By Lewis Spearman
CROSBY Harris County Precinct 2 Commissioner Jack Morman and Rep. Wayne Smith, R, District 128 Texas Legislature addressed the Newport Property Owners Association on April 12 and discussed roadway improvements for South Diamondhead in Newport and resurfacing in Crosby.
On March 29, the courts determined that District 127 had too many people and Dan Huberty had to give Crosby to Smith and Huberty retained most of Huffman, and west through Humble. Smith a Vietnam Veteran has been given the Outstanding Public Servant award by the Texas Association of Businessmen and is named a Conservative Leader by the Heritage Alliance.
Jack Morman, R, gained the largest land area of Harris County for his Precinct 2 in redistricting. But Precinct 4 now condensed in acreage and expanded in per capita income retained all the mowing and other service equipment it held under Jerry Eversole. Morman now controls 380 employees, 50 parks, 11 community centers and 1050 miles of county road.
There are two infrastructure projects that Commissioner Morman has initiated in the last 30 days within the Crosby/Newport area.
Newport: Widening of S. Diamondhead: Generated from the response of the Property Owners meeting Pct.2 will move forward with engineering tasks to improve S. Diamondhead from Cape Hope to FM 2100. Commissioner Morman has already met with Harris County Engineering Dept. to begin preliminary design.
It is our intent to bid this project the first quarter of 2013. The estimated project cost is $2 million. said Morman
Crosby, Nelson Subdivision & Jackson Bayou Community:
BetterStreets2Neighborhood is the base repair and resurfacing of asphalt street in the Crosby, Nelson Subdivision, Jackson Bayou Community and outlining areas. This project is already in design and will start construction mid-summer to be complete in 45-60 days. The estimated project cost is $2 million. Maps of the street locations will be available at the Chamber of Commerce luncheon Thursday.
Mowing:
Mowing in Crosby has already begun with complete mobilization of 8 mowing crews starting in May.
Commissioner Morman spoke directly to each question asked about managing streets and improvements. His challenge for the future will be to purchase the right of way for the proposed widening of FM 2100 from Crosby to Huffman to give to the TXDoT to build the highway.
Smith although stating flatly that he was at the meeting to hear questions from the audience explained some of the functions of the State Legislature.
We meet officially for 140 days every odd number of years. The states big battle is 125 million people with a $180 billion annual budget and last year it was $170 billion because we cut much of it out. It is a big state and we need more than 140 days set by the constitution so we continue to meet, I was over there last weekend. Im chairman of a committee, environmental regulations, that is the committee that has oversight into TCEQ that issues the permits for all of the industry in this District, you can see my district includes from the industry from Pasadena, out to Baytown all the way up to part of Huffman. The speaker was gracious enough to appoint me to the committee I wanted to be on, so Im working to see if we can create jobs for folks in our area. The last cycle was the sunset of environmental regulations, in Texas every agency ceases to exist if not reauthorized approximately every 12 years sometimes it is shorter. This was TCEQs time to be sunsetted, so I then as chairman of the committee was asked to carry the bill for the sunset and we have sunsetted. I am extremely glad that I get to represent Crosby.
Smith spoke of the proposed widening of FM 2100 from Crosby to Huffman as on the charts to begin within the next three years. He is awaiting TXDoT to inform him of when the proposed exit off of U.S. 90 Westbound to FM 2100 will be completed. He asked to be informed of guardrail problems by the public.