Thank you for your interest in SO, WHAT’S THE REST OF THE STORY, dedicated to all things Navigation District. Please tell others about this blog to spread the word. And please accept my apologies as I didn't even mention my name in the first publishing. I am learning. My name is Jack Wright. I moved my family to Rockport in 1996. I have been on a variety of Boards and Community endeavors over the years including 19 years as a School Board Trustee. I have many reasons for showing the shortcomings of the Nav District. One of the historically significant reasons was knowing Doug Norrell as a friend and customer. Doug was a Nav District Commissioner when his counterparts on the Board decided to sue him over the property he owned known as Little Bay Marine. The District spent over three quarters of a million dollars in legal fees suing Doug and they lost. They continued losing until they ran out of insurance money that paid legal fees. I watched as their actions sucked the life from him, literally and figuratively. Yes, that was years before the current Board, but similar actions continue by those in charge presently. This blog will closely review actions of the District and report. It will not necessarily follow chronology. The goal is to replace every Commissioner until we have a Board that is responsive to the entire community and not interested in power grabbing. Watch in particular for the posting I'm working on that I will call Chicken Little.
I attended the March 7th 2022 meeting of the
Navigation District and during the Citizens to be Heard item on the Agenda
asked several questions about the lack of information on their website. Following that, I presented them with an Open Records Request
with 4 questions. Two of those questions
will be discussed in this edition of So, What’s the Rest of the Story.
Request 1:
Certificates of Compliance, Training Certificates, or other evidence
that all 5 Commissioners and the Harbor Master have completed training in the
Texas Open Meetings Act (OMA) as required by Texas Law.
Answer: The District
provided me with 5 certificates of training, one for each Commissioner. Two of the 5 were completed after I made the
request. Commissioner Deleon was one of
the two. The March 7th
meeting was his first, so it is somewhat understandable. But either the Chairman or the Harbor Master
should have made sure he was compliant before the first meeting and did not do
so. Commissioner Casterline served since
2014 without ever having OMA training until I made the request.
Harbor Master Keith Barrett did not submit proof of training
indicating he has not done so. With the
other Governmental organizations I am personally familiar with, the lead
employee completes OMA training. Mr. Barrett has not had the training and he should have.
Request 2: Provide
the name of the firm or individual for preparing the Interim Balance Sheet,
Income Statements, Sources and Uses of Funds Statements and Actual to Budget
comparisons and the work papers associated with the preparation of the above.
Answer: The District
did NOT provide the name or source of the requested financial reports
because the evidence shows they do not have them prepared in the ordinary
course of business. They did provide the
names of 2 individuals, presumably employees who were evidently responsible for
making the copies that were provided to me.
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The next post will address the remaining 2 questions which
will require much more space.
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