The Baytown Sun (Baytown, Tex.), Vol. 79, No. 241, Ed. 1 Wednesday, July 25, 2001 Page: 1 of 14
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WEATHER
Partly cloudy with a
20 percent chance of
rain. High mid-90s,
low mid-70s.
PAGE2A
BUSINESS
Pay faster
State insurance official
proposes quicker pay for docs
PAGE 7A
COMMUNITY
Postponed
Baytown man’s murder
trial is placed on hold
PAGE 6A
SPORTS
He’s rollin’
Derryberry makes
drag racing mark
PAGE IB
Sfoptoton Bun
SINCE 1922
WEDNESDAY
July 25, 2001
Volume 79 No. 241
Baytown, Texas
www.baytownsun.com
50 cents
What’s in a street address?
Everything if you need to be located
By MJl BENGTSON
Staff writer
Addresses on homes and businesses are
as distinctive as the people who live and
work in those structures.
The primary function for addresses — a
means of identification so friends, cus-
tomers and emergency responders can find
people — is just the beginning.
In the business world, where image and
visibility are everything, the architecture
has been designed to establish a “look”
which customers easily recognize and to
which they will respond — McDonald’s
with its golden arches, Kentucky Fried
Chicken with its colonel. A specific num-
bered address is an afterthought, or is
required by city ordinances or codes.
Residential identification runs the gamut
from large to small to plain to fancy — as
diverse as the people who live there.
Driving the streets of Baytown’s residential
sections is a profile in personalities.
See ADDRESSES on Page 2A
Photo by MA Bengtson
Address numbers can be accidentally hidden a variety of ways, includ-
ing landscaping.
Sultis
to live
here
New superintendent
will sell residence in
Gear Lake and move
By MELISSA RENTERIA
Staff writer
New Goose Creek school dis-
trict superintendent Barbara
Sultis said being a part of the
community is vital to leading
Baytown’s schools.
“I think it’s important for the
person leading Goose Creek to
live in Baytown,” said Sultis,
who bought a house in Clear
Lake last December before
applying for the superintendent
job.
There is no state law requir-
ing superintendents to reside in
their school districts; however,
as a condition of, her employ-
ment as Goose Creek superin-
tendent, Sultis is required to
reside in the school district.
Sultis said she has spent
much of her time in Baytown
since her superintendent tenure
began on July 3, staying at her
parents’ house rather than com-
muting from Clear Lake.
“With the late nights and
early mornings, it’s just more
convenient,” she said.
Sultis said she has maintained
her parents’ home as her perma-
nent address since she moved
from Baytown in the early
1980s, enabling her to vote in
local elections.
However, that does not com-
ply with contract conditions and
Sultis has six months from the
date of her employment to com-
ply, board President Jepp Busch
said.
“She will eventually move to
Baytown and make it her
home,” he said.
Sultis said she understands
the need to live and be a part of
See SUUIS on Page 2A
Making room
Photo by MA Bengtson
Like a mechanical T-Rex at feeding time, the operator opens the hungry “jaws" of the machinery to
lift mangled pieces of the old Baytown Wal-Mart store into piles of debris to be hauled away.
Demolition of the old building began on Monday along Garth Road. The space will make way for more
parking and landscaping that will surround the new Supercenter which opened on July 18. The
Supercenter is located behind the site of the old store.
Hearing set
on Baytown
taxing plan
TDRZ proposal indudes renovation
of mall and extending infrastructure
By MELISSA RENTERIA
Staff writer
Baytown taxpayers this week
can have their say about a pro-
posed $19.5 million mall rede-
velopment plan which can be
funded by a financing tool
available for government enti-
ties to attract development to
the area.
A public hearing on the pro-
posed Tax Increment
Reinvestment Zone begins at
6:45 p.m. Thursday- at City
Hall, 2401 Market St.
A TIRZ allows taxing entities
to build specific capital infra-
structure improvements by
pooling property tax dollars
collected from a designated
area. A base value is established
for the TIRZ and as the area
develops and increases in value,
the difference in the two is
called the incremental increase.
