Emmett: MUDs should consider incorporation or annexation

Says County can’t do the job

David Crossley, Jul 27, 09.

“In subdivisions you have municipal utility districts that provide water and sewer but those package treatment plants are beginning to wear out and who is going to replace them,” asks Harris County Judge Ed Emmett. “More importantly think of your streets in front of your house [with] concrete curb and gutters. MUDs don’t have the authority to repair streets.” Emmett’s solution: incorporate or be annexed by Houston. Emmett’s comments to Northwest Harris County were reported in a Houston Community News story.

Speaking to Northwest Harris County community members during the National Small Business week luncheon, Emmett said that if northwest Harris County would like to stay out of Houston’s annexation plan, residents would need local legislators to pass laws in Austin, similar to the governance agreement reached between Houston and The Woodlands, according to the article.

Emmett said the repairs could fall on the county, which does not currently have the money for those types of improvements. “The county does a good job on roads and ditches, but we’re not in the subdivision street business,” Emmett said. “If we would get into that business there is going to be a cost involved.” [On Tuesday, Harris County Commissioners will vote on whether to spend more money on the nearly $5 billion Grand Parkway project, and also whether to pay for a financial viability study of Segment E, four months after the first contracts were awarded for that part of the Parkway. To date, Harris County has spent almost $22 million on engineering contracts for the project.]