"Abandon West End" well ain't that nice of them

[JT]

The GLO buying the Marquette land is a real interesting deal huh?

[Swells]

There's some more kickers ... after Ike, Carol Severance got FEMA to buy her home appraised at something like a half million BEFORE Hurricane Ike, which she got paid. She laughed all the way to the bank! She did pretty good, even though GLO Commissioner Patterson offered her 50 grand to move the house to an inland lot - which would have cost her money. So now that one yahoo lady from San Diego has really screwed up things for the West End and she made a ton of moolah off us poor taxpayers and Texans.

As to Rice saying the entire West End should be abandoned, I agree that it is rather radical and for all of Severance's royal screwing of us, property rights are sacred here in Texas. Just because some high muckety-muck study says that we should "run away" like a Monty Python movie, that will never happen. Often the academics don't consider the realities of such things, like trying to sell at a reasonable price in a bad economy. No way we can afford to pay off everyone for their property, either. That's wishful thinking of those in the Ivory Tower!

[JFD94]

Originally Posted by Swells
When you look at the long term viability of the West End, with erosion rates of 3-8 feet per year, you're going to see more and more houses on "the front line" ending up in the Gulf. So that will take those structures off the tax rolls unless somebody moves the structure to high ground. Alternatives, such as building a giant sea wall for a billion dollars or something, were not considered a wise investment.

The whole thing was thrown into disarray by a California lady named Carol Severance, who bought a few houses on the West End and one was condemned by the GLO because it was in the surf - you could fish out the bedroom window. The Texas Open Beaches Act requires that the beach and the surf zone is public property. Severance sued. So far she has won the case but there are appeals.

So what is the entire beach at the West End is private property? That means that no public money can be spent to fix and widen the beach! No state funds can be used there (at least for now). GLO Commissioner Patterson had a BIG project to pump sand on the West End but pulled it, since it is illegal to spend state public funds on private property. This really made the residents and Galveston officials very mad - the 15 million in GLO money (or whatever) was instead spent on the older section of Galveston to the east end.

Now some pointy headed university professors come along, the Rice Study, saying that it might be cost effective to simply let the front line of property along the West End "go." Discussed was a giant "hurricane protector" dune system with surge gates and seawalls, a popular idea over the last two years. What they discovered was - well, what you're mad about today. Let's just say not everyone likes the Rice Study.

But wait - the story isn't over yet. There's no money! Federal budgets for beach restoration have been stopped due to fiscal austerity. Texas had a budget crisis and chopped off its entire beach and marsh restoration funding. Therefore the only way to "Save West End" is for the people of Galveston City and Galveston County to tax themselves to pay for it. Are the local taxpayers going to like that? If you live on perfectly safe, dry land do you want to pay for some rich folks who built too close to the surf?
Great post. Thank you!

X2! and it gets even better when you learn that they are just investment properties that she doesn't personally use and doesn't actually give a flying @#$% about. We all got screwed by one idiot who lives over a thousand miles away. Feel free to read the following article and have a laugh.

http://www.pacificlegal.org/page.aspx?pid=455