Lower Back Pain Relief in Arcola, TX

If Arcola Mayor Fred Burton could go back in time, he’d structure a land deal between a Katy developer and the city differently.

While most cities use annexation to expand their tax base, Arcola, a small town 25 miles south of Houston, is looking to do just the opposite, much to the consternation of county officials, a municipal utility district and a developer.

Two years ago, the city of Arcola entered into an annexation agreement with Fort Bend County and the Arcola Municipal Management District No. 1 as an effort to spur development through a tax increment reinvestment zone. Now, Arcola wants out as officials say the initial deal was misleading.

The county says backing out of this agreement could put plans for future development of nearly 350 homes and the subsequent property tax revenue at risk.

The legal dispute has risen to the Texas Supreme Court. On Tuesday, the court granted a temporary stay which prevented the city of Arcola from voting to disannex 83 acres of land at its city council meeting.

Burton said he never expected a battle over a piece of land to go this far. If the county’s siding with the developer wasn’t enough, he said taking the case to the Supreme Court may have caused real damage to the city and county’s relationship.

“As long as I’m in here, the city’s relationship with the county won’t be the best,” Burton said. “They made their stand. They are standing with the developer. They made their stand with generating as much as they can to help this developer accomplish what he wants to accomplish, regardless of what the citizens of Arcola would like and what the leaders that are in here were put in here to do.”

Fort Bend County officials referred all questions to their lawyers, who declined to comment.

Burton says he’s not against growth, but he wants it done right.

“We are just trying to undo something that was done wrong,” Burton said of the annexation.

The 83 acres in question, located on the western half of the city off Fenn Road, was annexed into Arcola city limits in December 2021 at the request of Fennwood LLC, a firm tied to the developer.

The developer, Compass Land Development, planned to build about 350 homes on the 83 acres. In a statement, Compass President Nino Corbett says there is a lot at stake by removing land from the city.

“There is a lot on the line right now in Arcola — critical infrastructure, loss of meaningful net profit to the city, and an end to development of new communities like Post Oak Pointe within the city of Arcola,” Corbett said.

Compass Land Development recently broke ground on the nearby master planned community Post Oak Pointe, which will include 460 homes.

Fort Bend County became a co-plaintiff in a lawsuit against the city of Arcola last month. The county says the land in dispute is crucial to a tax investment zone agreement it and the city came into in 2021. While Arcola wants to see more investment into the small city, city leaders want the land to be handled properly and in accordance with the law.

Steven Craig, professor of economics at the University of Houston, said that on average, cities do not usually disannex land. Typically before reaching an agreement to annex land, cities go through a cost-benefit analysis to ensure taking on the land is worthwhile.

Cities also usually wait to annex land that has already been developed rather than assisting in building out land, Craig said. In this case, work to build infrastructure on the Fenn Road property has not yet begun.

As the tug of war between Fort Bend County and Arcola continues, the legality behind the annexation deal looms.

When the 83 acres were annexed by the city in 2021, the land was also included in an existing TIRZ that same day.

TIRZs are a popular development tool in Texas that have been used in Houston dozens of times. Under state law, any increase in property tax revenue in a TIRZ goes to a management district to fund infrastructure projects within the zone.

Joining the TIRZ was a way for Arcola to tap into Fort Bend’s expansive growth – a goal for Burton since he took office in 2018.

“We want to be like everyone else,” Burton said of Arcola in an interview earlier this year.

But it wasn’t until this fall that Burton said the city took a harder look at the 2021 agreement.

In the city’s legal filings, city officials allege the December 2021 petition filed by a firm that’s partially owned by Compass Land Development to annex the 83 acres was misleading and did not state whether the land was contiguous with, or touching, city limits.

The city’s defense argues that because the land does not touch city limits, any attempt to annex the land would be void. Burton said the city feared that keeping the annexation as-is would prevent the city from legally accepting property taxes on any future development.

Burton said to correct their mistake, Arcola City Council put a motion to disannex the acres onto its Sept. 26 agenda. During public comment, a lawyer for the Arcola Municipal Management District, the organization that oversees development projects in the TIRZ, presented a restraining order to the city.

This order would prevent Arcola from voting to disannex the 83 acres pending a judge’s ruling. A vote to disannex would be permanent and irreversible, the district’s complaint said.

Fort Bend County’s chief of litigation, Ken Cannata, said the county had no comment after the initial appeal was filed.

Disannexing the land would result in the loss of potential economic benefits associated with a TIRZ, such as commercial development, employment and tax revenue, the county alleges.

