Montgomery County officials’ trial shows impact of road flap
No road leads directly from the Montgomery County Courthouse in Conroe to the spot where Woodlands Parkway dead-ends at FM 2978. But the connection between the two places on the political map will be apparent when the criminal trial of two top county officials begins on March 27.
Opposition to a decades-old plan to extend the parkway west to Texas 249 is widely believed to have sunk a $350 million county road bond referendum in May 2015. The misdemeanor indictments of County Judge Craig Doyal and Commissioners Charlie Riley and Jim Clark allege that they violated the state open meetings law by talking privately with leaders of a tea party organization about details of a revised bond plan to submit to voters in November of that year. (Clark apparently will avoid a trial through an agreement with prosecutors.)
The new plan totaled $280 million and omitted the parkway extension. It passed easily with the blessing of the Texas Patriots PAC, the tea party group that had helped rally opposition to the first proposal.
A conviction of any of the three elected officials might lead to their removal from office and would certainly tarnish their political brands. But the trial is simply another example of the ripple effects of the dispute over the parkway extension, an issue that has dominated Montgomery County politics for the past two years.
This controversy helped lift the tea party group to a position of greater influence. It played a key role in the elections last November of three new members of The Woodlands Township governing board and the re-election of businessman Gordy Bunch, who became chairman. And it continues to be a focal point of tension between The Woodlands and the rest of the county.
How could a fight over a mere six miles of pavement have such far-reaching effects?
“I think several people used it as a hot potato to get people excited and to muster their own support,” said Mike Bass, a former township board member who was defeated last November by one of a slate of candidates who opposed the parkway extension. “It’s the kind of thing that can get a township board member elected,
or help a tea party that’s trying to get bigger influence over local politics.”
Indeed, few issues motivate suburban voters more effectively than traffic congestion, and opponents hammered away at the theme that the extension would draw thousands of motorists from points west through The Woodlands en route to Interstate 45. Traffic studies were wielded like bludgeons.
The project had been in the county’s major thoroughfare plan since 1979, but it moved closer to reality when officials began acquiring right of way in 2010. During a February 2015 meeting, township board member John McMullan suggested that the board oppose bond funding of any project that could harm the quality of life of Woodlands residents.
“Expansion of Woodlands Parkway to Texas 249 is an example of such a project,” McMullan said. “They would be asking our residents to spend their money on a project that they know will make the traffic worse.”
The board didn’t take a formal position at that meeting, but its opposition hardened over time and hasn’t wavered since the fall election.
Bass says the intensity of the campaign against the parkway extension reflects a sort of magical thinking on the part of Woodlands residents. They yearn for the days when their masterplanned community was a tranquil, residential one, even as they enjoy the economic benefits created by the development of shops and dining and entertainment venues.
“Every time we open a road outside The Woodlands — and I know of many examples — you’ll find a negative pushback that it’s going to increase traffic and crime,” Bass said. “If The Woodlands wanted to stay a bedroom bubble community, it should never have built The Woodlands Mall in 1994. It’s become a destination.”
And even though the parkway extension has been a major issue in recent elections in The Woodlands, it’s not clear that township leaders can stop the proposal or a recently proposed alternative that would extend west from FM 2978 but stop short of Texas 249.
Doyal, Riley, Clark and a fourth defendant, political consultant Marc Davenport, probably won’t be thinking about these broad themes when their trial begins. Each has maintained his innocence, but in a major development reported Monday by the Conroe Courier’s Catherine Dominguez, Clark has agreed to testify against the other defendants in exchange for a pretrial diversion — an arrangement that could lead to dismissal of the charge against him.
However the case turns out, leaders of Montgomery County and its largest community must find a way to reconcile their sometimes divergent interests. There will always be another road project for them to fight over.