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Lindale Neighborhood Association Info
Lindale Municipal Management District Timeline[Monday, August 19, 2013] Lindale Neighborhood Association MeetingMeeting Summary and Notes coming soon. [Monday, June 17, 2013] Lindale Neighborhood Association MeetingFull Meeting Summary, Partial Transcript, and Notes This meeting was a re-presentation by LNA officer Heidi Hovda of Assistant City Manager Oscar Martinez's powerpoint. Q&A session followed with answers being provided by LNA board members. [Wednesday, May 1, 2013] Lindale Neighborhood Association MeetingView Full Meeting Summary and Notes This meeting was dedicated to a Municipal Management District powerpoint presentation by Corpus Christi Assistant City Manager Oscar Martinez. Q&A session followed with answers being provided by Oscar Martinez and LNA board members. There was also some discussion of the Vaky street assessment and its relation to the proposed Lindale MMD. "The culmination of those meetings [with city staff] led to an invitation of Assistant City Manager Oscar Martinez to the special meeting of the Lindale Neighborhood Association held on May 1st in order to acquaint neighbors with the Municipal Management District option. Mr. Martinez made a PowerPoint presentation on the MMD option and answered neighbors' numerous questions at that meeting. At the conclusion of the meeting, a recommendation was made to hold another LNA special meeting in June to continue to review the MMD option with Lindale neighbors". [Source: Lindale MMD Summary by Lindale Neighborhood Association officer Adam Chavarria -DOC 31KB] Original MS PowerPoint presentation by Oscar Martinez (PPTX 688KB). Powerpoint presentation given by Corpus Christi Assistant City Manager Oscar Martinez at the May 1, 2013 meeting of the Lindale Neighborhood Association. Note that you will need MS Powerpoint or Open Office Impress to open this file. PDF version of Oscar Martinez presentation (PDF 1.55MB). PDF version of the Powerpoint presentation given by Corpus Christi Assistant City Manager Oscar Martinez at the May 1, 2013 meeting of the Lindale Neighborhood Association. [Monday, April 15, 2013] Lindale Neighborhood Association MeetingA scheduled Lindale Municipal Management District presentation by city staff was cancelled and rescheduled for May 1 due to city staff's inability to attend. [Monday, March 18, 2013] Lindale Neighborhood Association MeetingA scheduled Lindale Municipal Management District presentation by city staff was cancelled and rescheduled for April 15 due to city staff's inability to attend. [Monday, Feb 18, 2013] Lindale Neighborhood Association MeetingCharlie Cardenas of the City of Corpus Christi spoke on Lindale streets, speed humps, rumble strips, signage, and more. Note that the Lindale Neighborhood decided on proposing a Municipal Management District on or before Feb. 18, 2013. "The folks who run the LNA have worked very hard to bring you what will be presented at next month's meeting on March 8th [sic]. Ask Heidi, Carl, Jessica, or Adam (with help from more) who have a good working knowledge of what they will propose. Highly encourage attending next meeting!" - Chad Magill on Feb 18 "You'll want to attend the 6 p.m. March 18 LNA meeting at the Lindale Senior Center. Our neighborhood leadership, Heidi Hovda, Carl Yowell, Adam Chavarria, has been working closely with city staff to come up with a solution for neighborhood streets. That hard work culminates with a neighborhood presentation and we need your input at the meeting. Hope to see you there. More details to come in the next couple of weeks." - Jessica Savage Alford on Feb 19 [September 2012] Lindale Neighborhood Association begins meetings with city staffAs a result [of the survey], some members of LNA’s leadership began to hold meetings with city staff since last September to explore options that could lead to the improvement of neighborhood streets. One of the options LNA proposed calls for the creation of a Municipal Management District (MMD) as a way to finance the reconstruction of streets, curbs, sidewalks, and storm water drainage systems in the Lindale neighborhood". [Source: Lindale MMD Summary by Lindale Neighborhood Association officer Adam Chavarria -DOC 31KB] [December 13th, 2011] Lindale Neighborhood Association Board Members address City CouncilLindale Neighborhood Association Board Members Heidi Hovda, Adam Chavarria, and Carl Yowell spoke during the Public Comments section of the December 13th, 2011 City Council meeting. Their full comments are transcribed below with the times their comments appear on the video. [3:09:07 - 3:11:00] Heidi Hovda: "Good afternoon. My name is Heidi Hovda. I live on [redacted from my transcript for privacy] and I am on the Board for the Lindale Neighborhood Association. On behalf of the neighbors in Lindale, many of whom are here, if you'll stand up real quick, real quick, stand up, stand up, I wanted to express our sincere thanks and appreciation for the City departments that have worked