The TIRZ agreement states that both Arcola and Fort Bend County would reimburse the district for the design and construction of infrastructure on the 83 acres. If the city were to remove the property from its tax roll, the district argued that a disannexation would prevent Arcola from sufficiently reimbursing them for their share of the costs to design and construct infrastructure.

The TIRZ agreement also states that Arcola may not modify the agreement without the consent of the district or the county. An attempt to disannex the land would be an amendment to that agreement, the plaintiffs allege.

Arcola’s massive water plant, which became operational earlier this year, is hard to miss by those passing by on Highway 6. Across the front in big blue block letters is the city’s name – solidifying its place in the midst of the county’s sprawling expansion.

The water plant, one of the initial plans in the TIRZ agreement, was one of the first efforts to promote growth in the small city. When it was first built, Burton was optimistic that it would not just provide water to residents, but also attract businesses to Arcola. However, the cost to connect, which averages $2,000 per household, proved to be too expensive for many residents.

While the plant didn’t turn out exactly like he’d hoped, his desire for future development hasn’t been deterred.

Burton says he’s completely supportive of Post Oak Pointe and has every intention to stay in the TIRZ created by the county. However, when it comes to the city’s growth plans he wants to play by the rules.

While he was disappointed to see the county oppose Arcola in the lawsuit, Burton said he wasn’t totally surprised.

“Those county commissioners and those elected officials expect these people to go into the booth and vote for them. And you turn around, and you want to come after this city with a lawsuit because one developer is not happy. That’s wrong,” Burton said.

Corbett said he and his company will keep pushing to make their new development a reality.

“We will fight hard to continue delivering on the commitments we agreed to in the Development Agreement,” Corbett said. “Our work is making an impact. Post Oak Pointe is a shining star for the city of Arcola. The ‘Fenn Road’ development is a critical pillar for the TIRZ and the city. It is well worth fighting for.”

Republish our articles for free, online or in print.

Q: I love small-town Texas, but I’ve recently noticed that the majority of spam calls I get on my cellphone come from numbers in small or even tiny Texas towns like Granger, Mentone, Sour Lake, and so forth. What is the deal with all the spam calls originating in small Texas towns?

Bess Bass, Houston

A: The Texanist hates spam calls! But, like you, he loves small Texas towns. In fact, the Texanist is arguably the product of such a place, having been born and reared in the small-ish Central Texas town of Temple. Though his hometown presently boasts a population of some 75,000 souls and more stoplights than anyone would care to count, it was much more diminutive back when the Texanist roamed its dusty streets. And it has always been surrounded by authentically small hamlets of the one-horse (or even no-horse) variety.

As such, the Texanist early on became acquainted with the quaintness for which these sorts of locales are beloved. For instance, the Texanist has fond memories of countless visits to such bucolic burgs as Salado, where the Texanist partook in creek swimming; Heidenheimer, where the Texanist’s mom occasionally visited an old friend; Zabcikville, where the Texanist’s mom procured her pickling cucumbers from a nice old Czech woman; Little River-Academy, where the Texanist attended Saturday-night dances; Westphalia, where the Texanist also attended Saturday-night dances; as well as uncountable other little specks scattered out across the blackland prairie, where the Texanist did all sorts of things that he will not deign to mention at this late date.

Back in the day, the Texanist’s Uncle Wilson even ran an old-timey gas station in Holland, located on Texas Highway 95 southeast of Temple, which the Texanist recalls for its free Cokes and Rockwellian backroom domino games that were frequented by old-timey Rockwellian farmers. The Texanist’s connection to small-town Texas is such that he even grew up hearing tales of his granddad having played a hand in the naming of Bell County’s teeny Red Ranger, an agrarian outpost of perhaps a dozen agrarians that shares a name with a once-popular brand of cigars likely distributed by the Texanist’s granddad’s grocery distributorship. When it comes to small Texas towns, the Lone Star State’s number one purveyor of fine advice knows of what he speaks.

Which is why the Texanist, who has himself noticed an uptick in robocalls boasting small-town Texas phone numbers, has been wondering the same thing you’ve been wondering: How could such lovely little locales be the origin point of so much annoying phone spam? The Texanist, in all his experience with small-town Texas, doesn’t remember ever encountering anybody whom he’d peg as the phone scammer type. Though, to be honest, he’s not exactly sure what the telltale signs would be. A sharkskin suit? An ashen complexion? Shifty eyes? An old toothpick or wooden match dangling from the lip? But then the Texanist remembered that he grew up in Temple in the sixties and seventies and not in a Depression-era Max Fleischer cartoon and reminded himself that in real life villains don’t always twirl their mustaches or connivingly rub their hands together. Regardless, something’s just not adding up.

