Sign(s) of the Times

One of the more recent spending concerns for Conroe’s taxpayers was the plan to build three Welcome to Conroe signs at much cost to the taxpayer but without overall community participation, which could have significantly reduced the cost and put more of a sense of community pride in the projects.  Two have already been built and paid for at a total cost of about $200k plus annual maintenance costs.  A South Frazier “gateway” welcome sign is next and a nice idea, as the others were, but $465k was just far too much to spend on one sign.  That’s simply irresponsible.  That’s also over 4x the cost of either of the already existing gateway welcome signs on east and west 105 which have much higher traffic counts.  The city council approved the $465k for the south gateway sign at a council meeting with enthusiastic quotes in the next day’s Courier, but the CIDC (with 3 council members on it) later delayed a final and necessary vote on the South Frazier project while trying to bring down costs after the city council’s initial approval got a terrible reaction from voters and on an online Courier poll.

If one wants to alarm a group of politicians, just have the politicians say yes on wasteful spending and then show them a large poll where potential voters say NO.  The Courier had a poll about the South Frazier gateway sign amount.  It allowed only one vote per IP address, so there was no one sitting at a computer and voting repeatedly to stack the outcome.  The last we saw of the poll, the vote to spend $465k on a gateway welcome sign on South Frazier was 1,044 no to 73 yes.  That’s almost 15-1 against what council had just said yes to.  At their next meeting, after the political heat, the same councilmen were all about trying to cut the huge cost overruns back toward the original $350k estimate, which is itself a rather wildly expensive amount for one gateway welcome sign.   

The fact is the council voted for the $465k being spent until they were against the $465k being spent two weeks later.

What we need is a council whose majority sees that such a spending proposal is not responsible before citizens have to speak so loudly, clearly, almost angrily.  Jim Fredricks’ restrained but pointed Courier editorial even suggested council put the project on hold for a year because of what the local economy was doing to our city’s revenues and our citizens.

Many of Conroe’s citizens from all walks of life have expressed similar cost concerns.  We hear you.