Tree Speech

Landowner & Bar-B-Q magnate Balous Miller is suing the Mayor of Helotes, present and past members of the Helotes City Council, and the Helotes Heritage Association for their criticism of a proposed Wal*Mart Supercenter on Scenic Loop Road. Miller wants compensation for the profit he expected from the Wal*Mart development. Apparently, Miller believes it was the good people of Helotes, not the environmentally destructive development he proposed, that cost him the deal.

Millers lawsuit has the earmarks of a SLAPP, a Strategic Lawsuit Against Public Participation. SLAPPs are typically filed by developers against citizens who speak out against them on public issues before government bodies.

Many states have laws intended to discourage such litigation, but the Texas legislature has voted down every bill intended to curtail these abuses of the legal system, while at the same time passing “tort reform” legislation to protect big corporations. The California Anti-SLAPP Project web site notes that

while most SLAPPs are legally meritless, they effectively achieve their principal purpose: to chill public debate on specific issues.

E-N journalist John Tedesco writes of citizens in Del Rio, including an 82 year-old woman, who suffered the same fate as the folks in Helotes.

In another lawsuit filed Aug. 17 in Bexar County, developers Schaefer and Earl made similar allegations against more than two dozen residents and city officials, most of whom fought a proposal to provide tax incentives for a large development in Del Rio near Laughlin AFB.
The lawsuit claims the defendants conspired to “embark on a deliberate and calculated campaign to spread false statements” and force the Del Rio City Council to back out of a tax increment financing zone that could have raised up to $130 million in tax revenues for the developers.

All this is hauntingly familiar.

In 2003, Wal*Mart developer Mark Granados filed a SLAPP against me and my fellow cTc members. Granados claimed to have suffered more than $25 million in damages because of an email I sent to cTc members. I recall the irony of having the same price on my head as Saddam Hussein and Osama Bin Laden.

The lawsuit engendered an outpouring of support from the community, with many attorneys offering pro-bono counsel to fight the developer. Eventually, Granados dropped his suit, going away empty handed. In the end, we emerged stronger than ever, and with the assurance that a large community of wonderfully generous and loyal people stood behind us.

Express-News reporter John Tedesco, in Builders paying to avoid City Hall, continues his outstanding reporting on the land development industrys efforts to thwart our right to protect environmental health. He warns of an an unprecedented assault coming in 2007 at the Texas Legislature.

Tedesco characterizes the assault as

a broad and expansive effort by the real estate industry to bypass City Hall altogether.

The story quotes P.R. consultant T.J. Connolly as saying

The real estate community, in the 2007 session, is going all in, they are putting all their chips in.

Councilmen Art A. Hall and Kevin Wolff have both warned of the coming attack and argued, in “Catch-22″ fashion, that the City must weaken the tree ordinance or lose it altogether. There are several problems with this line of reasoning:

• there is no agreement with the developers that they will call off the assault even if we were to gut the tree ordinance;
• developers in other cities are also on the attack, and will not be appeased by what San Antonio does;
• it ignores that the City of San Antonio itself is mounting an unprecedented legislative effort in 2007.

Nonetheless, you have been put on notice. It is important to contact and meet with your state senator and representative immediately, before the start of the 2007 session. See Who Represents Me?. Type in your home address, and it returns contact information for your TX Senator, TX Representative, and U.S. Representative.

Aerial view of Bulverde Village development site on Bulverde Road just north of PGA Tour resort

I will wrap up by dispelling some questionable comments the story makes about the “new” tree ordinance:

• It is a myth that “mountain cedar” is not protected under the 1997 ordinance. All species are protected in both the 1997 and 2003 versions. Furthermore, 12 other Texas cities have ordinances where trees are not differentiated according to species.
• Survey requirements are the same in both ordinances. Because the 1997 ordinance exempts much of the land in a development site, fewer trees have to be surveyed.
• Read Developers push for elimination of Ashe juniper for the facts about “water-hogging” Ashe juniper.