The fcity is required to have a
public hearing before adopting
an ordinance creating a TIRZ.
At the hearing, an interested
person may speak for or against
the creation of the zone, its
boundaries, or the concept of
tax increment financing.
The proposed TIRZ area
includes a segment northwest
of the intersection of Interstate
10 and Garth Road and vacant
land south and west of the mall,
a total of about 350 acres.
The base value for the pro-
posed area is $50 million, with
a projected value of $180 mil-
lion, city officials said.
To qualify as a TIRZ, an area
must be in need of redevelop-
ment or in a position to expand
economic development.
The proposed TIRZ plan
At a glance
The proposed TIRZ
area includes a segment
northwest of the
intersection of Interstate
10 and Garth Road and
vacant land south and
west of the mall, a total
of about 350 acres. The
base value for the
proposed area is $50
million, with a projected
value of $180 million,
city officials said.
includes renovating San Jacinto
Mall and extending the infra-
structure within the designated
boundaries of the TIRZ to help
keep development in the city
instead of losing it to suburban
areas.
“The mall is an amenity that
can draw others to the area,”
said David Hawes, of Hawes
Hill & Associates of Houston,
TIRZ investment advisors hired
by the city.
In a TIRZ agreement, the up-
front investment comes from
the developer, and the incre-
mental increase in value can be
used to repay the developer.
“The developer stands to lose
the most in a TIRZ,” Baytown
City Manager Monte Mercer
said.
If a developer is successful in
raising the property tax value
within a TIRZ, then he creates
the ability for his reimburse-
ment, Hawes said.
The risk factors for partici-
See PROPOSAL on Page 2A
INSIDE
Business.........7A
Classifieds .......4B
Comics..........3B
Community.......6A
Obituaries ........3A
Opinion..........4A
Police Beat.......6A
Sports ..........IB
Television........68
LOTTERY
Tuesday drawings
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State redistricting board approves Senate plan
Redistricting Board approved pushed through Cornyn’s House
redistricting plans heavily plan 3-2.
Plans favor GOP
in House, Senate;
panel’s vote is 3-2
By KELLEY SHANNON
The Associated Press
AUSTIN — Three of the
state’s highest-ranking
Republicans voted together
Tuesday as the Legislative
favoring the GOP in the House
and Senate.
The panel adopted Land
Commissioner David
Dewhurst’s Senate plan on a 3-2
vote, with Republicans
Dewhurst, state Comptroller
Carole Keeton Rylander and
Attorney General John Cornyn
voting in favor.
The same Republican bloc
Acting Lt. Gov. Bill Ratliff,
also a Republican, and House
Speaker Pete Laney, the lone
Democrat on the panel, voted
against the legislative plans that
were adopted.
Ratliff, who presides over the
Senate, had favored his own
Republican-leaning plan for
that chamber.
Dewhurst said he felt his
Senate plan was better than one
by Rylander that would have
meant a “massive dislocation of
incumbents.”
“At the end of the day, it was
not only in the people’s best
interest but in the best interest
of the 31 senators,” he said.
The plan could give
Republicans 21 seats.
Republicans now hold a 16-15
edge in the Senate.
In the House, Democrats hold
a 78-72 advantage. But
Cornyn’s plan could give, the
GOP as many as 88 seats.
Tempers erupted and names
were called as Democrats and
Republicans alike complained
about the state House and
Senate redistricting proposals.
The testimony before the board
was about assorted redistricting
plans, some of which were
See BOARD on Page 2A
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Cash, Wanda Garner. The Baytown Sun (Baytown, Tex.), Vol. 79, No. 241, Ed. 1 Wednesday, July 25, 2001, newspaper, July 25, 2001; Baytown, Texas. (https://texashistory.unt.edu/ark:/67531/metapth1176570/m1/1/: accessed July 18, 2024), University of North Texas Libraries, The Portal to Texas History, https://texashistory.unt.edu; crediting Sterling Municipal Library.