closely with our organization for the past year. We've worked with Parks and Rec department to re-develop Lindale Park and they've also recently written a grant for us to develop a community garden at our park. Charlie Cardenas of Traffic and Engineering spoke to the Lindale Neighborhood Association regarding the high traffic in some of our areas and he responded by putting rumble strips on Reid Street. We are grateful for the introduction to the new recycling program thanks to Angela Gonzalez and Solid Waste department. CCPD has been incredible in helping us rebuild our Neighborhood Watch program and City Manager Ron Olson was very gracious to give us his time and thoughts on many issues facing our neighborhood and our city at a recent meeting. We've held events such as a concert in the park at Lindale and a forum for the 2011 At Large, Mayoral and District 2 City Council candidates. We distribute monthly newsletters. We have dedicated committees and street captains. We have a robust and active Facebook page where neighbors share information about the good, and the not so good, things going on around in our city. And our Association started in 2011, November 2011, so it's just right over a year and we're really proud of the things that we've done with the City thus far and we really look forward for 2012. Thank you." [3:11:00 - 3:14:15] Adam Chavarria: "Good afternoon. My name is Adam Chavarria and I reside at [redacted from my transcript for privacy] in the Lindale neighborhood in the great city of Corpus Christi. I'm here as a member of the Lindale Neighborhood Association for which I serve as a chairman of the safety committee. Part of the safety committee's charge is to serve as the first line of communication regarding all matters pertaining to safety, including issues involving traffic, lighting, signage, and crime in the Lindale neighborhood. To fulfill that charge the safety committee administered two surveys over the course of the past few months. The first survey, crime survey, was administered in September. The second survey, the street survey, was administered the latter part of October and early November with the help of LNA's street captains and members of the safety committee, some of whom are here today. Regarding the street survey, we received 60 completed street surveys that represented the eleven streets that comprise the Lindale neighborhood. The street survey included five fairly straight-forward questions pertaining to street conditions, signage, flow of traffic and lighting. Street lighting had the most direct association with a feeling of safety at night, a feeling that was strongly expressed in the earlier crime survey we administered in September. Given the limitations of time I will just highlight some of the findings of that street survey. Of the sixty neighbors that responded to the first question, 'How would you rate lighting on your street?' a sizeable proportion, that is 85% indicated that it was either 'fair' or 'poor'. Similarly, the neighbors that responded to the third question, 'How would you rate the street condition? potholes, speed bumps, sidewalks etc.' a combined 2/3 rated them as either 'fair' or 'poor'. Interestingly enough, this question received the most excellent ratings by neighbors who, not coincidentally, reside on the 500 blocks of Hoffman, Harrison, Vaky, McClendon and Chamberlain, streets that were completely repaved and repaired just a few years ago. Now overall just 2/3, a little over 2/3 of the neighbors that responded to the survey rated their level of satisfaction with the streets in the Lindale neighborhood as either 'fair' or 'poor'. Now this level of dissatisfaction is largely due to the fact that half of the respondents rated street lighting and street conditions as 'poor'. Clearly streets and lighting in the Lindale neighborhood are a big concern to our neighbors. And these concerns are best exemplified in the comments neighbors provided as part of completing the street survey. And again, due to limitations of time I'll just give you one, one comment. Quote, 'Sidewalks are dangerous, the street floods, standing water, terrible curbs', end quote. By the way, these same concerns are expressed even more strongly on LNA's Facebook page which I credit LNA leadership, especially Jessica Savage, for creating. It has become an important source of communication and exchange of information for neighbors, particularly when it comes to improving safety in the Lindale neighborhood. That concludes my comments. Thank you for your time and your attention. . [3:14:15 - 3:16:05] "Good afternoon my name is Carl Yowell. I'm the Vice President of the Lindale Neighborhood Association. I live at [redacted from my transcript for privacy] along with [redacted from my transcript for privacy]. I'm here to build on the context that Heidi and Adam's comments established about how the Lindale Neighborhood Association has successfully worked with the city. We commend too the council and the staff for their generosity and professionalism and our