Is Keep Baytown Beautiful really doing anything?

BB's take: Keep Baytown Beautiful just had a great big "Gala" and handed out awards all over the place, with lots of high fives and back-slapping celebrating all kinds of accomplishments unrelated to making Baytown beautiful. "The Baytown Sun was awarded as Media of the year." Boy, I feel our city is more beautiful than ever and that award exemplifies making Baytown more beautiful, now doesn't it?

It was a major success according to the fact-based Baytown Sun. Baytown is surely cleaner and nicer than it was last year, right?

I went to their website, but it is down. You mean they had a great big event and their web site ain't workin'? I was looking for a great big list of all their projects and accomplishments (as they are not listed in the newspaper column) so I could applaud the organization.

I'll have to wait until an expert fixes the website to see what they have done, because frankly, I'm not really feeling it. Sure, I participate in the yearly Keep Texas Trash-off like many, but we need a monthly clean-up event that involves the whole city, like #TrashTag efforts going on across the planet.

One productive year from now at the next gala, they first need to interview 10 random people off the street and ask them in front of everyone in attendance to explain how Baytown is more beautiful than it was last year. If the average denizen of Baytown does not perceive that improvements have been made, this organization has not done their job.

It is what it is folks. Boots on the ground is what this city needs. It needs the average citizen educated and involved. It will take an entire city to shift their perception and become proactive. To John and Joan Q. Smith, hosting big shindigs with lots of awards is just more bureaucrats awarding each other and passing smoke for real work. When I see EVIDENCE of KBB's efforts on a regular basis, then and only then will I think the organization’s leadership is paying more than lip service to the community.  #KeepBaytownBeautiful

80,000 people and growing!

Holy all that is sacred! We now have over 80,000 warm bodies to bump into every time we swagger across town! That extra 15,000 from 1980 days sure makes a difference and if my predictions are correct, we are going to see a whole lot more people (and each one of them will try to be on Garth Road at the same time) in the next 4 years. It’s guestimated that at least 20,000 more cruise into the city during the day by undisclosed secret sources which I alone (and probably Jim Finlay) am privy to.

The good news is the City is planning to 6-lane Garth Road and then it will only be about as crowded as it is right now. I want to applaud the city planners in that they are really making a go of getting more roads and connecting parking lots so those of us who like to avoid all of that, can get around a bit better. Of course you have to factor in the parking lot missile cars.

By the time most of are reading this column, the SPAC (the Imagine Baytown People) will be huddled over a huge stack of surveys trying our level best to make a recommendation to the city of what we, the citizens want here in the next 5 years. Now this subject has came up numerous times in social media about it not meaning a danged thing and no one will listen and it confuses and yes, angers me a bit when I have to stress just the opposite.

This ain’t Washington DC honey where they ask for input and then do what they danged well please. This is small town big town Baytown and they, our city council want to know what the citizens want and have given everyone ample time to state those desires.

When Nick Woolery told me the Mayor wanted me on this committee, I made it clear that my biggest concern was family amenities and making Baytown a better place to raise kiddos and nothing has changed in that department. I care very little about new stores, motels, storage facilities, car washes, etc, etc. I want more places to take kids and get out doors and enjoy life here.

We need better and more unique Parks, like the one in the Heights called Donavan Park.  People drive miles to take their children there and it’s free. We don’t need more cookie cutter parks, which look the same as all the other ones in Anytown, USA. Geeze, let’s use our imagination on this. We have waterways that are not being developed and we have a lot of them. We need to push the wide sidewalk plans where cyclists can ride their bikes around the city and shed some of the fat that we get from the many new restaurants.

Captain Jerry Jones of the Cedar Bayou Friends is doing his part in planning the second annual Cedar Bayou Voyager event on October 15^th and has enlisted the help of Southeast Texas Geocachers (under the expert assistance of Army Colonel (Ret.) Lee Ann Adams.  Of course I will be there representing the Texas Geocaching Association.  Jerry and I go all the way back to the Vietnam War when were both stationed on the same base.

Calypso Cove just about breaks even money wise (according to my other secret sources) and based on how many people use it, I think we need a second one on the north side of I-10 and no, not on Garth road! These water parks are awesome and if you haven’t taken your kiddos to one, try it and see.  I counted 4 lifeguards the last time I was there and all of them were taking their job seriously.

We need more businesses and clubs organizing quarterly Adopt a Site programs to give back to the community and help their members and employees bend over and remove litter. Hey, don a shirt with your business name on it and go down a street and see if that doesn’t advertise your business like no other way. Eleanor Albon will hug you until you are blue in the face, I promise. I enjoy her hugs every time I see her.