For answers, the Texanist decided to go straight to the top and reached out to the Federal Communications Commission, the relevant D.C.-based regulatory entity. It was there that he found friendly and helpful Paloma Perez, the press secretary to the agency’s acting chairwoman. Perez, as luck would have it, not only shares a Christian name with one of the Texanist’s favorite libations, she also happens to be a native of small-town Texas, originally hailing from Dripping Springs, outside of Austin.

After the gist of the question at hand was communicated to her, Ms. Perez offered the Texanist some reassuring information. It turns out that those calls that appear to originate from Granger and Mentone and Sour Lake and Bronte and Kermit and Martinsville and so forth likely originate from somewhere else entirely. Via a crafty technological advance known as “caller ID spoofing,” Perez explained to the Texanist, scamming misfeasors are able to obscure the locales from which they are robocalling. So when someone with designs on stealing one’s money and/or identity calls from the dark underbelly of, say, New York City, they are able to make it appear to your caller ID that they are instead calling from, say, friendly ol’ Granger.

Trying to fool Texans into thinking they’re receiving calls from Texas towns is an example of what is referred to as “neighbor spoofing,” and it’s just another technique used by scammers to try to get an unsuspecting person on the line—figuratively and literally. Folks who live in, say, Denver, likely get many calls “from” Ouray and Trinidad and Woodland Park. Likewise, the perpetually tanned residents of Miami no doubt hear quite often from Apalachicola, Cedar Key, and Dunedin. “Scammers are relying on your friendliness and betting you are more likely to take a local call just in case it is someone you know,” Perez says. So perhaps our small-town Texans are off the hook. (So to speak.)

Or are they? Just as the Texanist was feeling heartened at learning that it was not, in fact, our fellow Texans who have been trying to telephonically swindle us, Perez informed him that just this last March the FCC levied the largest fine it has ever levied—$225 million—against a pair of robocallers based in, of all places, Houston. Yes, Houston is the least smallest town in Texas, and the fourth least smallest town in the whole county. Which is to say, it is not a small town at all. But, still, it is a Texas town and, in fact, the town where you live, Ms. Bass. Thus, the news does smart a bit.

Perez, who has lived outside of Texas for a decade and currently resides in the D.C. area but has maintained a Texas area code on her cellphone, tells the Texanist that she, too, gets frequent unwanted calls from tiny Texas towns—as well as tiny Virginia towns. Her advice on what to do when the phone rings and it’s a call from, say, Paducah, when you’re not expecting a call from anybody in Paducah? “Don’t answer calls from unknown numbers. Let them go to voicemail. If you do answer and think that the call may be an attempted scam, don’t hang on, hang up. Then file a complaint with the FCC Consumer Complaint Center by selecting the ‘phone’ option and then selecting ‘unwanted calls.’ The data we collect helps us track trends and supports our enforcement investigations,” Perez said.

So, there you have it, Ms. Bass. The Texanist sincerely hopes that your faith in small-town Texas has been restored. At the same time, he worries that your faith in the big city in which you live may be shaken. If this is the case and you, by chance, find yourself thinking that it is indeed time to pack up and move somewhere else, the Texanist would like you to know that he recently spoke with a fellow from Marble Falls who represents a buyer who is looking to purchase a home in your neighborhood and is willing to make a straight cash offer right now if you would only be so kind as to share some basic financial information. Apparently, all he requires is—

Hello? Ms. Bass? Ms. Bass? Are you there, Ms. Bass? Oh, well. Thanks for calling.

Have a question for the Texanist? He’s always available here. Be sure to tell him where you’re from.

As temperatures plummet well below freezing Thursday, several places in the Houston region are opening their doors to the public so they can get out of the cold.

At least seven community centers and churches in Houston are opening as warming centers, where shelter, water, food and in some cases beds will be available. There also are some warming centers in nearby municipalities such as Rosenberg in Fort Bend County and Galveston along the Gulf Coast.

The following is a list of some of the warming centers, with their addresses and dates and hours of operation as well as the resources and services that will be available.

Houston-Harris County

The city and county are partnering to open five warming centers from 3 p.m. Thursday through noon Saturday. Each site will offer chairs, blankets, water, personal protective equipment and meals ready-to-eat (MREs), although no hot meals or cots will be provided and the warming centers are not serving as overnight shelters. Pets are welcome, and those who need transportation can call 311.

Here is information about other warming centers and shelters that will be open throughout Houston and Harris County:

Lakewood Church, which operates in the converted basketball and hockey arena at 3700 Southwest Fwy., also is serving as a warming center beginning at 5 p.m. Thursday.