satisfaction with the infrastructure in our neighborhood. Building upon that context we'd like to put something on the radar here. The Lindale Neighborhood Association would like to establish a task force or a ad-hoc committee or working group with the input, aid, assistance and participation of the city staff dedicated to improving the infrastructure in Lindale focused infill development* in this neighborhood. Such a group would establish objectives and priorities, strategies for fundraising and establishing relationships among all the stakeholders and hopefully move forward with some success in completing the improvements in the Lindale neighborhood. Such a project, if it's successful, would do two things. Besides improving the infrastructure in Lindale we also could serve as a model and a template for other neighborhoods in the community who wish to initiate their own neighborhood improvement projects. So we hope the city staff will look forward to hearing from us fairly soon about establishing such a group and moving forward and we hope to have some more items before the city council sometime in the near future and we would like to say thank you for your time and we look forward to working with the city. Thank you". [Source: Video of the December 13th, 2011 City Council meeting - corpuschristi.granicus.com] * Infill Development Clustered Development Overlay District [Source: cctexas.com - PDF] Ordinance amending the Corpus Christi Unified Development Code by adding a new Section 6.7 entitled, "Clustered Development Overlay District", relating to the use, regulations, and review standards for clustered development; Amending conflicting provisions of the City’s Comprehensive Plan; Repealing conflicting ordinances - passed Dec 13,2011 "Corpus Christi builders and city planners are considering an ordinance that would allow neighborhoods similar to those designed by Chapin, in clusters of five to 12 small homes on boutique-sized lots. City Council is expected to vote on the ordinance in March. 'It's a progressive type of development,' said Bart Braselton, vice president of Braselton Homes, who has built several traditional subdivisions on the Southside. 'The typical single-family home is what they're used to here, but I think it will be very well accepted. It will bring to our city what works so well everywhere else.' ... A state real estate expert said cottage housing could help the city’s bottom line, with more taxable houses per acre. 'From the city's perspective, they are going to add to the tax base a lot more than what was there before,' said Jim Gaines, a research economist at the Texas A&M Real Estate Center. ... The new ordinance would apply to any area of the city zoned for commercial and multi-family use. Wargo said owners of single-family zoned properties would have to go before the zoning board for permission to build under the cottage housing district. ... It could also be the first step toward infill development, according to Jeffrey Pollack, chairman of Bay Area Smart Growth Initiative." [Source: Northwest development concept could change Corpus Christi lifestyle - by Jessica Savage - caller.com] [Fall 2011] Lindale Neighborhood Association distributes Crime and Streets surveys"Lindale neighbors have held long-standing concerns about the poor conditions of the streets in the Lindale neighborhood. Those concerns were expressed by a sizeable majority of Lindale neighbors who responded to a street survey administered by the Lindale Neighborhood Association (LNA) late in 2011". [Source: Lindale MMD Summary by Lindale Neighborhood Association officer Adam Chavarria -DOC 31KB] [Note: Here are some interesting numbers. According to figures provided by Assistant City Manager Oscar Martinez there are 865 total properties [PDF link] in the proposed Lindale MMD. In his December 13th, 2011 comments to City Council (transcribed above), Adam Chavarria said his LNA committee received 60 completed street surveys. Of those 60 respondents he said that 2/3 (or 40 respondents) rated the streets "poor" or "fair". So the street emergency being declared by the LNA was initiated by 40 property owners out of a total of 865 property owners (or a whopping 4.6% of property owners!) Yes the streets are bad and need to be addressed but do these numbers really support the current crisis mentality?] [Nov 2010?] Lindale Neighborhood Association is formedConcerned about the neighborhood's ongoing drainage and safety issues, as well as a general lack of area development, they are creating the blueprint for a neighborhood-based potential citywide revolution. ... Along with redevelopment, infrastructure improvements and safety concerns, one of the group's goals, is a fully programmed neighborhood calendar including outdoor concerts, movies and sports events all designed to inject life, traffic and commerce into their neighborhood. ... Your neighborhood can — no, should — be next, but if you wait for Someone to do it, it's not going to happen. [Source: caller.com] What is the Lindale Neighborhood Association?