Kathy Nelson and her husband are putting Keep Baytown Beautiful on the map with their Beautiful Business of the Week award program and I salute the pair. That is a lot of work to scout out these places, take time for a photo Op, and then go back and retrieve the sign.

Litter abatement is a real problem here as everywhere and the reason for it is many people still believe throwing trash out the window of their car is a good way to keep the inside clean. I ran a test one week on Blue Heron Parkway and each day for one week at close to the same location, I picked up a Nature Valley Granola bar wrapper.  Now I don’t know how long it took that person to eat it after they left home, but they were very consistent in when it went out the window.

I can’t prove it, but I suspect this person has never participated in a single trash bash in their entire life.  Am I a trash bash expert?  No, but here it is nearly August and I have been in one every month this year.

Texas Avenue is coming along as is the Yepez Vineyard and Baytown is making strides to get a geocaching Geotour under the expert eye of Anna Enderli, so we are making progress.  Now, if we can only get the naysayers to see some sunshine and offer suggestions over criticisms, we will be well on our way to making Baytown a city on the move.
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Don’t Mess With… Baytown?

 When our esteemed Mayor DonCarlos said Baytown has a litter problem, I took it with a grain of empty plastic water bottle.  Its not like I didn’t believe him, I just didn’t think it was the mentality of many people to litter in 2014.  Not in Baytown anyway.  Didn’t we stop doing that, like, 30 years ago?

Well.  Shut the front door; he was right.  It’s not like I don’t trust his judgment; I do.  Heck, I voted for him as Mayor at least 10 times so far, maybe more now that I think about it.  It’s just that until I experienced it first hand, I had no idea it was anything more than stuff blowing out of the back of a pick-em-up truck, or maybe a shopping cart.

I remember when he said it I saw a bunch of trash in the field south of Home Depot and told myself trash and litter was relegated to places like this – and why didn’t the store owners clean it up?  I can say this and not be self-righteous and that statement right there stinks of self-righteousness doesn’t it – but it’s true just the same.

This year alone, I’ve participated is 7 trash bashes.  The city had a big one at Bergeron Park on the 18^th, but I was at an event in Livingston (and yes, we picked up trash) and missed it and the Baytown Photo club has about 4 a year out on Tri-City Beach Road.  By the way, I need to attend the next one.  Heck, I even went over to Beaumont to attend what Geocachers call a CITO, or Cache In Trash Out event and picked up trash on 2 miles of highway there.  So am I being self righteous when I get miffed over tossed garbage?

I can’t say for sure if that giggly happy fellow in the Facebook photos at the Bergeron Park clean-up was Scott Sheley, but it probably was.  I didn’t see any donuts though, so maybe not.  Picking up other peoples trash is hard work and requires stamina and thus the donuts, kolaches, and of course – Gatorade or some other high-powered salty drink.  I’m a BRAWNDO man myself, because it has electrolytes, so an army of trash picker uppers deserve their food.

I’ve come to the conclusion that trashy people with no conscience or ecological awareness are those who unroll their car or truck window and throw out that great big bag of fast food refuse.  They might also belong to the same group who chug a bottle of Thunderbird or a half-pint of Old Granny and toss it onto the spanking new Blue Heron Parkway median.

Because I walk it with one or two empty grocery bags and pick up the constant resupply of litter, I know for a certainty that it is NOT the many people texting as they drive that I observe, as they simply don’t have enough hands to toss trash while they mindlessly peck away on their Smartphones that often are as large as a Whataburger samich was 30 years ago.

Until I saw the daily water bottles, food wrappers, beer cans and (gasp) a used condom on the trail around the detention pond at Blue Heron Park and the long trail running behind Chaparral Village, I thought it was only refuse blowing out of cars.  Now I know otherwise.  What perplexes me the most is that health conscious rational thinking people, walking for exercise, would casually drop their water bottles, only to see them the next day and drop more.

Kathy Nelson is a Board member of Keep Baytown Beautiful and has contacted me.  Their mission is to work within our community to strive for excellence in making Baytown a cleaner, brighter place to live and play.  I like this and there is hardly a day goes by that I don’t pick up trash in this town, so I fit in with this philosophy real good.

The bottom line is trashy people dump their trash on the ground everywhere they go and those of us that don’t like to live in filth, pick it up.  If you are a person who throws everything out the window of your car, please stop it.  Thank you.

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