we had this, we would probably not have houses being built right up against the reservoir and canals Here, we just let the water go down and then rebuild the same high-value development on the same site. We behave as if we have the right to do so. It's not smart, and it'll flood again sooner or later, especially as more development goes up in the years to come.

Everything that happens upstream in west Harris and Fort Bend counties has an effect on everything downstream, which is to say the majority of Houston and the greater area. This needs a more unified approach to management than what a disjointed collection of local fiefdoms like Fort Bend's flood district could manage.

Well said man. There's a lot that can be taken away from that bit of history. I'm a Wright State Raider alum (by way of Cleveland) so I spent a good amount of time in Dayton, OH. This was an interesting tid bit for me that I never knew about.

[SugLandDAd]

Actually anyone can download the candidate's disclosure forms..I have posted the link on the forum many times....,.and no, Miller doesn't have any donations from developers......but nice try.

I think I'm doing just fine, as my goal is to get people to think about the issue, and vote.

Got some nice messages from people who have found interesting information here. Lots of thank you's for the links to the articles.....

My goal isn't to get everyone to vote for Miller....but to think about the flooding issue....how it is effected by politics, and get angry enough to vote at all.....if more people vote...Zimmerman loses.

Corruption hates sunlight.

I have no intention of stopping.

[Sugarlandbubba]

I am for democracy too but I believe we should shine the lights on both sides. Otherwise, we are advocates.

Do you really think we believe that believe Dianna Miller has no relationship with developers? We weren't born yesterday. Here are some of her "relationships" (The Federal Government and Johnson Development).

"20+ Years in Commercial Real Estate including Managing an Investment Portfolio in Excess of $1 Billion for the Federal Government

#1 New Home Sales Agent in master-planned community of Riverstone

#1 New Home Sales Agent in master-planned community of Greatwood

#4 New Home Sales Agent in master-planned community of Sienna Plantation"

Source HAR.com

[SugLandDAd]

Real estate agents work for home owners.....not the developers.

It is disingenuous, and a little desperate to attempt to say that Miller is somehow compromised because she provides a service to homeowners whose homes happen to be in a development.....with Joe Zimmerman who receives thousands of dollars directly from the developers of that community....... the City of Sugar Land doesn't contract with her real estate office .......and it clearly does contract with Joe Zimmerman's employer.

People aren't stupid, they can see the difference.

[SugLandDAd]

I have posted numerous examples of the thousands of dollars in donations Joe Zimmerman has received from developers......Developers are the single largest source of his campaign funds...thats simply a fact.....If you want to claim the same about Miller, you should post an example.......but then you can't because she doesn't.

[ftbend06]

Originally Posted by SugLandDAd

Real estate agents work for home owners.....not the developers.

That’s not exactly true

[ftbend06]

Originally Posted by SugLandDAd

I have posted numerous examples

You copied and pasted the examples to try to support your claims but said others need to research for themselves the other side of the story. And again the thread is about people suing for flooding in Riverstone in Missouri city etj, yet still no admission that is not related to sugar land politics, just more long, multiple, one sided posts about sugar land politics....