Sugar Land City Councilman Russell Jones has accused Mayor David Wallace of reneging on a 2005 pledge to stay out of negotiations between the city and the developers of the Imperial Sugar redevelopment project.
Jones said he believes Wallace still is bound by that pledge, which has been referred to by council and city administrators as part of a “firewall” between the mayor and what may become Sugar Land’s biggest development project.
In a statement issued Wednesday, Wallace strongly disagreed with Jones’ characterization of events at recent council meetings, and said he has publicly asked council members “if they had any concerns with my involvement in this issue,” and “not a single one was expressed.”
In a statement he read at Tuesday night’s council meeting, just before the council voted to accept a general plan by project developer Cherokee Investment Partners, Jones said he noted that Wallace had, at a June 5 council meeting “proclaimed that he was no longer prohibited from participating in council discussions on matters related to the Imperial project.
“I find this announcement to be disturbing for numerous reasons,” Jones said. “This issue is important because it raises questions of ethics and the ability of the City Council to deal with ethical issues.”
Jones said Wednesday he was upset that the mayor “unilaterally announced that he’s back in the game” when no action has been taken by council to remove the mayor from the constraints of the Imperial firewall.
For his part, Wallace criticized Jones for going to the media with the issue when “I’d expect that if he had any real concerns he would pick up the phone and call me… My usual inclination is not to respond to such a vague and public accusation, but since he has brought my integrity into question, I am compelled to respond.”
At issue is the redevelopment of between 600 and 700 acres, some owned by Imperial Sugar Co. and some by the Texas General Land Office.
In February 2005, Cherokee Sugar Land LP announced it was negotiating with Imperial Sugar to buy the company’s shuttered refinery property as part of a commercial, retail and residential project. Cherokee Sugar Land is a limited partnership that, until late 2005, included W.C. Perry Land Development LP; Cherokee Investment Partners LP, of Raleigh, N.C.; and general partner Verturo Sugar Land, LP.
The February 2005 announcement reverberated through Sugar Land City Council, when it was revealed that Wallace had a business relationship with Will Perry of W.C. Perry Land Development, and had moved his offices into the same building as Perry’s.
In March of that year, Sugar Land City Manager Allen Bogard asked that the City Council in effect create a firewall – in the form of a development oversight committee – between Wallace and negotiations over development of the Imperial property and adjoining land.
To further persuade the public that there would be no impropriety between the tasks of serving as mayor and officing with a partner seeking assistance from the city in a real estate project, Wallace was asked by Bogard and the City Council to issue a public statement assuring he would have no involvement in the real estate project.
“The whole creation of the firewall was a council idea. The idea was, we would avoid any appearance of a conflict of interest,” Jones said.
At about the same time, the council developed an ethics ordinance, and under its provisions, “we could have conducted an investigation” of Wallace’s relationship with Perry and the Imperial project, he said. Among some members of the public, he added, “there was real concern we might have been doing the ethics ordinance because of Wallace.”
Wallace said in his Wednesday statement that, while Perry pursued the Imperial redevelopment project through one company he solely owned, Wallace and Perry became partners in a separate company “which had nothing whatsoever to do with the Imperial project.
“However, because potential existed for a perceived conflict of interest, I worked with the city manager and city council to create a structure that would prevent my participation in any discussions having to do with this project,” Wallace said. “As it turns out, in 2006 Will Perry and I ceased being partners.”
In late 2006, the two went through an acrimonious business break-up that culminated in a January lawsuit being filed against Wallace by Perry, followed by a counterclaim in which Wallace accused Perry of trying to scuttle his political career.
“On June 5, recognizing that the potential for the perception of a conflict of interest was no longer an issue, I asked council to consider allowing me to participate in discussions related to the Imperial redevelopment project,” Wallace said. “At this meeting, it was reaffirmed that I have not been, am not presently and will not be involved economically or otherwise in this project. ”
Jones acknowledged it’s clear the mayor has no further business ties with Perry, but said that doesn’t mean Wallace never had a conflict of interest in the Imperial negotiations.
“I think he needs to show the council now that not only is there no conflict of interest, but that there never was,” Jones said. “We don’t need council members to be making money on major development projects in the city I don’t want to be associated with a decision-making process that looks like it’s personally benefiting him.”
In his statement before City Council on Tuesday, Jones said he would vote in favor of provisions to move the Imperial redevelopment forward “because, to date, I have not observed any involvement by Wallace in the process and have been assured by staff that he has played no role in getting this project to this point tonight.
“However,” Jones added, “I reserve the right to protect the integrity of the council’s ethical standards if I observe any involvement of Wallace with this project in the future without there having been some determination by the council as a whole that the firewall is no longer needed.”
“The fact is,” Wallace replied in his Wednesday statement, “in addition to the passion I share with my fellow council memebers to serve the citizens of Sugar Land, I have 25-plus years of real estate investment/development and business experience to benefit our city.
“This is not the time for political posturing and character attacks,” Wallace said. “This is the time to get down to the business to which our citizens elected and entrusted us.”
Jones said Wallace still is bound by that pledge, referred to by council and city administrators as part of a “firewall” between the mayor and what may become Sugar Land’s biggest development project.
In a statement Wednesday, Wallace strongly disagreed with Jones’ characterization, and said he has publicly asked council members “if they had any concerns with my involvement in this issue,” and “not a single one was expressed.”
