GALVESTON — The Laffite’s Cove Nature Society has been on the front lines of West End environmental battles for the past three years.
It was the first group to file a lawsuit against the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers to fight the recent proliferation of development, demanding in 2004 that the federal agency complete an analysis of the effects of new construction before approving any more permits.
The group is also fighting the city’s attempts to expand the wastewater treatment plant that serves the Lafitte’s Cove and Pirates’ Beach neighborhoods, claiming the planned effluent discharge would ruin the shallow waters of Eckerts Bayou.
And at the end of last year, the society’s board signed on as a plaintiff in another lawsuit against the corps, a case that picks up where the previous one left off in championing a development analysis.
But not all of the society’s members support the numerous legal actions, claiming that while their dues are used to fight development, the real business of the society goes undone.
Their frustration has prompted one property owner to run for one of two open board seats, a move the current representatives are treating with suspicion.
Created For Preservation
The Laffite’s Cove Nature Society is a homeowners’ association whose members own property in the Laffite’s Cove subdivision.
It was created as part of the settlement reached between billionaire island native and oil tycoon George Mitchell, who originally developed the area, and a group of environmentalists who opposed the development.
Under its articles of incorporation, the society is charged with maintaining the nature preserves and a canal system in the subdivision.
Property owners paid annual dues of $175 per lot through last year. The dues were raised to $181.12 for 2008.
Money On Lawsuits
In 2007, the society had a budget of $69,000, according to financial documents posted on its Web site.
Legal expenses were the highest budgeted expense at $20,000, topping the $17,000 the group planned to spend on preserve maintenance and improvements.
But the society’s board ended up spending $72,000 with the well-known environmental law firm Blackburn & Carter, expenditures some homeowners argue were made at the expense of the land the society is supposed to protect.
“Their mandate is to maintain the nature areas in Laffite’s Cove and the canals,” said George Carmichael, a Houston-area developer who owns a second home in the subdivision. “We don’t see that they’re doing anything to maintain those. They appear to be spending much of their budget on legal fees. That is not where money is supposed to be spent.”
By the end of December, the board had only spent $5,000 on maintenance and nothing on improvements.
But it did levy an extra assessment for a marsh restoration project, bringing in almost $60,000 to plant new grass in the canals.
The grass did not take, most of it died, and with nothing budgeted for new grass in 2008, property owners say they are wondering how the canals will get the new grass they evidently need.
Challenging Year
Earlier this month, society board President John Strom sent a letter to the group’s members defending the board’s decision to direct so much of its resources to litigation.
“This past year has been a challenging one for the nature society,” he wrote. “In addition to its responsibilities of maintaining the nature preserve as a natural environment for all Laffite’s Cove and Galveston residents to enjoy, the (society) has increasingly had to pursue its other responsibilities to monitor, defend and maintain the canal system’s water quality.”
Strom said that the lawsuits fall within the society’s charge because the two developments and the wastewater treatment plant have the potential to degrade water quality in the subdivision’s canals.
The 2004 lawsuit against the corps, which the society lost in 2007, involved The Harbor, a small subdivision near Laffite’s Cove. And the wastewater treatment plant, which the society is fighting through the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality’s permit process, would discharge several hundred yards from one end of the Laffite’s Cove canal system.
As for the most recent lawsuit, which Strom said the society had joined as a non-paying plaintiff, it addresses the very serious threat of cumulative development on the subdivision, he said.
Although the lawsuit is about Anchor Bay, which has no direct connection to Laffite’s Cove, Strom’s letter spends more time talking about Marquette Land Investment’s 1,058-acre development, The Preserve at West Beach, which includes a proposed canal connection to Eckert Bayou. The Anchor Bay lawsuit could stop Marquette if the court decided the corps needs to do a broad development analysis before approving any more permits.
David Tritter, a Houston-area real estate attorney who also has a second home in Laffite’s Cove, said he’s concerned that the society is acting outside the scope of its authority.
“They didn’t sue the developers, they sued the corps,” he said. “But the ultimate goal is to delay development. What I fear is going to happen is that the developers will counter sue. I have this lovely second home in Galveston, and I didn’t sign on to be a litigant.”
Real Motives
But Strom dismisses the board’s detractors as self-interested and said they have something to gain from West End development.
“We all have livelihoods; that’s fine,” he wrote in his letter to property owners. “But this small minority has made clear their desire that your board withdraw from its proactive stance in protecting the Laffite’s area water quality so that development can proceed apace.”
Strom’s comments were directed at Chris Cahill, a local attorney and Laffite’s Cove property owner who is running for one of two open seats on the board.
Strom asked his readers to “be confident” of the motives of any candidate seeking a board seat.
Cahill said he was surprised when he got Strom’s letter.
Cahill, like the other concerned property owners, said his only agenda is to make the board’s process more transparent to the people who are ultimately funding its activities.
Cahill said he was stonewalled every time he tried to get information from the board.
The board even refused to give him advance notice of the annual board meeting, at which the new board members will be elected, he said.
Strom announced the March 29 meeting in his recent letter and included proxy forms for the incumbents.
Cahill said he had to mail his own notices.
Strom said he didn’t know that Cahill wanted to run for the board until this week, when someone called him after receiving Cahill’s proxy form.
But e-mail messages sent to CKM Property Management, which helps manage the society’s affairs, show Cahill asked about the process for a candidacy on Feb. 11.
Susan McKirahan-Gonzales, president of the management company, did not return calls seeking comment about whether she notified Strom of Cahill’s request.
An Agenda
Strom said the board policy was to tread cautiously when dealing with requests from attorneys, implying they might be trying to get information for clients, who might use it in a future lawsuit against the society, instead of for themselves.
“Are they representing individual interests or the clients they serve?” he asked.
“They don’t disclose all the client relationships they have. The board treats those circumstances very differently from a regular home-owner asking the same questions. You don’t have to be a genius to realize that those people might have an agenda.”
But Karl Hancock, a Galveston homebuilder and Laffite’s Cove property owner, says the board is the one with the agenda.
Hancock and the others think the board should discuss their actions with property owners before they take them.
“We’re not against the antidevelopment people, we just want a board who doesn’t operate in back rooms,” he said.
“If they want to have their own personal agenda to block development, that’s fine. It’s no skin off my back. The problem is, we have a board that’s out of control.”
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By The Numbers
In 2007, the Laffite’s Cove Nature Society budget included:
