After almost a year of wrangling over renewing the lease for its location in the Katy VFW Building, the Texas Department of Public Safety has announced it will close the Katy driver’s license office.
The office will close effective today.
The DPS said it will continue to look for a new location in the Katy area, but for now the closure will leave Katy-area residents with no local driver’s license facility.
Earlier this month, the Katy City Council gave the DPS a one-month extension at the VFW building so the state would have additional time to find another location. Council members voted unanimously – albeit reluctantly – to allow the driver’s license operation to continue using 960 square feet of the building at a cost of $856.22.
During previous meetings, the council had repeatedly balked at extending the lease under those terms.
In approving the extension, council members repeatedly stressed that the deal would run only through the end of the month.
The action came following a letter from DPS Director Steven E. McCraw asking for the extension. In the Dec. 29 correspondence to City Administrator Johnny Nelson, McCraw asked for a month-to-month extension of the old lease so the state could find another location.
“The Department of Public Safety would like to retain our lease in the Katy VFW Hall at our current rate of $856.22 per month, on a month-to-month basis, until we find a suitable alternative location that satisfies the budgetary constraints of the department,” McCraw said in the letter. “We respectfully request that you reconsider the rejection of our lease extension agreement.”
The original lease between the state and the city ended Dec. 31.
During their December meeting, council members refused to extend the lease through December of 2010 under existing terms. Instead, the council offered a three-month extension at a cost more than three times the former rate.
The January meeting was the fifth time in less than a year the council had been asked by the state to extend the driver’s license office lease. On two of those occasions, no one from the state showed up to discuss the request, adding to already-simmering frustration over the situation.
Sticking points on renewing the lease included the price the state was paying for the space and the amount of space actually being used by driver’s license operations. Additionally, there had been numerous complaints about the driver’s license office conflicting with residents who book the VFW building for community events, as well as VFW post operations.
During last December’s council meeting, DPS Asst. Chief Greg Gloria, who commands the Driver’s License Division, said the DPS wanted to remain in Katy and was willing to work with the city to resolve conflicts between the driver’s license operation and others who use the VFW facility.
Gloria said the state was willing to alter hours, improve traffic flow around the VFW building by relocating the parallel parking testing area and moving commercial license testing to a different location. He also said the driver’s license office could close early on days the hall is booked for events.
He also said he understood problems associated with the continued use of the VFW Building, but said the state needed a lease extension to give it time to find a new facility.
For the time being, the closest driver’s license offices serving the Katy area will be at 5505 Avenue N in Rosenberg, as well as 1601 Townhurst, 4545 Dacoma, 12220 South Gessner and 10503 Grant Road in Houston.
By: John Pape on Fri, Jan 29, 2010
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