Green House International Church, 200 W. Greens Rd., opened as a warming center and shelter on Wednesday night and will serve in that capacity at least through Friday. Breakfast, lunch and dinner will be served, with showers and 500 cots also available. Call 281-209-9339 for more information.

The Beacon homeless shelter at 1212 Prairie St., after closing at 2 p.m. Thursday, will reopen from 5:30 a.m.-12:30 p.m. Friday. The shelter will be closed Saturday and Sunday for the Christmas holiday.

Covenant House Texas, a shelter for young adults at 3412 Beulah St., will have its drop-in center open to anyone aged 18-24 who needs shelter.

Bay Area Homeless Services, 3406 Wisconsin St. in Baytown, will accept people wanting to escape the cold on a first-come, first-served basis. Call 281-837-1654 for more information.

Baytown Community Center, 2407 Market St. in Baytown, will open as a warming center from 7 p.m. Thursday through 5 p.m. Saturday. Water, snacks and personal hygiene products will be provided, Christmas movie showings are planned and there will be a designated area for pets.

Fort Bend County

Residents in the southwest part of the Houston region can seek shelter at Attack Poverty Friends of Rosenberg, 1908 Avenue E. in Rosenberg. It will be open from 5 p.m. Thursday through 8:30 a.m. Friday, with a maximum capacity of 40 people.

The Arcola Civic Center, 13222 State Hwy. 6 in Arcola, is prepared to stay open 24 hours as needed by impacted residents, according to the office of Fort Bend County Judge KP George.

Galveston County

McGuire-Dent Recreation Center, 2222 28th St. in Galveston, will be open as a warming center from 6 p.m. Thursday through noon Saturday.

The Salvation Army at 601 51st St. in Galveston is serving as a warming center and overnight shelter from Thursday through the end of the freezing weather event.

Montgomery County

Montgomery City Hall, 101 Old Plantersville Rd. in Montgomery, will serve as a warming center from 10 a.m. Friday through 6 p.m. Saturday.

ALVIN – The two top heavyweights of District 23-6A met on Friday night. Neither Dawson nor Shadow Creek backed down, and regulation wasn’t enough time to determine a winner.

The difference was a 23-yard field goal by Carter Brown that lifted Dawson to a 31-28 overtime victory over the Sharks. Brown’s overtime kick was the last play of the game at Freedom Field and kept Dawson unbeaten (9-0, 7-0) on the season.

“Carter Brown, he’s a phenomenal kicker,” Eagles coach Mike Allison said. “The snap by Carter Ostrom, the hold by David Jefferson, and the kick by Carter. Those guys have been doing it together for a while, they’re comfortable with it, and I’m at ease when they’re out there.”

Advertisement

Article continues below this ad

Allison wasn’t at ease when Shadow Creek mounted a second-half comeback. The Sharks tied the game 28-all with 1:28 remaining in the fourth quarter on a 19-yard scoring play from quarterback Kyron Drones to Lawrence Armstrong and Matt Allison’s extra point.

But Dawson showed why they’re a team on the rise. They’ve met every challenge in a challenging season. In the only overtime that was needed, Shadow Creek took possession of the ball first and the drive ended when David Fisher intercepted a Drones pass in the end zone.

Torrance Burgess Jr. ran for two touchdowns and 59 yards and Ja’Den Stewart ran for the big plays in the Eagles’ hard-earned win to take over the top spot in district.

“It was a huge win,” Allison said. “(Shadow Creek) is a very talented team and it was tough. Our kids played their butts off and I’m super proud of them.”

Earlier in the fourth quarter, Dawson marched 92 yards for a go-ahead touchdown capped by a 2-yard run from Blake Smith out of the wildcat formation. Stewart, who rushed for a game-high 157 yards, ran for 71 yards on the drive, including a 48-yarder on the first play of the series.

Advertisement

Article continues below this ad

Both teams are headed for the playoffs once the regular season concludes. Dawson may pick up an additional football game before the playoffs begin.

Drones, who is committed to Baylor, ran for a score and teamed with C.J. Guidry on a 25-yard scoring pass in the third quarter. Drones rushed for 59 yards and passed for 156, completing 9 of 26 passes. Sharks running back Kelvon Brown added 58 rushing yards.

Jonah Ledet intercepted Drones in the end zone with 4:26 remaining in the game with Dawson ahead 28-21 for another big play turned in by the Eagles’ defense.

