While in recent years I've lived in Dallas, and at several other times in my life I've lived other places -- Denton, New Orleans and St. Louis -- in my mind I've always lived in Galveston. Galveston is where I was born and where I was the most successful in my business career.
It's where my mom and dad and so many of my friends are buried and where I will be buried someday
Galveston is a barrier island of about 50,000 residents that is located to Houston's south by about fifty miles.
Even if you've never been there, much less lived there yourself, you can't help but be familiar with how hurricanes come there. Some of them throw everything into turmoil. One of them was the 1900 Storm that killed at least 6,000 people. The most recent was Hurricane Ike that turned island life upside down for everyone, regardless of the size of their bank account.
Unlike the forced compassion the federal government "felt" for the seriousness of the damage caused New Orleans when Hurricane Katrina side-swiped it a couple of years before, it appears to all that the same federal government has done everything it can to stand in the way of Galveston recovery from Ike.
The State of Texas has been no better, and it is the very reason I'm ready for its governor, Rick Perry, to go back to ranching. This time I'll vote for former Houston mayor, Bill White, who showed dynamic leadership for his city throughout that same hurricane.
What should scare every citizen, whether they live on the gulf coast or not, is that the U.S. Government -- "of the people, by the people and for the people" -- has eroded to the point where it no longer is. So put on your selfish cap for just a moment and realize that something like this in the future could be directed at you and those you know and love.
Here's an editorial written by Michael Smith that is in the April 23, 2010 edition of the Galveston County Daily News, Texas oldest newspaper. It is printed here with the paper's permission.
No Compelling Reason to Evict Animal Shelter
By Michael A. Smith
The Daily News
Whatever it turns out to have been in the long run, the governmental response to Hurricane Ike already has been a steady source of bafflement and consternation.
The latest shipment arrived this week when we learned the U.S. Department of the Army intended to evict the Galveston Island Humane Society from a building at 5301 Ave. S.
The society, which cares for abandoned animals and those picked up by the city, has been using the building, which the Army owns but leases to the city, since Hurricane Ike flooded its shelter on 76th Street and Interstate 45 more than 18 months ago.
A new shelter is under construction but won't be ready for as long as a year.
The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, which manages the lease, apparently contends the city violated the lease by allowing the humane society to use the building instead of operating it as a police substation, as it had in the past, or as a mostly vacant storage facility, as it had in recent years. The corps wants the shelter out by May 1.
It could be that the shelter never should have been put in that building in the first place. It ended up there during a crisis in an effort to meet a compelling public need. Not the least of which was dealing with hundreds of pets left behind by people who evacuated from the hurricane and couldn't get home for almost two weeks.
The fact, however, is the shelter is there, is still fulfilling a vital public need and has no place else to go.
The fact is, the shelter has been there for almost two years without, we're willing to bet, undermining the U.S. Army or its various missions.
The fact is, the shelter need not be there forever; it needs nine months to a year.
The city claims it has tried to reach some sort of compromise since February, but the corps won't budge.
It could be the corps has a good reason for entrenching at May 1 and refusing to give, although it's hard to imagine what it could be.
It's especially hard to image in the context of what the federal government has done and allowed to be done since Ike.
For example:
· It dumped millions of dollars into hiring case managers to do nothing but refer people to local agencies that had no money to help.
· It spent millions buying West End beach houses for no good reason at all.
· It will, you can bet, let millions of federal tax dollars disappear into the pockets of consultants and never determine whether the public got its money's worth.
And yet it wants to play hardball with the humane society over a building that would be vacant and rotting were it not housing an animal shelter.
That is nuts.
BILL CHERRY, REALTORS
DALLAS - PARK CITIES
Our 45th Year
214 503-8563
I really enjoyed this post today. Great information
Bill,
Well said. Growing up in Port Arthur it was always a great when the family would visit Galveston. The ferry ride, the beaches, the food, great memories.
Good post Bill and why change this until the new one is built? Poeple have no brains sometimes
Hi Bill... this is shamelessness on the part of the Dept. of the Army. How we, as a society, treat helpless animals reflects on all of us. Is it any wonder that the recovery from Ike and even Katrina has been so slow? I like that you presented this in the manner you did, not choosing to make this about political beliefs, but rather about human responsibility. Good job.
Harry, Richard and Charlie --
Thanks so much for your additions. I often wonder what possesses people like this to be as they are.
Steve --
I used to hold the Corps in high regard. There has been a branch in Galveston for years and years, and I've known many of the commanders as well as the civilian employees. Heck I went to school with any number of their children.
But in recent years, things seem to be different. Like you, I bristled at the mess they had made of the levies in New Orleans -- unforgivable. And not this stuff with the homeless animals in Galveston.
You're right on target. Thanks for commenting.