[Source: July 26, 2013 written statement by LNA "President" Carl Yowell in response to a resident's request for a copy of the LNA Constitution and Bylaws.] You have to wonder, how can a "loose and organic" "ad-hoc group of neighbors" who have "no bylaws" claim to represent the entire subdivisions of Lindale 1 and 2 in front of City Council and multiple city departments? Did you vote for them? Highlighted Lindale Neighborhood Association ActivitiesThis is all pretty cool stuff done by hard-working and talented Lindale Neighborhood Association officers and resident volunteers. These activities enhance the community spirit of Lindale and all are voluntary in nature. These admirable voluntary activities contrast with the proposed Lindale Municipal Management District which will be compulsory for residents who do not wish to be part of a MMD or pay higher property taxes. [September 27, 2012] Operation Proud Partnership. "Operation Proud Partnership is made up of volunteers with the Mayor of Corpus Christi's PRIDE Committee, Code Enforcement representatives, Animal Control, the police and fire departments, and the Solid Waste and Storm Water departments. Their goal is to clean up city facilities and public areas, and help residents. The Lindale Neighborhood Association also took park in Thursday morning's area assessment." [Source: kiiitv.com] (Note: While Operation Proud Partnership wasn't exactly voluntary for residents visited by city code enforcement, the codes being enforced were city-wide codes and not regulations specific to Lindale.) "Code Enforcement has 35 active cases of violations in Lindale Park. As Andy Montes, code enforcement supervisor, drove around the neighborhood, which stretches from Louisiana Avenue to Texan Trail and from Staples to Alameda streets, two longtime residents and members of the association had no problem directing him to the trouble spots. Montes was looking at vacant structures, property maintenance, illegal dumping and stray animals. ... But his attention quickly was turned to the yellow house next door, which appeared well taken care of, but had several household items stacked up by the garage. 'That's what we call open storage,' Montes said as he wrote down the house number. Most of the violations he pointed out Thursday morning were open storage violations. He also came across several junk vehicles in backyards and a makeshift shed out of plywood. The siding on one house was completely stripped off the front and another house had turned an old toilet into a planter. ... 'If you look at the history of the United States, you'll realize that as people settle in different areas, they want government. They love for government to deal with the issues that are affecting their community,' [Assistant City Manager Troy] Riggs said as the city kicked off its Lindale Park sweep. 'Somewhere in our history we lost that partnership.'" [Source: caller.com] [May 2012] Community Garden. Launched with a grant from Scots Miracle Gro and support from the Mayor's Fitness Council and CC Parks and Recreation. [Apr-May 2012] Entry signs and landscaping. The wonderful Lindale signs were created by resident artist Lynda Jones and are an undeniable asset to the Lindale neighborhood. The signs are located in the median at Reid and Indiana and the median at Swantner and Texas. Landscaping was done by hardworking teams of Lindale volunteers. [Feb-Apr 2012] Lindale Park playground equipment [Apr 28, 2012] 2nd Annual Rock the Park. Weak Day Boyz, Art Barrera, Two Peas in a Pod and more are playing late afternoon, with face painting, arts and crafts, games and free snacks! [Dec 2011-Nov 2012] Lindale Park benches Wonderful and whimsical artwork was added to benches in Lindale Park by many talented resident artists. A great project that we all enjoy. [Aug 2, 2011] National Night Out. More than 100 people gathered Tuesday at Lindale Park to eat hot dogs, popcorn, listen to music, meet emergency responders, learn about Neighborhood Watch programs and play games. [Source: caller.com] [July 4, 2012] Yard flags. Sponsored by Republican State Representative Todd Hunter [June 11, 2011] Concert in the park. Live music from Energy Device, Hobo and The Shakedown, facepainting, lawn games and more. [Multiple dates] Public informational meetings with various city agencies sponsored by the LNA. |
Actions You Can TakeWhat would you do to save $30,000.00 or more on your home over the next 20 years?1) Attend the next LNA Meeting6PM Monday, August 19, 2013 Attend the Lindale Neighborhood Association meeting and let them know that a 30% property tax increase is not the right solution for Lindale streets. 2) Talk to your neighborsLet your neighbors know about this important issue and encourage them to attend the next Lindale Neighborhood Association meeting.
3) NetworkIf you would like to receive email notification of important events related to the Lindale MMD (including meeting dates) please email us at . We will only contact you to inform you of important Lindale MMD developments and your information will not be shared with third parties. Lindale in the News[July 24, 2013] Letter to the Editor: No Municipal Management District for Lindale - Caller Times (paywall) [July 12, 2013] Texas' special tax districts need more accountability - Caller Times (paywall) |
