Damaging Audio Tapes May Derail Galveston Bay Oyster Deal

DAMAGING AUDIO TAPES MAY DERAIL GALVESTON BAY OYSTER DEAL

April 14, 2015

A year ago this week the Chambers Liberty County Navigation District virtually gave away 23,000 acres of Galveston Bay, a deal that gave hometown powerbrokers a monopoly over the lucrative oyster industry.

Now audio tapes of the April 15, 2014 meeting in Anahuac have been obtained by Dolcefino Consulting and they prove the word “oyster” wasn’t mentioned, even once.

“Now everyone can understand why fisherman all along the coast are screaming foul. No one at that meeting would have known this was an oyster grab”, says Dolcefino Consulting President Wayne Dolcefino.

The agenda for the April 15, 2014 meeting must be posted in accordance with state law. The agenda on the CLCND website doesn’t even mention the state’s natural resources were up for grab.

Under the heading Navigation, the item states “receive, review and execute lease with STORM Inc.” A review of the minutes show oysters aren’t mentioned. And now a review of the audio tape of the meeting confirms the word oyster was never even uttered.

S.T.O.R.M. stands for Sustainable Texas Oyster Resource Management. The company was created just a few weeks before it got the special deal offered to no other company.

“Taxpayers should be outraged. Half the bay bottom is given away for a song without any meaningful negotiation or competition”, says Dolcefino Consulting President Wayne Dolcefino. “Now we all know why they were hiding the ball.”

In February, the CLCND first decided to lease bay bottom for oyster production. The agenda for that meeting also didn’t mention oyster production. The CLCND conducted no independent studies and has no one on staff that has any expertise on oysters. Days after that vote the company S.T.O.R.M was created, but e-mails make it clear owners of that company already had the monopoly sewed up and the April vote was simply a rubber stamp.

STORM is run by Chambers Justice of the Peace Tracy Woody and his father in law Ben Nelson, longtime friend of Chambers County Judge Jimmy Sylvia. Nelson and Woody made hundreds of thousands of dollars in contracts after Hurricane Ike that were authorized by the Judge, providing ice trucks that billed taxpayers even several months after the storm. A review of Sylvia’s calendar show some weekend appointments identified only as “Nelson”. Chambers County appoints two members of the Chambers Liberty County Navigation District.

STORM is now spending tens of thousands of dollars on lobbyists in Austin trying to get a law to validate this controversial lease, far more than they paid to control half the ground under Galveston Bay.

For more information contact Dolcefino Consulting.