Oct. 1, 1997
This isn't going to be the most popular opinion to go expressing,
but it must seem to an outsider that we folks in the Katy area are a fractious
lot.
Maybe we could adopt it as the official motto of Greater Katy:
"Not in MY backyard!"
Looking around at the various major issues currently stirring
passions, it would certainly seem that we're not only Balkanized, we're
just short of being roving lynch mobs.
Take, for instance, the juvenile boot camp. Several months back,
the plan was to put it next door to the Precinct 5 Constable's Command
Center. You'd have thought nearby residents were going to be forced to
billet the little monsters in their living rooms, for all the protest it
stirred. Not much of the protest, however, came from the western portions
of Greater Katy.
A couple months later, the plan changed. Now it's due to be located
in the northwestern portion of Greater Katy, and the folks out this direction
are hopping mad about it. Those from the eastern side of the district have
made nary a peep.
Back at the start of the year, the school board decided it didn't
need some of the land it owns next to Pattison Elementary. The boot camp
protests were nothing, compared to the prospect of putting (gasp!) apartments
next to an elementary school. The folks south of the freeway took the school
district and the apartment developer to court to stop the project.
Meanwhile, an apartment complex is half-completed north of the
freeway — next to Sundown Elementary. No legal action is anticipated.
Along comes the Mills Corporation, with plans to build a mega-mall
here, promising municipal prosperity, new jobs and shopping you don't have
to drive all the way into Houston to do. Most folks seem pretty thrilled
by the prospects — except the folks whose backyards will be next to the
mall. Not a word of dismay from the eastern precincts.
"I'd rather have a concrete factory next to us than I would this
mall," one resident boldly proclaimed.
Hey — have we got a deal for you!
The latest lynch mob is after Carbotek, Inc., over on the east
side of the school district. To hear some of the worst of the rumors sweeping
the neighborhoods, you'd think they're planning to build a toxic waste
dump with the full intent of poisoning the population. Not that anyone
around here works for Amoco, Shell, Mobil, Dow or any other chemical company,
mind you.
I wonder if the west side would trade Carbotek for Katy Mills?
Katy City Council has moved to forestall what could have been
the next big issue — sexually oriented businesses moving out of the City
of Houston and into outlying areas — by passing an ordinance spelling out
some pretty severe restrictions on where and how such businesses can operate,
with the intent of making it impossible for them to locate in the City
of Katy.
Nonetheless, you know that somehow, somewhere, one of the SOB's
will find a loophole in which it can work, and will attempt to move in
next door to a school, or a residential neighborhood, somewhere in Greater
Katy.
Wouldn't it be somewhat ironic to have The Purple Garter Gentleman's
Club joining the Chamber of Commerce, with its employees serving as volunteers
in the schools and sponsoring a booth at the Rice Harvest Festival every
year?
Just as long as they don't put it in MY backyard.