Reefmonkey

Every year HCAD tries to raise my market value from $285K to $323K, even though my house is nearly identical to most of the other houses on my street, which are in the mid to upper 200s, and every year I have successfully fought them through the ARB until this year. It is not just that I lost this year, but the actions of appraisers and ARB members that have me furious. On May 25,2012 at 10 AM I had an informal meeting with appraiser Alex T. Ton. As soon as the meeting started, Ton immediately spoke first, saying “no matter what the outcome of this meeting, your tax bill won’t change this year.” I pressed for more information, and he continued to say “even if we lower your market value, you will pay the same amount in taxes this year.” I had to continue to argue with him before he then said “because the difference between your market and appraised value is less than 10%, if I reduce your market value, your taxes won’t go down.” I pressed him for more clarification, and he explained (what I already knew) that my tax bill is based on my appraised value, not the market value, so if he lowered the market value, the appraised value would not change. That of course would only be true if I were arguing for a new market value between the current market value and the current appraised value. However, as Ton already knew, I was arguing for a fair market value well below the current appraised value, so his statement did not apply. His comments demonstrated: Ton was obviously and deliberately attempting to discourage and intimidate me before I had even presented my evidence. Ton had already prejudicially decided that he was not under any circumstances going to lower my market value below my appraised value, even before he had heard any of my evidence. Ton was also wasting the short time that I had to present my evidence by giving unclear and misleading information On June 21, 2012, at 8:00 AM, I had my ARB hearing. ARB members were Verdean Newton, Doris Butler, and Pauline Newman. The appraiser’s last name was Johnson. The hearing was uneventful until after the appraiser gave his testimony and it was my turn to reply. The appraiser had claimed that a comparable property I had highlighted was not in my neighborhood, and I was explaining he was in error, that the owner and resident of that property serves with me on the board of our neighborhood’s homeowner’s association. At that point the head of the ARB panel interrupted me and started defending what he said. She was out of order for interrupting me when I had the floor, rather than waiting until I was finished, a breach of procedure. She was also taking up my time to talk. Both her eagerness to interrupt me and her actively arguing the appraiser’s position for him show that she was not being impartial as she is required to be, she actively took HCAD’s side in the discussion. When the ARB were deliberating on the value of my home, Doris Butler stated “I voted to keep the HCAD value, because the value went down last year.” This statement was in error. In 2011, my market value was $285,000, in 2012 it is $323,491, so it actually went up. I raised my hand to point out this crucial error on which she was basing her entire decision (which I had already presented in my evidence), and the head of the ARB very rudely said “YOU have NOTHING more to say.” I tried to further explain, she would not even give me a chance. I think it is interesting to look up the makeup of the ARB members. I looked up their appraisal values on HCAD.org. Butler Doris 3025 DREW ST # 1. 2011 Value: $43,850. 2012 Value: $43,850 Bulter Doris 5423 MADDEN LN. 2011 Value: $48,572. 2012 Value: $38,217 Newman Pauline 943 S VICTORY DR. 2011 Value: $30,023. 2012 Value: $25,000 Newton Verdeen 11963 CONIFER SPRINGS CT. 2011 Value: $81,535. 2012 Value: $72,726 These were all the listings I could find on the HCAD website corresponding to the names of the members of my ARB panel. If these are not the properties of the members of my panel, then that means the members of my panel are not homeowners in Harris County, and have no business deciding the property values of actual Harris County homeowners. If these are the panel members’ properties, that is concerning as well. These properties are all significantly below the average Harris County home price of $130,000. This isanexample of why these panel members are not representative of Harris County property owners and at the very least, should not be placed together in an ARB panel. This information leads me to believe that these members may have a bias against homeowners like me whose property value is significantly above theirs, assume that we are wealthy enough to weather any tax increase, no matter how arbitrary. I also noticed that all of these properties save the first (which has remained steady) have all gone down in value by at least 10% from last year.There seems to be an interesting correlation between being a member of the ARB and receiving a favorable tax appraisal. Last, I should point out that all the members of the ARB panel were women. All members of the ARB panel were African-Americans, as was the appraiser in the hearing. It seems very odd to me that in a county that is 58.7% white, 50% male, and the median home vale is $130,000, that such a group of people that were so very much NOT representative of the demographic of Harris County in their makeup would be put together. I filed complaints, the complaint against Ton is still being investigated. The ARB sent back a very perfunctory letter saying they investigated and there was no wrong doing - did not even specifically address my complaints or provide quotations of written procedure to justify itself. Basically, a form letter. I have fired back with another letter demanding all documentation of ARB's alleged "investigation" I am sick of it. I have started a blog where people can submit stories of misconduct by HCAD appraisers and ARB members, at HCADWallOfShame.wordpress.com, and I welcome anyone here who has had similiar experiences to submit their stories. I am also considering going to the media with this while I await the outcome of the HCAD investigation and an answer to my demand for documenation of ARB's investigation.

