Long Arm of the Lege May Strangle Webberville

Webberville Mayor Hector Gonzales (Photo By John Anderson)

Hector Gonzales, elected Webberville's first mayor when the tiny village voted to incorporate in February, lives next door to land owned by mining behemoth Texas Industries Inc. Across the street is another mining firm, Trinity Industries, which also leases land adjacent to the 10-acre property where Gonzales' family and his 77-year-old mother live in separate houses. Gonzales doesn't want TXI and Trinity to expand their strip mines and gravel pits to his and his mom's back doors -- or to those of his constituents, many of whom are working- and middle-class people who have invested their entire savings in their homes. "Even right now nobody in the area could sell their house," says Gonzales. "Realtors have the area redlined. If we don't want to live next to a gravel pit and a strip mine, then who would?"

Controlling the mines is a major reason the citizens of Webberville voted to incorporate -- by a narrow 94-87 margin -- in the first place, but two bills currently before the Legislature would enable TXI and Trinity to expand anyway. HB 2212 (by Anna Mowery, R-Fort Worth) and SB 1569 (by Frank Madla, D-San Antonio) are headed to the floor in their respective chambers; they would grandfather current and planned future land use in any municipality incorporated after Jan. 1, 2003. Only two such towns exist -- Webberville and Volente, on Lake Travis, which also incorporated Feb. 1.

Declining property values are just one reason Gonzales and other Webbervillians oppose the mines. Others include heavy traffic generated by gravel trucks, dust, and, most of all, excavation and destruction of their historic village, the oldest settlement in Travis Co. One of the Village Commission's first acts was a moratorium on all development until they could further study the mining situation. So far, the commission claims, it hasn't prohibited any land use, though last year residents did successfully challenge Trinity's proposed rock-crusher permit before the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality. Nonetheless, Gonzales believes the village's moratorium led Trinity and TXI to approach the Legislature.

The commission hasn't always been treated as a real government, Gonzales complains. Members weren't notified for the committee hearings on either bill; Gonzales found out about the House hearing only two hours in advance and about the Senate hearing only after it happened. Had Sen. Gonzalo Barrientos not intervened, SB 1569 would have been fast-tracked on the local and consent calendar and might already have become law.

Also ignoring the Village Commission, says Webberville's volunteer PR person Jackie Dana, are the mining companies. "They haven't presented any concerns to the city, or input so that we can coexist," she said. The companies hinted they might seek a restraining order to prevent the commission from holding its first meeting, claiming violations of the Open Meetings Act. "They're just basically trying to undermine the entire city government," Dana said.

Mining is a $28 billion industry in Texas that invests plenty of its money in politics. Both Madla and Mowery have received contributions from mining interests, as have many other state officials -- including Rep. Dawnna Dukes, whose district includes Webberville. A spokesman for Madla asserts that SB 1569 is intended principally to provide businesses in newly incorporated areas the same rights as businesses in city-annexed areas, even though that reasoning contradicts annexation rules in the Local Government Code. Mowery was more explicit, telling reporters that Webberville is trying to shut down the mining companies. As for Dukes, Gonzales and others say that for months they've been trying to get her to join their fight. Last week she came out opposed to the bills, connecting land-use authority to economic prosperity. "When this power is stripped away from the city, the people often suffer," Dukes said.

Both HB 2212 and SB 1569 were assembled and promoted primarily by TXI super-lobbyist R. Kinnan Golemon, an attorney with Brown McCarroll whose past and present clients include Shell, ExxonMobil, and the Texas Chemical Council. Golemon has capitalized on the divisions lingering after February's close election; some Webberville residents still charge that the election was rigged, that the new village's boundaries were gerrymandered to exclude several property owners from voting, and that the government can't afford to provide services. (The commissioners have waived their three- and four-digit salaries this year; Gonzales bought his own gavel to conduct commission meetings). On Saturday, voters in Webberville approved three propositions to help fund their newly created government. Webbervillians supported an 8% sales tax to offset property taxes, support the village's general fund, and support road improvements. The three-member Village Commission guesses the new tax will generate between $5,000 and $7,500 annually. "We're not going to get rich on it," says Gonzales. Golemon uses such arguments in his defense of the two bills. "I thought municipalities were here to provide services to people, to make for a better community, and provide improvement in quality of life," he says, "rather than try to impede someone's property rights." (Of course, Webbervillians might not have felt the need to incorporate if Travis and other Texas counties had real power to regulate land use, an idea that has been advanced, and then defeated, time and again in the Lege.)

A few weeks ago, Golemon received a copy of a letter, addressed to Barrientos, Madla, and Mowery, from Webberville resident Fred Moreno, characterizing the two bills as a way to bring "illicit and immoral" activities -- i.e., forming, then running the village government -- under control. Moreno used to own a grocery and feed store in Webberville, he wrote, until a series of surprise visits from the state resulted in minor infractions that forced him to sell his business. "Those that speak against [pro-incorporators'] methods will soon find themselves on the receiving end of state inspectors," Moreno wrote. He also sent Golemon a copy of an anonymous threat apparently authored by a pro-incorporator; the letter suggests Moreno should take down his anti-incorporation signs or face citations from the county and insurance claims for alleged problems on his property.

Agreeing with Moreno is James Burke, treasurer of the anti-incorporation Concerned Citizens of Webberville, who regards NIMBYism as the Village Commission's sole agenda. "If they're worried about property values, they shouldn't have incorporated," Burke said. "They've got a bankrupt government." Nobody likes gravel trucks, he says, but as long as people continue moving to Austin, the need for gravel to produce highways will also continue. Though initially against the mining operations, Burke says he now understands "the full situation" and objects to standing in the way of free enterprise and the companies' property rights -- which he feels he has no right to contest. "Unfortunately the sand and gravel is in Webberville," he said. "God put it there, there's a demand for it, and it's going to have to come from somewhere."

Webberville Village counsel Alan Bojorquez believes the two bills are probably unconstitutional, but in order for that to matter, someone would have to challenge the laws -- which will take lawyers and money. The Village of Webberville, the nonpartisan grassroots group that pushed for incorporation, is selling T-shirts to cover its legal expenses.

If the mining companies prevail, Gonzales says, in several years' time he could end up living next to a landfill. Unlike other types of mines, gravel pits aren't regulated under state law, and the empty holes left in the ground provide ready-made spots for dumps. One landowner told Gonzales that if he didn't lease his land to Trinity for strip-mining, he'd sell it to landfill giants Browning-Ferris Industries. "What else to do with [pits] but fill them with trash?" Gonzales sighed.