(Seguin) — The city of Seguin wants to be part of the solution to save Meadow Lake. The Seguin City Council on Tuesday reached a consensus to allow staff to proceed with assisting the Meadow Lake Nolte Dam Association with its efforts to reach an agreement with GBRA to allow repairs to be made to the dam.
It was almost exactly four years ago that the dam failed on Lake Dunlap, which set off a series of reactions designed to figure out a way to work with GBRA to preserve all of the hydroelectric lakes along the Guadalupe River. Since that time, water control improvement districts (WCID) were formed along lakes Dunlap, McQueeney, and Placid. All three have reached agreements with GBRA to repair those dams. Meadow Lake also has a WCID, but what they don’t have is the high density of property owners along the lake. There are roughly 120 homeowners on Meadow Lake, which makes it more difficult for them to reach a solution for the dam repair and future maintenance.
The council’s support for their work further supports the work already done by city staff. City Manager Steve Parker has been a big part of the discussions between the folks on Meadow Lake and GBRA. Parker says he wanted the council to offer a clear direction to staff, because the city may need to spend a little bit of money to help this process continue to move forward.
He says there’s a $25,000 expenditure that will help the group reach an agreement with GBRA and then take a proposal to their property owners to establish the tax rate to help fund any of the necessary improvements.
“The last piece of the puzzle really is trying to come up with a firm number that GBRA feels comfortable with and an acceptable solution. If we’re able to get that, then I think we may have the opportunity to continue the negotiations. I think the goal would be to call an election for the WCID debt issuance or debt rate at a November election to see if the community in Meadow Lake would be amenable to those higher taxes. They would be funding the large majority of that. But is there a difference there, that the city needs to step up with in the future to make that whole project go? And (also) how it will be operated and maintained,” said Steve Parker.
Councilman Paul Gaytan represents the Meadow Lake area, and he was a big proponent of the city helping where it could. Gaytan says this is an important community asset that should be protected. He says there’s a clear financial impact on the community, but he says the potential impact would go well beyond that if the lake is left without the necessary repairs.
“This affects the property values. It affects the environment. (There are) serious environmental (concerns). It also affects our recreation and tourism. You know, tax dollars that we get from people that kayak there, that fish there and use it for recreational reasons. But this is (also) a lake that flows through the city of Seguin. When you see it at (State Highway) 123 and see it intersecting with TOR Drive — and you look over that bridge, you’re going to see at least half the water gone. That is not the message that we want to be sending to people that are coming to see our beautiful community,” said Gaytan.
Gaytan’s comments were echoed by several representatives from the lake association and Meadow Lake WCID No. 1.
Tess Coody-Anders is a downtown business owner, whose Pecan Town Books & Brews recently won the city’s Downtowner of the Year Award. She’s also a Meadow Lake resident and a member of the WCID board of directors. She says they believe they have a solution to this problem, and this additional support from the city will help them keep that momentum going. Coody-Anders again stressed that this is important to everyone in Seguin and not just those who live along the lake. She says there’s potentially a much broader impact on this community.
“We’re approaching developing a solution for Meadow Lake. We are not just thinking about it as residents, but we’re thinking about it as Seguin residents because what we know is that this lake is not just ours as residents. It’s ours as a community. If we fail to find a solution, there will be real and dramatic impacts to the entire community through impact to tax revenue and depression of the economic stimulus that the chilling effect that would have on spending in our community if we don’t improve the lake. Not to mention the cultural impact (it will have). It is a point of pride. It is a recreational site for our community and it’s ours in Seguin, right? It’s not somewhere else. It’s here in Seguin. It’s at the heart of what we do,” said Coody-Anders.
The council was clearly empathetic towards the need to save the lake, but council members also asked questions that were on the minds of many folks who don’t live on the lake. Councilman Chris Rangel asked about public access to the lake. Staff pointed out that Meadow Lake, unlike some of the other hydroelectric lakes in the area, does offer public access points, including two put-in points in Max Starcke Park. Councilman Jim Lievens says he’s now more comfortable with the city being a part of the solution for Meadow Lake. He says that situation is unique, because of the small number of homeowners along the lake, but it’s also unique because it flows through such a large part of the city of Seguin. He says there’s good reason for the city to be involved, even if it’s just a small bit of funding at this time. He says preserving all of the lakes is important to this community, but he says there are some legitimate reasons for the city to be more involved here.
“One of the major property owners along that lake is the city of Seguin. Meadow Lake and Lake Seguin are right in the heart of old Seguin, or traditional Seguin. So yes, the economic impact from all of the lakes (matters), but those are right here in town. In some ways, I can now, at least in my mind, I can separate those two. To your questions, Chris, I think they were very important. It offers more public access than probably what you can get at some of the other area lakes. I think it’s important for our citizens, and those who choose to benefit from them,” said Lievens.
One story was shared during Tuesday’s council meeting that demonstrated one of the potential threats, should the lake not be saved. Doug Parker has lived on the lake since the 1980s and he told the story about an encounter he recently had with someone just as the lake was about to be lowered.
“You guys need to get out of here. They’re lowering the dam today. It’s dangerous. And they didn’t believe me. (They said) ‘we’ve been coming here for years…your area has those beautiful, primitive alligator gar.’ And I said yes, I see them all the time and I catch them and I put them back. And they said ‘We always bring another guest with us in the hopes of catching one of those alligator gars, so we come to your place all the time.’ So I told him what was happening, and he said: ‘We’ve been doing this for six years three or four times a year. We will not be back,’” said Doug Parker.
The council took no formal action on the request. The city is going to pay the $25,000 needed to move the process forward and potentially allow the lake group to reach an agreement with GBRA. Once that agreement is in place, the WCID would need to call an ad valorem tax election by August. If things proceed as planned, that item would likely appear on the November ballot. The city stressed that this was just a small way for the city to financially participate in this part of the process and that the bulk of the funding would have to come from the property owners on Meadow Lake.