I always assumed that it was a comment about Houston being on the "bank" or coast of the Gulf, but I have found that there is a bank called Texas Gulf Bank, founded in 1913. Maybe the road was named for them?

Yeah, I already found that one.

I found a blog in the Houston Chronicle website talking about how there was once a mountain out there, popular with picnickers and naturalists, but it was razed about the turn of the last century. For a split second I thought "what the hell...?" then noticed the date of the blog was April 1, 2010.

I searched the archives for this, couldn't find a thread on this topic, so I was wondering, what's the story on "West Mount Houston Road" or the lesser talked about (on radio traffic reports) "East Mount Houston Road"? I imagine that there was once a town called "Mount Houston" that this road led to, but why would anyone name a place in flat old Harris County "Mount" anything? Anyone know the history?

Oh, I vaguely remember the pizza place you're talking about, I am pretty sure we had a soccer party there. I also remember tearing it up on my Murray BMX (circa 1982-1983 model) on the BMX track there. Good times. Do you remember East and West Strack roads, off Cypresswood Drive just west of Kuykendahl? A few little old houses on big wooded lots, roads so primitive they were almost dirt roads. Do you remember there being a legend about a guy having killed his family back there, and at night you could supposedly hear their ghosts' screams?

That's an interesting question, and a tough one to answer. Probably depends on your perspective. From my perspective, someone who was born in the area in the mid 70s, there were two periods that there seemed to be notable change. The first was during the early to mid 80s, just before the oil bust. That was the period when FM 1960 really exploded in growth. The growth of commerical development right along 1960 during that period was a good way to understand the development of the area, and this occured in an east-to-west direction, starting at I-45, and when the development reached 249, that was the end of that phase. I remember in the very early 80s, the bulk of the commercial development along 1960 only extended to Kuykendahl. Sure, there were little pockets of development here and there, like Cornerstone, or further west in Popolo Village, Champions Village and Champions Plaza, but there was a lot of undeveloped land in between these scattered developments. Back then, Northland Christian School, which isn't that far west of Kukendahl, looked like it was in the deep woods back then. During the early 1980s, before the opening of Willowbrook Mall, there was pretty much nothing out past Cutten Road, and it looked like you were out in the woods, 1960 was narrower then, too. At that time the last development was right before Cutten, on the right, I think it was either called Champions Plaza or Champions Village II, and it had a 2 or 3 screen movie theatre and the Shoe Box, a children's shoe store where we used to get our shoes. Oh, and back then, the Randalls flagship on Champion Forest Drive and 1960 actually had a fairly fancy cafe in an upstairs area with a balcony overlooking the store. Another interesting fact about that intersection, what is now the Sun and Ski Sports used to be a Sakowitz department store at one point. The next major phase, from my perspective, started in the late 90s. When I was in high school (I graduated in 94), Louetta Road was the boundary of suburban development, with the subdivisions that fronted the north side of Louetta being the last major developments, and none of them went through to Spring-Cypress, and beyond them it was mostly woods, farms, and countryside until you got to the Woodlands (especially west of Kuykendahl). Spring Cypress and 2920 were both rural roads, mixtures of dense woods and fields, with farmhouses (some going back to the late 1800s). It was a great place to drive around. North Eldridge Parkway between Grant Road and Cypress-North Houston was so undeveloped and wooded back when I was in high school, under the bridge where it crosses Cypress Creek was my girlfriend and my favorite makeout spot. We also called it "the Autobahn" because we imagined that it was like driving through the Black Forest, with all the dense, uncut pine forest that grew up within a few yards of the road. In the late 1990s, early 2000s, all three of these country roads became spans of treeless McMansion subdivisions and Kroger Signature-anchored strip centers. Of course, if you ask my parents, who moved to Cypresswood and Kuykendahl in 1970, the area was pretty well developed in the early 1980s, the time I remember it being so pastoral. My parents remember the early 70s, when the nearest grocery store was several miles to the east, the Eagle grocery store, at 1960 and Ella or Red Oak. Back then, FM 1960 was more commonly called Jack Rabbit Road, and had much pasturage. It wasn't uncommon to see coyote carcasses hanging on fence posts along the road, coyotes shot by ranchers and placed there to scare off others.

