Linda Byrne
Editor 

As the half-baked Esperanza soufflé rose to the done stage at Ye Kendall Inn on Feb. 12, a fault line separated winners and losers.

We’re not talking about the people in their chairs on one end, pleading for information, and “the city” on the other, divided by a lectern. Or the “Yesperanza” crowd on the right, the responsible growth proponents on the left, though their respective badges added pizazz to a crowd attired in mourning colors.

To whittle away at the possibilities and single out winners and losers, let’s remove two groups from consideration: those who spoke for the Esperanza development agreement and city staff.

Those who spoke for the agreement, mostly self-identified as business people, believe they will sell more water heaters, flower pots and chewing gum if Esperanza is built, and this money churn is good for Boerne. They may be correct. A community is dying if it isn’t economically viable. But city staff was making that argument to the council, so no bravado there.

And city staffers did what they are paid to do: hustle, get the job done and be of good cheer, though some on the legal team weren’t smiling as the 186-page agreement was put under the microscope.

Asked prior to the meeting why a section on the city’s immunity can’t be deciphered after repeated reading, an attorney said the document is the work of several authors with different writing styles. I’ll say. And at almost $3,000 per page, the legal wordsmiths don’t work cheap to pen that kind of obfuscation.

Maybe it’s just me, but Mayor Heckler seemed a bit jumpy, gaveling one speaker down just as she posed one of the evening’s most provocative questions. Other city councils use the three-minute time limit to cut off speakers known to be habitual kooks, the kind who show up to talk about what the space aliens want out of the Esperanza deal. Letting Anne Lambert go on for another 15 seconds wouldn’t have caused a riot and might have shed some further insight into the document. So we’ll print here what the lady wanted to ask:

Regarding Article 12.4 on Page 39 of the agreement, on Manufactured Housing, is there any chance this could lead to a situation mentioned in a Dallas Morning News series called “Government by Developer?” To read that series, get your favorite heartburn remedy and click on: http://www.dallasnews.com/s/dws/spe/2001/0610denton/18.html

Only time will tell whether these examples rise to the level of winners or sink to loser lows, though.

But we don’t have to wait for others.

Loser: clarity. Council members said they’d been contacted by numerous constituents and “most people in Boerne don’t want Esperanza to come here.” Result: Agreement approved. How come?

Losers: Wildlife, open-space proponents, Texas 46 motorists. TxDOT repeatedly has said it has no money for new roads. What will happen to this asphalt lifeline now that 2,500 homes have been OK’d adjacent to it?

Winner: Councilman Rob Ziegler. Whatever taxpayers pay the gentleman per meeting, they are getting their money’s worth. In a forum where residents talk only to the council and the council talks only to God, er, city staff, Ziegler was the conduit to get the residents’ questions placed before their own taxpayer-funded experts.

Winners: Citizen investigators, some with nothing more at stake than their desire to maintain quality of life, who addressed the council with conviction and eloquence. They followed the money and did their homework.

Their research, if they choose, could form the nucleus for a vibrant activist group that can take this issue and run with it to the Texas Legislature, where the real problem lies. Counties have few regulatory powers. That’s why the majority of the Boerne council apparently felt Esperanza was inevitable.

But for a region that’s been designated as one whose water availability is at risk in the future, such activism could be the kernel needed to bring forth a new crop of solutions for the Hill Country everyone loves. Even though there is less “country” with each passing year.