Von Rosenberg Holds Court on LG Drainage
La Grange citizen Theresa Von Rosenberg wants the City to fix its drainage problems. She spoke about her concerns at the City Council meeting Monday night, Sept. 11.
Until the shower Wednesday night, La Grange hasn’t seen more than a drizzle of rain in months. It’s easy to forget how much some sections of the city flooded during fast and heavy rain storms. But Von Rosenberg hasn’t forgotten.
“Have y’all fixed the problem? The drainage problem. It’s y’all’s problem,” Von Rosenberg said Monday night.
Von Rosenberg, a regular speaker at City Council meetings, won the Fayette County Record’s Readers Choice Award for best community activist this year due to her efforts in getting the City to clean up the dilapidated Encore Cabinets factory. For the past several months, she’s turned her attention to stormwater drainage. The City has since implemented a policy limiting public comments to three minutes per person.
“I’ve been thinking – since it’s not raining, y’all ought to clean out all the pipes, betraditional cause there’s got to be a bunch of garbage in there that’s stopping the flow of water,” she said. “Does the water have anywhere to go?”
Her pleas have not gone unnoticed. Councilman Ken Taylor alluded to Von Rosenberg in comments he made during a workshop on Aug. 14 over the coming year’s budget. At the time, Taylor questioned the City’s decision to budget $1.24 million for crosswalks and landscaping along Travis St. instead of using that money for drainage improvements. (The City has applied for a state grant to reimburse costs for the Travis St. project).
“The thing that really depresses me – the thing I hear the most about and the thing we hear every meeting about – is drainage improvements,” Taylor said at that meeting. “Well, we kicked the can down the road to 2024-25. There’s no money in 2023-24 to do that. In my mind, rather than doing $1.24 million for crosswalks and planter boxes and whatever, which I assume we’ll get back from the state one day, I would like to see the money for the drainage.”
On Monday, Von Rosenberg spoke about turnover at City Hall since the retirement of long-time City Manager Shawn Raborn last year. The City hired a search firm and chose Fred Bell as Raborn’s replacement in March. But he resigned last month.
“Y’all spent all this money hiring Fred Bell, a good city manager, who lasted six months,” Von Rosenberg said. “Y’all threw away this money. Y’all could have invested it in drainage.”
Drainage was a top priority for City leaders after Hurricane Harvey flooded portions of La Grange in 2017 and left hundreds temporarily homeless. The topic again gained public attention in 2021 after two heavy rains over the span of a few days in May of that year flooded homes in multiple areas of town.
Interim City Manager Frank Menefee told the Record after the meeting that the City’s storm drainage system can handle most weather events except for unusually heavy rains that fall during a short time such as the storms of May 2021.
“Other than that, the system does what it is supposed to,” Menefee said.
“I have another solution – just buy my house and the problem is solved,” Von Rosenberg said at the meeting. “Then you can buy everyone else’s house on my street. Which is cheaper, fix the problem or buy all of our houses? Y’all need to fix this drainage.”
Menefee said the City of La Grange is still slated to receive $4.5 million in hazard mitigation grant funds related to Hurricane Harvey. However, he said the City has identified $10 million worth of drainage improvements in town.
“We’ve done a lot of planning for it, now it’s just how do we pay for it?” Menefee told the Record on Tuesday. “Right now it’s under review to figure out what projects to do.”