That looks right, because the hcad details say 11902 has a greenhouse, and there is a greenhouse right next to the log cabin, but I can't tell from the building details, which state a variety of "warehouses" built a variety of years from 1960 on. Somehow I can't imagine someone builing a log cabin warehouse in the 60s or later.

If there is one specifically on Greenspoint memories, it must have been buried deep, as I did a search before posting. A guy can only be expected to spend so much time sifting through old threads before deciding to start his own.

I have occasionally passed a building right at the intersection of Alief Clodine Road and South Kirkwood that has always intrigued me. It has obviously been there many years, and is a log cabin, though it looks like it was modernized at one point, with commericial-grade doors and windows put in (probably sometime between the late 60s and early 80s). A number is peeling off the street numbers, so I can't tell what number it actually is. I looked at it on Google Street view, and the number that is given for it there is not to be found on HCAD.org. I was wondering if anyone had any idea as to the story of this place?

Oh yeah, I remember that Hickory Farms store. I also remember seeing movies in the theatre in the mall, most memorably The Empire Strikes Back, but also probably ET and Return of the Jedi. Of course, my favorite movie of all time, Raiders of the Lost Ark, I saw at the I-45 drive-in (the only movie I ever saw at a drive-in). I agree, I don't think any more big closed air conditioned malls will be built in Houston. I think places like City Centre out here where Town and Country used to be, and La Cantera over in San Antonio, are the way things will be from now on.

