The Master Plan, the TxDOT money, and the engineering firm with no contract
GUEST COLUMN | EDITORIAL
By Kristie Rutledge, Guest Columnist
How does a government send a $47 million request to the State of Texas, built on a Master Plan its own board never approved, written by an engineering company it never hired? I asked the Aransas County Navigation District that question in public, twice. The answer came on October 13 in a 134-page response to my public information request, and it is worse than the question.
Start with what the Aransas County Navigation District is, because most people in Rockport have never had a reason to find out. It is a small local government, separate from the City of Rockport and from Aransas County, created by the State to own and run Rockport Harbor, Fulton Harbor and Cove Harbor, Rockport Beach, the festival grounds and the bay bottom under much of Little Bay. It collects property tax from every homeowner in the county and rents from every boat slip and business on its land, and it holds about $10 million in cash. Five elected commissioners run it, with an acting Executive Director, Janine Loney, and a General Counsel, Gerald Benadum.
The plan and the money
Every two years the Texas Department of Transportation, TxDOT, builds a list of port projects for the Texas Legislature called the Texas Port Mission Plan. A district fills out a form for each project and says how much state money it wants. On June 29, 2026 the District filed four forms asking for $47.25 million, including 11,250,000 of a 15,000,000 bulkhead on Rockport Harbor. The forms cited as their basis a document called the ACND Port Improvement Master Plan, a 57-page plan dated June 2026. The board had not voted to adopt that plan. It still has not. The forms, and the plan, were prepared and submitted by LJA Engineering.
The board saw an LJA proposal exactly once. On March 2, 2026 LJA presented a proposal for $117,000 plus other travel costs to be determined for preparation of a Master Plan. The motion to go forward by Tommy Moore got no second and the item was tabled for legal review and never came back. On May 18 the board authorized Commissioner Tommy Moore to work with a public relations firm, CD&P, on a basic plan and the TxDOT survey. Asked whether he would be working with "the LJA folks," Moore answered, "No, I don't see any reason at this point." On June 15 he told the board that "the work that LJA has done has really, I think, put us in a good position." On June 29 an LJA employee filed the four forms and the Master Plan in the District's name.
What I asked for, and what came back
On September 8 I told the board: "On March 6th, this board tabled a formal master plan contract due to lack of legal review," and that the plan "was submitted with the June 15th application to TxDOT. So Commissioner Moore did it and hasn't shown you or us."
On September 21 I asked: "Where is the contract for LJA for this master plan? How much did it cost? And who voted on it after March the second?" and "Has ACND paid LJA and CDMP anything for this plan or the TxDOT packet? Tell us how much." Chair Judy Vlasek said the questions "will be answered. We're not going to answer them today."
The next day I filed a request under the Texas Public Information Act for every contract, invoice and payment involving CD&P and LJA Engineering since January 2025. Three weeks later the district’s response arrived.
Only one contract, and it is not with LJA
The response contains a two-page Agreement for Community Relations Consulting between the District and Concept Development & Planning, LLC, known as CD&P, dated September 1, 2022 for public outreach, newsletters, help with meetings, the website and social media, billed by the hour, not to exceed $3,500.00 per month. That is a real contract for promotional work, and CD&P has done promotional work under it.
The only contract in the District's response: a community relations agreement with CD&P, September 1, 2022.
Paragraph 6: a cap of $3,500 a month, and prior approval required for any expense over $500.
There is no contract, engagement letter, task order or fee schedule in the name of LJA Engineering. Yet from January 2026 on, every invoice is issued by LJA Engineering from its Austin office, under LJA project number 7597-4225069, with staff signing “CD&P IS NOW PROUDLY LJA!,” and each invoice shows a fee schedule of five tasks at 18,000.00 each, $90,000 in all, that no agreement authorizes. CD&P announced on December 2, 2025 that it had joined LJA Engineering. Nothing in the District's 2026 meetings disclosed to the board or the public that the small PR firm hired in 2022 had become part of the engineering company that wanted the master plan work.
The TxDOT work, billed as outreach
The invoices say what the district’s money bought. From March 2025 the task descriptions read Development of ordinances, report highlights, exhibits, grant research and writing and Interagency coordination - TxDOT, GLO, TCEQ, etc., meaning the Texas Department of Transportation, the Texas General Land Office and the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality. In June 2025, the month before the TxDOT survey work shows up in the state's own files, "stakeholder and agency outreach" ran 52 hours. The expense pages carry trips to Board Meeting and TxDOT About Roadway Stabilization and parking at the Bullock Museum in Austin for GLO visit. That is grant writing, planning and engineering coordination, billed under a contract for newsletters and powerpoint presentations.
How much, in all? The last page of the binder is the District's QuickBooks list: 23 bills totaling $208,923.87 from January 2025 to September 2026, every invoice is paid to CD&P. The contract allows $3,500 a month, which is $73,500 for those 21 months. The District paid 2.8 times that. From June 2025 each invoice adds: based on our prior agreement, we are only billing a portion of the total cost. No prior agreement and no board vote authorizing any of it was produced with my public information request or in the 2026 meeting videos. The approvals are emails: the acting director waiting on “word from Tommy or Judy,” the Executive Director approving a bill to the “budget "consultant" line item i would think,” and a March invoice paid on “approval from commission (JW 04-23-26),” one commissioner's initials.
A smaller question, from the promotion fund
One more thing the response answers. On August 17, 2026 Rockport resident Patrick Kane told the board that his April request for the District's promotion fund reports had gone past the legal deadline which then prompted him to file an Attorney General complaint, and that the fund's monthly reports had not been sent to the County Auditor in eight months. Mr. Benadum answered that "technically the statute was complied with." CD&P was in fact contracted for promotional work, so promotion-fund spending on it is not itself the problem. But the response shows two LJA invoices paid partly from the promotion account, 3,606.09 and 238.13 drawn on American Bank Prom, for the months that carried the 100th anniversary coins and shirts. Mr. Kane's question about what that fund pays for, and whether it is reported, was a fair one, and it still has not been answered in public.
What the law says
The Professional Services Procurement Act, Texas Government Code chapter 2254, applies to districts and says engineering services must be hired on demonstrated competence and qualifications, under a contract; section 2254.005 says an arrangement made in violation of the chapter is void as against public policy.
A navigation district acts only through its commission in a posted meeting under Texas Water Code chapter 60 and the Texas Open Meetings Act. One commissioner's initials are not an act of the board. And Texas Penal Code section 39.02, abuse of official capacity, covers the knowing misuse of government money. Whether describing grant writing as "community relations" to fit an old contract crosses that line is a question for the Aransas County District Attorney.
What the records establish is simpler. The Master Plan and the $47 million request were produced by a company the District has no contract with, and paid for through a contract for newsletters.
Two new commissioners are already certain to join this board in January: Matt Lynch at-large and Josh Wilson in Precinct 4, both unopposed. One seat is a contested race on November 3: Precinct 2, where Gerilyn Hibbeler faces incumbent Martin Diaz De Leon. Early voting runs October 19 through 30 at 602 East Concho in Rockport. Everything in this editorial will be inherited by the people we choose. Go Vote.
