Bay Area Houston

“Ya’ll better do something.”

The La Marque Police Department, Galveston County DA, and the Sheriff were all put on notice at last night’s Council Meeting. A citizen of La Marque, Mr. Re’Chard Loftis, spoke during the public input portion of the meeting and it was NSFW. (Not Suitable For Work) Needless to say he was, in his words, “f***ing pissed off”. Take 3 minutes of your time and watch his comments here. They are disturbing to say the least.

He is pissed about being harassed by a member of City Council and warned LMPD Chief Aragon and County Law Enforcement of potential violence if they do not take action. Of course it was all about Lowry. Again. Lowry conveniently skipped the meeting and for good reason. What Mr. Loftis documented was fucking horrible.

Mr Loftis told Council that last Friday Lowry and his wife, Sarah, harassed his family while at dinner. It began with Sarah confronting his wife in the bathroom then they both continued the harassment at their table and then outside where Lowry, as usual, pulled out his iPhone 11 and began taping before driving off in his minivan. Mr. Loftis states that Lowry then posted a Facebook Live video attacking his family including his 4 year old grandson. It begs the question “Who the fuck does that?” and “How old are you? 12?”. Again, watch the video.

Mr. Loftis made it clear to Galveston County law enforcement that something had to be done about Lowry and his harassment of individuals. This is the second time they have been warned, first by Council Member Yancy during a press conference where, as expected, Lowry caused a disruption. Lowry has had numerous complaints filed against him with the police for harassment and yet no action has been taken. He has a number of lawsuits pending against him for harassment. His Facebook “Lowry News Network” page has been removed a number of times for harassment. He has a history of harassment in Washington resulting in a Domestic Violence Protection Order. The list of his harassment is documented here.

Mr. Loftis wasn’t the only person providing comments about the Chief. Others accused his office of racial profiling, mismanagement of funds, and not taking appropriate action. Some called for his resignation or Council firing him. The Chief’s job is under scrutiny as is the DA’s and the Sheriff. As Mr Loftis said “LMPD, Galveston County, ya’ll better do something!”.

You can watch the entire comments from the meeting here.

Note to the Mayor and other Council Members: Do yourself a favor and just ignore CM Joseph Lowry. Don’t feed into his stupidity and pettiness. Let him make his baseless allegations and move on.

Once again La Marque City Council Member Joseph Lowry gets put into his place on Facebook Live, Facebook Live! By now you would think he has had enough of the humiliation. The discussion was accepting the independent audit of the City’s financials. All but Lowry voted to accept it. As the acting City Manager stated the audit is required by State law, is about 178 pages long, and has no evidence of malfeasance, corruption, or anything unusual. Of course that didn’t stop Lowry from talking, once again, about a “forensic” audit.

Lowry has been spouting off about corruption, bribes, recorded phone calls, malfeasance, corruption, cabals, etc etc for years now without any evidence whatsoever. As the Mayor said “You are the only one saying this. Not the Police. Not the Sheriff. Not the District Attorney”. The Mayor, once again, told Lowry is he has evidence of cabal-ness he needs to bring to the Council so they can evaluate and take action including requesting a “forensic” audit. So far Lowry has squat. He is a one man clown show.

The second slap in the face was concerning limiting the rights of citizens to address the Council. Lowry claimed people were coming to complain about him. He had the gall to claim “It wasn’t like this in the past.” The Mayor slapped his fat ass by stating “The reason they are coming is because of you! You are the problem.” (not the exact words) Lowry wanted council to be more professional which was met with eye rolling and laughter.

You can watch the first beat down starting at 1:19:18 and the second one at 1:31:00

Galveston County had dropped their lawsuit against La Marque City Council Member Joseph Lowry. Sort of.

According to documents posted on the County’s website the suit against Joseph Lowry for over $43,000 in back taxes has been “non-suited” without prejudice meaning it has been dropped but could be refiled. (I secretly obtained a law degree from Facebook U to enhance my Undercover Investigative Reporter degree, also from FU) According to Channel 13 Eyewitness News:

Six Brother Concrete Pumping, owned by Joseph Lowry, was sued in early April by Galveston County, Galveston County Drainage District #2, Texas City Independent School District, and College of the Mainland. They say they’re owed $43,868.48 in back taxes from 2022 and 2023.

The suit #24-TX-0303 filed in the 10th Judicial District of Galveston County has now been listed as “Inactive” but I think it might have been dropped in order to add more delinquent taxes to the amount owe. According to the Galveston County Tax Office he is delinquent on his 2024 taxes for $10,033.65 which includes over $1308 in penalties. So maybe the suit will be refiled to include this delinquency for a grand total of 53,902.13. Or maybe he really doesn’t owe any taxes as he claims.

According to the Editor of the Galveston Daily News, Lowry has the money to pay the taxes and he should. You can browse the documents at the County Tax Office Account Number:  737826 and the County Court Records Case #24-TX-0303.

There are at least 20 (not 10) good reasons to recall La Marque City Council Member Joseph Lowry. You can read them here.

Unfortunately due to a clerical error that recall will not happen. In their first attempt at a recall petitioners fell short by just 7 signatures to put the recall on the ballot. Immediately afterward they refiled and provided over 200 signatures to the city clerk. Yesterday the county dismissed the petition because the forms used for signatures did not contained required information.

