Little wants Texas Legislature to stop MUDs

ELLIS COUNTY – Ellis County Judge Todd Little recently made a request to the Texas Senate Committee on Water, Agriculture, and Rural Affairs last month.

Little wants the committee to redistrict the expansion of Municipal Utilities Districts in Ellis County, and he asked the committee to consider changing the process in which MUD’s are approved by TCEQ to provide for more local input, whether those changes be administrative or legislative.

Not governed by elected officials, the districts inflict water and wastewater assessments against local properties to provide utilities coverage for new housing developments.

Little believes since MUD is governed by unelected administrators appointed by the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality in Austin, this leaves districts unaccountable to local constituents for the impact of high-density housing on infrastructure, water drainage, and public safety.

“I am for quality development,” said Little, “but this density is not sustainable.

“How can it be that we place such a high level of trust with these government administrators, who make decisions in Austin, to guard against negative local impacts?

“Our citizens, through their locally-elected representatives, should be able to guide the development of housing and business in their own community.”

According to Little’s office, there are as many as 23 utilities districts – including MUD’s – that either already exist or have been proposed within Ellis County.

Since this does not include local input, the Ellis County Commissioners Court is then left to decide the final impact of high-density housing on county roads and bridges, flood control and public safety. And the justice system and new property owners are left to pay a utilities assessment for housing developments that strain local resources.

“These districts create a permanent property assessment, which burdens our future citizens without bestowing the necessary tools for them to govern the districts locally,” Little explained in his letter to the committee.

He suggested there is a conflict of interest that exists when TCEQ appoints the same MUD applicants as board members, who remain unaccountable to these future citizens.