On Friday September 17th The State of Forney reported that the Bellagio development agreed to provide a parcel of land for a future city facility that previous City Council had planned to be a south-side fire station, at no cost to Forney taxpayers. An email conversation received by The State of Forney via a public records request (see link below) showed the disinterest from Forney City Council member Amanda Lewis in an attempt by the Bellagio developer to introduce themselves to the incoming City Council. Prior to the emails sent by the developer, several “projects” were listed on City Council agendas to be discussed in Executive Session. One of the projects included the purchase of land for a future fire station site.
Friday evening Amanda Lewis replied publicly to The state of Forney’s article claiming “The inaccuracies in this presentation are so blatant that I am compelled to respond and lay out the facts.” However, she goes on to confirm the article as stated. See her reply below.
“The inaccuracies in this presentation are so blatant that I am compelled to respond and lay out the facts.
A) Regarding the insinuation that I would not meet with Megatel, I received an email request from them and responded via email as follows (Email from Amanda Lewis on July 15th @ 4:30 PM):
“Good afternoon, Steve. Thanks for reaching out. I, as well as other City Council members share an unfavorable view of the variances to the City ordinances you obtained for your project – in particular, lot and dwelling sizes, as well as the inclusion of more multi-family housing. Your planned community and its proposed density is increasingly unpopular with the city’s residents. Our current Council is now dealing with overwhelmed roads and infrastructure in a construction boom that has exceeded the City’s capabilities.
If you would still like to meet, I could try to arrange a mutually-acceptable time with our City Manager, Charles Daniels, please note that we have just begun to formulate a more accurate and needed city-wide strategic plan for future land use, infrastructure, commercial etc. Until that plan is matured by the City Council as a whole, and our future development ‘road map’ is clearer, several on the City Council (including me) are generally opposed to such planned developments. Thanks”
In turn, Charles Daniels (interim City Manager) and I met with Megatel at 10:00 AM on August 10th, where they presented their concept and timeline.
A) Within the Development Agreement with Megatel, the only reference to any fire station is in the section on dedicated ‘Public Facility.’
12.4 Public Facility Site.
‘Developer and City may select a mutually agreeable site for conveyance to the City at no cost for the sole purpose of providing City public facilities of benefit to the Property (the “Public Facility Site”). Upon conveyance of such Public Facility Site, Developer may apply an equivalent acreage to the Public Facility Site as a credit to any parkland required by this Agreement or City ordinance. The Developer is under no obligation to convey the Public Facility Site, and failure to convey or select a Public Facility Site shall not constitute a default under this Agreement.’
There has been no further discussion with Megatel regarding the fire station with any city official or me, personally. They have sent no offers, no designs, nor any locations to be discussed. The developer has stated they are not at that stage yet in their development.
The City is looking for the best property for a fire station on the south side of the tracks, which is the area of highest need. Key staff members, collaborating with committee(s), will continue to work toward selecting the site of the fire station. This is a safety issue and needs to be addressed promptly. Whether or not it ends up in a neighborhood or a city-owned separate piece of property remains to be seen.
C) For everyone’s information, Megatel will present the Lagoon and amenities site plan to P&Z on October 7th.
D) I have met with every developer who has approached me on behalf of the city and will continue to represent Forney as a whole and not special interest groups.
E) With regard to the author’s statements about the range in home sizes and values, it is important to understand that no home plans and sizes have been submitted yet to the city. In fact, only Phase I has been approved at this time, which includes the following lot sizes:
– 8 lots (min lot size = 7,750 sq. ft) – 0.1779 acres
– 78 lots (min lot size = 6,250 sq. ft) – 0.1434 acres – 251 lots (min lot size = 5,000 sq. ft) – 0.1148 acres”
There are some pieces of her quote above that are in bold that may need further context. As for the insinuation that Ms. Lewis would not meet with Megatel, that insinuation was never made, as seen at the link to the original article below. The insinuation is that Ms. Lewis appeared to have no desire to meet with the developer as shown in her email conversation, confirmed in her reply, and shown at the link below, as well as her push to spend taxpayer money to purchase a site elsewhere instead. Also, as you can see, as stated in the original article, Ms. Lewis speaks for “other City Council members” in her email conversation and confirms the language in the Development Agreement (See bottom of page 13 of file below) stating that a mutually agreed upon parcel of land would be conveyed to the City of Forney, and then goes on to say ” There has been no further discussion with Megatel regarding the fire station with any city official or me, personally.” To end her reply she continues to try and discredit the article she’s already confirmed and further talks negatively about the development, only citing the first phase of the Bellagio. Ms. Lewis also states ” The city is looking for the best property for a fire station on the south side of the tracks, citing a safety issue that needs to be addressed promptly. Meanwhile, the Forney Fire Department continues to boast an ISO 1 Rating, as stated on the Forney EDC website as one of only 180 fire departments nationwide and 52 in the state of Texas. Whether Amanda Lewis and the rest of City Council elects to take Bellagio up on their offer or to waste taxpayer money remains to be seen.
Original Article: https://thestateofforney.wpcomstaging.com/2021/09/17/bellagio-forney-offered-land-for-fire-station-but-forney-mayor-not-interested/
Email Conversation:
Development Agreement: