Manlove Says Questions “Won’t Be Necessary” at Romerica’s Public Meeting
For weeks, Barbara Hilburn (Kingwood Lakes President), Bill Fowler and Dianne Lansden (Lake Houston Area Grass Roots Flood Prevention Initiative leaders) and I have been calling and emailing Manlove Marketing and Communications. We asked whether the high-rise developer would take questions from the audience tonight. We were consistently ignored. No answer. None. Nada. Silence.
Barrington Resident Finally Breaks Through
This morning, a Barrington resident called Manlove. She actually managed to speak to someone. Here’s how her conversation went:
“I called the PR contact for the Romerica project, Manlove Marketing, to make sure they were including a question and answer portion in tonight’s “free” meeting.
The receptionist gave me a very enthusiastic ‘Oh yes, of course you can ask questions!’ Then she trailed off with something to the effect of ‘before and after the presentation.’ To clarify, I asked ‘Questions won’t be addressed during the meeting?’ The receptionist said, ‘Oh no. That’s not necessary!’”
The resident replied, “‘It absolutely IS necessary.’ The receptionist then offered to let me talk directly with the woman handling this project. I was transferred to her voicemail.”
“I followed up with a FaceBook message asking why they weren’t planning to answer questions in a public forum,” said the resident. “The message has been read, but no one has responded.”
Later this afternoon, Manlove added several paragraphs of copy to the developer’s home page that confirm the resident’s report.
“Dialog At Every Level”
Manlove’s website boasts that, “Romerica believes in collaboration which includes a dialog with stakeholders at every level.”
Memo to Manlove: answering questions and emails, and returning phone calls would be a great way to start collaborating. I believe they don’t really want to address people’s concerns. If they did, they would have had a meeting long ago at the start of the Corps’ public comment period, not after it closed.
One wonders why they’re even bothering to have a meeting tonight. As my friend John Knoezer asked this morning, “Are they going to read a brochure for two hours?”
As always, these thoughts represent my opinions on matters of public policy. They are protected by the First Amendment of the US Constitution and the Anti-SLAPP Statute of the Great State of Texas.
Posted by Bob Rehak, Mandi Thornhill Lokey and John Knoezer on March 18, 2019
566 Days since Hurricane Harvey