Dawson had run roughshod over its first eight opponents, outscoring the opposition 346-44. Shadow Creek had also turned it on after opening the season with losses to North Shore (38-21) and Bridgeland (27-21). Prior to Friday, the Sharks (4-3, 4-1) had won four straight – all in district – three by shutout in outscoring its previous four opponents by an impressive combined 163-6. The Sharks have played two less games than the Eagles.

On the strength of two big plays, Dawson took a 21-7 halftime lead. Quarterback Collin Johnson’s 62-yard pass to Ashton Stroman set up a 5-yard scoring run by Burgess on the following play for the Eagles’ first score.

Dawson went up 14-7 on a 53-yard scoring pass from receiver Ryan Guillo to Jefferson and the second of four extra points made by Brown. Guillo caught a backward pass from Johnson and connected to a wide-open Jefferson, who coasted in the remaining 30 yards after making the catch.

For Dawson, offensive linemen Sam Hackworth, Ian Scott, Garrett Slider, Herman Romero and Ayden Khalil had great push up front. Defensively for the Eagles, end Cameron Whitfield and Darien Flynn constantly applied pressure on Drones. Fisher and Jordan Stewart made big plays in the secondary.

The reigning 5A Division I state champion, Shadow Creek is in its first year competing in Class 6A. The Sharks received outstanding defensive performances from linemen Ryan Williams and Jairo Castillo and linebacker Byron Roberson.

Sharks linebacker Terrence Cooks recovered a final-minute third-quarter fumble that set up the tying score, Isaiah Harper’s 3-yard run on the first play of the fourth quarter.

Charles Porter, Jr., Houston’s professional broadcaster with the “golden” voice, was the only child born on Friday, February 20, 1942, to the union of Charlie Porter, Sr. and Rosa Rainey (Robinson) Porter in Arcola, TX. Charles attended H.I.S.D. schools and graduated from Booker T. Washington High School where he was actively involved as a school band member and played the saxophone. He furthered his education at Texas Southern University, where he met his soon to be wife, Lola McIntosh. Charles enlisted in the United States Navy in 1960 and was proud of being a frogman as he shared many tales of his experiences. He was honorably discharged in 1964.

Charles and Lola united in holy matrimony in 1966 in Houston and later welcomed their three children: Charles III, Stacy and Phillippa. He later married Helen Santee, and had a son, Jonas. He lovingly referred to his children as his “rascals” whom he truly adored. He was always very close to his family, including his stepfather, Rev. Eugene Robinson, his aunt and uncle, Patsy & Manuel Lewis, and his beloved first cousin Shirley Mae Ingram, who was more like a sister to him. Charles was a devoted member of the Episcopal Church and because of his melodious voice, he served as a “lay reader” at each of the Episcopal parishes he attended. “Charlie” as he was often called, was a man of many “firsts” and began his on-the-air broadcast career in radio at KCOH AM Radio and later, KYOK AM radio as News Director in the late 1960’s. Later, his historic television career began at KTRK-TV, ABC-13 in the early 1970’s. He made history when he trailblazed as the first Black television news reporter and news producer in the Houston market. He was known for his melodious voice as well as his precisely accurate news reporting along with his informative documentaries. While at KTRK, one of his many specials he produced was the award-winning program, “The Sweet Bye & Bye“, a feature about Houston area Black Churches; later he produced another prolific documentary when he was the correspondent for the special documentary, “Barbara Jordan Goes to Washington” and he reported from the U.S. Capitol during Congresswoman Barbara Jordan’s historic swearing-in as the first African American woman from the South to be elected to the U. S. House of Representatives in 1972. He also hosted two of the first public affairs programs, “The Show” and “Black Outlook” which began a trend with other television stations in Houston to begin offering programming relevant to the issues and accomplishments of the Black community. He also hosted another magazine style program on Houston Public Television’s Channel 8 (KUHT) “Interchange” in the early 1980’s.

Charlie had a prolific half-century (50 year) career in broadcasting encompassing both radio and television. Throughout his career, he faithfully mentored many journalism/broadcast students and young reporters who started out after college pursuing a broadcast career. He literally opened the doors for many journalists and reporters who have gone on to different positions across the country as well as those who literally stand on his shoulders. His legacy shall live on forever for his many contributions to the city of Houston as well as to the broadcast industry.

Charlie made his earthly transition on Monday, October 2, 2023.

Note: Services will be held:

Visitation on Monday, Oct. 9th 4-7pm (changed to)

Heaven on Earth

300 Douglas St.

Missouri City, Texas

(near 5th St. & FM 2234)

Funeral Service – 11:30 am Tuesday, Oct. 10th at St. Thomas Episcopal Church – 4900 Jackwood St., Houston, TX 77096