I was brought home from the hospital as a newborn to my parents' house in Cypresswood in 1976, and lived there the first 9 years of my life. If you went to Haude Elementary, Benfer Elementary, or Strack Intermediate in the early through late 1980s, these are some places you might remember. The Del Taco on the southeast corner of Louetta and Kuykendahl. I remember their steak and cheese buritos with grilled onions fondly. I guess this California-based fast food chain didn't take, as I only remember them being open a few years. And what was that grocery store that was the anchor for the strip center that Del Taco was in the parking lot of? It wasn't "Minimax," was it? We never went to that grocery store, whatever it was, because our regular store was the Kroger right across the street, with the very greenhouse-looking glass overhead windows in the front. I remember in the early 80s, when we finally got a VCR, we used to rent movies from them. It also had a little cafe there in the store. The parking lot of that Kroger, at one time had one of those tiny little freestanding "Fox Photo" booths, that looked like a toll collection booth. In the Kroger strip center was a place I remember fondly: Rainbow Popcorn. They were open at least as late as the summer of 1984. They sold prepopped popcorn in all sorts of different flavors, such as sour cream and chives, pizza, as well as cheddar cheese, caramel, etc. You could also buy big metal cans that they would personalize for you, for special occasions. I remember my mom getting one for my older brother with a big red cougar on it to celebrate his "graduating" from Haude in 1984 and going on to Strack. Further south was Chef Chan's, a standalone chinese restaurant, in a really nice asian-style building on landscaped grounds. We used to go there a lot, as well as getting takeout from them. A little further south, and across the street on the northeast corner of Cypresswood Drive and Kuykendahl was a convenience store, Mr. M, which was about the only store my older brother was allowed to ride his bike to once he turned 10. Continuing south across Cypresswood, but staying on the same side of the street, was a low, brown strip center that had J. Christopher's Pizza, still stands in my memory as some of the best pizza, that super-thin crust pizza cut into squares. One of the few places I know of in Houston that makes pizza like that is Keneally's on Shepherd in town. Behind and also to the south of that strip center, going all the way down to Cypress Creek, it was all just untouched woods at that time, and all the boys in the neighborhood used to play in those woods all the time. There was a little muddy-water ravine in those woods, a tributary of Cypress creek, and my older brother and I made a boat out of wood from old coke bottle crates, which promptly sank as soon as we stepped into it. We used to catch crawdads, tadpoles, and little fish in there, too. In the late 80s to early 90s, the virgin woods were razed to put in patio homes and a Kelsey-Sebold clinic. On the other side of Kuyendahl, right on the creek, was an "upscale" restaurant that went by several names through the years, most of which I forget, but at one point in the 80s it was called "Classics After 6". I just looked it up to be sure that was the name and found an old ad for it in a Texas Monthly from 1989, being touted by Erin Gray of the Ricky Shroeder vehicle "Silver Spoons" (and the Buck Rogers TV series before that) http://books.google.com/books?id=Pi4EAAAAMBAJ&pg=PA190&lpg=PA190&dq=classics+after+six+kuykendahl&source=bl&ots=xsSFD2CR5Z&sig=ncDhkGH_k9z5T24kgYdpVnA3CV4&hl=en&ei=OojRTaeWN4m4twfI-oj2DQ&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=3&ved=0CCMQ6AEwAg#v=onepage&q=classics%20after%20six%20kuykendahl&f=false I also remember, on the east side of Kuykendal, a house right on the south bank of the creek, with a pond and a really cool pool. Shooting up back to the north, on Louetta just west of Kuykendahl was Strack Farms, a farmers market in an open air building, that actually sold some produce grown on site. Of course next door was the restaurant, which I think is still there. Next time I'm up visiting my parents, I may have to take my wife and kids there, see if the chicken fried steak is as good as I remember it. Since my wife is a Lyle Lovett fan, it won't take much convincing to get her to go to a place that was one of his favorite haunts.

Recently my mother mentioned taking me to the Greenspoint Mall grand opening when I was just 6 months old, and that got me reminiscing about the mall, which was our family mall until we moved west a little and Willowbrook became the nearest mall for us in 1986. Some of my sharpest memories: The waterfalls, especially the big waterfall area, with bridges that ran under the waterfall, with all sorts of little passages to walk through. My brothers and I used to love to run through this area. Always gave the mall a faintly "indoor swimming pool" smell. I guess some time in the late 80s or the 90s, with the decline of the mall's clientele, it became apparent that this was a security problem, a place for unsavory types to linger unseen, and was torn down. Foley's kids' shoe section, which had this "Star Wars/Battlestar Gallactica" play area, with periscope-like things you could look into showing space battle scenes, and "video screens" showing space scenes. I think there were buttons you could push while looking into the periscope-like things that would "fire" laser cannons. Looked very much like a set from inside a spaceship from the original Star Wars movie. Foley's upstairs, with its furniture section that was like a maze of rooms set up. A tobacco store, maybe called the Pipe Pub or the Tinder Box. Always smelled really good. A pet store, where my older brother and I got our first aquarium, a little 5-gallon glass one, with the pirate shipwreck, etc. Also had hamsters, gerbils, etc. Dalton's, which was a Bennigan's/TGIFriday's type of place, except instead of being on a pad site, it was actually inside the mall. Then across Greens Road from the mall was "Scooby Doo's Pipe Organ Pizza."

I came across a ludicrous-sounding claim that a Civil War battle was fought on land that is now part of Bear Creek park: http://www.hollowhill.com/tx/patterson2.htm The claim comes from a website on supposedly haunted places in Houston, which makes its claim even more dubious. And of course I could find nothing anywhere that would corroborate such a silly claim. I'm just curious if this is a complete and utter fabrication and nothing at all happened on the site, or is it instead some gross distortion of an event that did actually happen? For instance, I know that the land in question was once the site of a German settlement, and that Germans remained strongly Unionist during the Civil War, and some were killed for it. I believe there was some sort of massacre of German Unionists in the Hill Country at the beginning of the war. Could there have possibly been some kind of riot or skirmish between German farmers and other Texans who supported the CSA at this site? Anyone heard anything like that?

