Diving Into The Dump
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Public officials in Kemah are running away from questions about that smelly real estate deal we’ve uncovered. The water board sold land that was a garbage dump to unsuspecting buyers, including a former city council member. That’s why we’ve been DIVING INTO THE DUMP!
Brian Collister asked, “Peyton, can I ask you a quick question?”
Peyton Lumpkin replied, “No.”
The vice president of Kemah’s water board already knew what we wanted to talk about when we showed up at the WCID 12 board meeting.
Like a number of public officials in Kemah, Peyton Lumpkin finds himself covered in the mud on a suspect land deal.
Brian Collister continued, “We’d like to ask you why you didn’t tell Mr. Ramonda that the land that he was buying was built on a dump.”
Lumpkin replied, “I don’t have anything to say.”
Marco Ramonda is one of several people who bought land on Delesandri Lane from the water board back in 2021.
The property used to be a city garbage dump, but a lot of the buyers say no one ever told them thay. It was land that had increased levels of arsenic found on it.
It turns out our first story on this real estate mess dug up more than dirt and glass.
We dug up a gold mine. A gold mine in the for of emails involving Alana Croker, the realtor for the WCID board. Marco and former city Councilman Robert Kelly (both property owners on Delesandri) are furious they were deceived.
“Well, as a result of your story, I was able to see that there were emails from Alana Croker with members of WCID 12 who were openly discussing the fact that the previous deal fell through because the place was a landfill,” said Robert Kelly.
Robert and Marco can now prove the landfill history was known by numerous public officials.
In November 2020, real estate agent Alana Croker wrote to WCID 12’s legal counsel and board members about an earlier pending sale of that property that had fallen through
“The buyers have decided they don’t want to move forward. For what they want to do with the property as a residential home, the landfill really bothers them,” read the email from Croker.
State law is clear, it requires disclosure of the history of a piece of land to any prospective buyer. And that includes its use as a former garbage dump. It’s in black and white.
Chris Richardson was WCID 12’s legal counsel back then and he still is.
“Chris, will you talk to us and explain why you didn’t disclose there was a dump there,” said Brian Collister.
“That is hard, airtight evidence that Alana Croker knew before she sold me and the others the property that the place was a landfill and still failed to disclose it,” said Robert Kelly.
Croker had a long relationship with Matt Wiggins. Wiggins was president of the water board when the land was sold. He was president before he engineered the sale of another WCID property to Croker.
And Croker didn’t just represent the WCID 12 in the land sale. She represented Robert Kelly as the buyer’s agent, so she got commissions on both sides of this half acre smelly real estate deal.
The emails prove something else. Marco Ramondas real estate agent Peyton Lumpkin, he clearly knew about the history of this dirt too.
You see Peyton was a water district board member when the landfill emails were circulated.
He had left the board when he reached out to Marco to represent him in the land deal and he’s now back on the water board since May of 22.
“He solicited me. And it was something along the lines of, well, I think I’d be able to better represent you for this property because I’m familiar with it. And I used to be on the water board, and I’d like to represent you for this property,” recalls Ramonda.
“I didn’t realize that he was still working for the board behind the curtains,” continued Ramonda.
Alana Croker had already ignored our call for comment and Peyton when we first tried to chat, hung up on us.
“Both of them basically tag teamed me and it was intentional. It’s not like, oh, we forgot. It was, let’s see if we can sell it to him and sweep it under the rug,” said Ramonda.
“I’ll be happy to talk to Marco himself, though, thank you.,” said Peyton Lumpkin.
But did he? Enquiring minds wanted to know.
“I will talk to Marco,” said Lumpkin.
“You’ve already said that,” replied Brian Collister.
“Yep,” said Lumpkin.
“A couple of weeks ago and you still haven’t called him. We asked him. We asked him and you still haven’t called him,” said Collister.
“It sucks that people that you knew and worked with on a daily basis didn’t give you a heads up of knowledge that they had. But, you know, we’ll see what happens with all of that,” expressed Robert Kelly.
The emails show us who else knew about the history of the dump landfill but didn’t warn the buyers.
The guy who sat next to Robert Kelly when he was on city council, was our gavel throwing friend Doug Meisinger.
He knew. He won’t talk to us about the suspect land deal either. So what’s next? Lawyer.
“Absolutely. I’m exploring all of those options with several different law firms,” said Kelly.
Robert invested more than 250 thousand dollars in the land and wanted to build his home here.
He believes Croker and her Keller Williams Agency owe not only actual damages, but punitive damages too. And he has state regulators involved.
“Yes, I did file a formal complaint with the Texas Real Estate Commission,” said Kelly.
Robert’s complaint to real estate regulators filed November 5th includes documents from the Texas Commission of Environmental Quality and Croker’s own emails.
Kelly writes, “These emails show conscious knowledge of the condition of the property and demonstrate the fraud committed by Croker in her failure to appropriately represent me as her client.”
“She was emailed a copy of the complaint along with another person from her office, a copy of the complaint, and given the opportunity to respond,” said Kelly.
Time will tell if the Real Estate Commission does anything. Let’s all hold our breaths.
Meanwhile, Marco is also looking for a lawyer for damages in his one-acre property. But now that this land deal is exposed, how will these public officials make it right?
“What will you do to make it right,” asked Brian Collister.
“I‘ll talk to Marco and we’ll have a conversation,” replied Peyton Lumpkin.
“I’m the only one who actually has two crooks that got me,” expressed Marco Ramonda.
“And why won’t you talk to us about it? What are you hiding,” continued Collister.
“I’m not hiding anything. I just don’t need to talk to you,” replied Lumpkin.
True, you’re not required to talk to us by law, but wouldn’t that be great. But you do owe an explanation to taxpayers. the people who put you in office because they have unwillingly become part of a smelly real estate deal.
It should have been on the agenda of the very meeting we went to. If they really cared about the people they work for.
“I hit a certain level of pissed and it just stays there and never goes away,” expressed Robert Kelly.
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