The forms used for signatures was provided by the City of La Marque. The Galveston County Daily News has a detailed article, if you have access to it. The petitioners have now asked the City to investigate how this was allowed to happen without any consequences to the City Clerk. According to the complaint:

I’d like to file an official complaint against the city clerk. I have filed for recall for Joseph Lowry and collected signatures twice. The first one came up a few short, okay, I’ll do it again because it matters to me. I turned in 218 signatures for recall on Friday. The petition forms provided by the city clerk did not meet state requirements to be a valid petition. They are missing columns. None contained the VUID or date signed column. 4/12 did not contain the required Date of Birth column. None of the first round of petitions contained the date of birth column either. 

Collecting signatures for a recall is a lot of work. It requires a lot of walking in the hot sun and time from your family especially if you are not using a paid service like they did in Texas City. It is tough work. For a city clerk to make a mistake like providing the wrong forms is unprofessional and could be illegal especially since the Texas Attorney General has a stick up his butt about election integrity.

The petitioners have a point:

This is incompetence, a disregard for professionalism, an unacceptable attitude, and one more example of employees lacking accountability. 

Lauren Flack of the Galveston Daily News is having a field day covering La Marque City Councilman Joseph Lowry. Today she reported on his Facebook page being removed and he didn’t disappoint, blaming everyone else besides himself with wild conspiracy theories. From the GDN:

Lowry believes the account was likely accessed by political opponents of his, he said. “I think they got access to it and they shut it down,” Lowry said. “Their thing is they want to silence me. They don’t want me to have a voice. “They got access. They shut it down. I mean, there’s nothing; there was no notices.”

That is looney tunes. Deleting a page in Facebook is hard even if you are the owner of the damn thing. Believe me I have tried! I eventually gave up and left mine up. No one got “access” to his site. Facebook removed it because people probably reported him for harassment on a daily basis. Or maybe Facebook was served with a threat of a suit. Lowry says the police are aware of it and an investigation is coming:

“Law enforcement is aware of it,” Lowry said. “I believe they’re working on it. They’re looking into it.”

The Police Chief begged to differ stating “Lowry is full of shit.”. Ok that’s now exactly what he said but he did say:

Police Chief Randall Aragon as of Friday afternoon said he wasn’t aware of any official report filed with the department on the matter.

Next article will be on his domestic violence protection order and when he is going to turn in his guns.

This is pretty strange.

The city of La Marque has added yet another controversy. Over the last few weeks the City Manager has resigned and has been charged with two misdemeanors and a felony. The Chief of Police is under scrutiny for the information he provided on his application for his job. And City Council Member Joseph Lowry, the drama queen of La Marque, is under scrutiny for a number of issues. Today yet another wrinkle involving Lowry has unfolded.

Last Monday during the La Marque City Council Meeting Harvey Freebird stated that the Facebook news network for La Marque has gone dark. Lowry News Network, run by Council Member Joseph Lowry, has been removed from Facebook. Lowry was famous (in his own mind) for his weekly “Facebook live, Facebook live” broadcasts. Facebook Live is about as popular as herpes at a hot tub party. No one watches Facebook Live, most have no idea what it is, or wants to know what it is, but for some it is their life. And now it’s dead. According to Lowry himself Facebook deleted his account. I’ve never heard of Facebook removing an account or accounts.

Lowry’s other personal Facebook pages and user IDs are also gone. His recently created account, JoJo Lowry, is gone. What happened that required his pages to be removed is not known but Lowry has been neutered. He has lost his voice. Maybe his attorney told him to remove everything since he is being sued by multiple people in Galveston County case # 24-CV-2218. Or maybe the City has recommended that he removes his pages due to legal issues against the city. Or maybe Facebook was subpoenaed by the various lawyers suing Lowry.

Or maybe Facebook has just had enough of his shit. Regardless. Facebook Live is Dead.

The drama continues.

On Monday there will be a joint meeting with City Council and the Economic Development Corporation (EDC) to discuss the process used to distribute about $1 Million in COVID related funds. Over the last few months there has been an emphasis on being truthful when filling out applications for work or to receive funds from the city. When posted, the agenda and other files can be found here.

The City Manager has been accused of not providing truthful information in his application for his job. He has since resigned and has been charged with two misdemeanors. The Chief of Police might have some explaining to do concerning his application for employment. If the same standard is applied he might also lose his job. And now Council Member Joseph Lowry is under scrutiny for an application he submitted to the EDC in order to receive $50,000 in COVID relief money. COVID wreaked havoc on the entire world. Businesses were trying to stay afloat. People died, needlessly. The Federal Government gave grants to cities to help ease this impact until a vaccination could be developed.

According to the requirements to receive these funds a business must be within the city of La Marque, must not be a home business, must have 50 or less employees, and must pay taxes to the City. The EDC has the right to demand repayment of these funds if they find incorrect information was provided to the city. So the question is “Did Council Member Lowry provide factual information to receive the funds?”.

According to his application (see below) he claimed his address for his concrete pumping business as his home. His physical business is in San Leon. It seems like a pretty simple issue to resolve. Maybe there is an explanation for why Lowry used his home address for his business. Maybe there is a reason the EDC approved this. Or maybe the EDC made a mistake and should have rejected the application.

Monday’s meeting ought to clear this up for everyone involved.