Since you've been in Walnut Bend for 25 years, I imagine you remember when the Target shopping center at Walnut Bend and Westheimer was called Westchase "Mall" because it had an airconditioned hallway leading from the Target to other stores. We talked about it at length here:

The Great Caruso, a dinner theatre place, was there forever, until it burned down in 2006. The Great Greek, a greek restaurant, was there for a long time, I think it closed down in the early 90s. If I remember correctly, it was on one of the pad sites, maybe where Outback Steakhouse is now.

I think the writer sat down and admitted, "....all I'm doing is putting out yet another Houston newsbabe list. How am I supposed to get any chatter going? That's it--I'll leave out the woman who is obviously # 1, not just by her extraordinary beauty, talent and class, but above all, her genuine kindness towards everybody around her...." Class? Seriously? Are you talking about the newsanchor who, 4 or 5 years ago, ran several weeks of "I've got a secret, and I will reveal it on the air", and then predictably informed the KPRC audience that she was pregnant. A journalist with "talent and class" would realize that she's there to report the news, not be the news!

She kinda sucked. A pretty face, but kinda sucked. KPRC has seemed lost for at least about 15 years. I miss the days when I was a kid, when you had Ron Stone on KPRC, Steve Smith on KHOU, and Dave Ward on KTRK. They all had gravitas as local anchors, and Steve Smith and Ron Stone were my favorites. Ward is the only one around anymore. KPRC seems to go for fluff, sensationalism, and superficiality. Bill Balleza is decent, but all of their other onscreen personalities are now picked for looks, and are complete airheads - Dominique Sachse, Lauren Freeman - blech. I remember about 4 or 5 years ago, Sachse's whole "I've got a secret" promo that lasted a few weeks before she predictably announced her pregnancy. How freaking narcissistic! Is she there to be a news anchor, to soberly and with credibility report the news to us, or is she there to promote herself, to be a local Paris Freaking Hilton? And that "Radar the Weather Dog" crap from right about the same time! Why should anyone take a station that pulls such asinine stunts seriously as a news source?

I don't know if this got reported here when it happened, I searched and did not see any mention, so I thought I would post it here just in case. Marty Ambrose, longtime traffic reporter for several local radio stations, as well as longtime actor in local theatre, died June 29th, from complications from ALS (Lou Gehrig's disease). He was a family friend. I didn't think to post this here at the time. http://abclocal.go.com/ktrk/story?section=news/local&id=7529048

So, does anyone have any stories about "Love Street Light Circus Feel Good Machine"? Other than the name, all I know is vague stuff I have heard about it being "the" psychadelic nightclub in Houston in the late 1960s, and it was located by Allen's Landing.

Can anyone tell me exactly where on Westheimer Channel 26's original location was?

It makes me want to get a weather station in my backyard and start collecting data from now on.

Well, I happened to stop by Flamingo Gardens, the huge palm tree nursery on BW8 and Hammerly, and noticed they were selling a lot of trees that were 10 to 11 hardiness zones, like the Christmas palm. judging from the size of the trees, I can't imagine they are all meant for indoors planting, some just could not be moved indoors in winter, and even while they are there at the nursery, there is no way they could be protected from a frost. just got me thinking about the whole thing.

I know that Houston falls into USDA Hardiness Zone 9a, which means our average annual low is between 30F and 20F. I was wondering, though - I imagine this low is for average lows through the whole area, but doesn't take into account microclimates, such as urban heat islands, etc. We all are familiar with local TV weathermen regularly telling us that a certain cold front or freeze advisory is only for those viewers living north of I-10, as well as Galveston generally being a little warmer in the winter than, say, out by Willowbrook Mall. Does anyone know of any data compiled that shows that inner loop Houston and nearby areas, and Galveston Island may actually be 9b, or even 10a?

They opened one right by my office (Westheimer and Tollway, and I've been there a few times. My coworkers are gaga about this place (though they live in Friendswood, so I think their dining standards are low). Their frenchfries are really good, but I don't think their burgers or chicken sandwiches are really anything special. Beck's Prime is much better.