BAYOU VISTA — From the steps of Bayou Vista City Hall, Mayor Ed Flanagan watched as speed-limit scofflaws zoomed by the canal town, creating a hazardous situation for his residents that the city’s police officers are powerless to control.

Photo by Kevin M. Cox

Bayou Vista police Sgt. Norman Desormeaux turns the radar on motorists speeding along the Interstate 45 frontage road in front of the south entrance to Bayou Vista. Officials want to annex the road so they can enforce the speed limit.

Flanagan said the Interstate 45 south feeder road, with its 45-mph speed limit, is outside Bayou Vista’s city limits.

“I’ve asked La Marque to give up the road in their extraterritorial jurisdiction,” Flanagan said. “But they voted against it. The road has no value. It’s a state right of way. We’re not planning on building a hotel on it.”

Meanwhile, Bayou Vista police Sgt. Norman Desormeaux said Friday his radar gun listed one top speed of 90 mph on the feeder road that many residents have to merge onto when leaving town.

“I sat here Monday before the storm and clocked one at 83 mph, one at 76 mph and another at 90 mph,” Desormeaux said.

Police Chief Ed Lucas, in a May 23 letter to Flanagan, said officers clocked 48 vehicles the previous day, and 30 were traveling in excess of 60 mph.

Police clocked 11 traveling between 45 mph and 60 mph, and seven were going faster than 70 mph, Lucas wrote.

“Early in the mornings and late in the evenings, it’s like a racetrack,” Flanagan said.

Robert Ewart, La Marque’s city manager, said Bayou Vista asked to annex the road so the city could enforce the traffic laws.

“The city council felt like it was something they didn’t want to relinquish,” Ewart said.

If Bayou Vista officers wrote speeding tickets there, they would have to spend their days attending a Santa Fe justice of the peace court roughly nine miles away, Flanagan said.

Because the road is in an unincorporated area of Galveston County, the law enforcement jurisdiction would fall to the Santa Fe court, not the Bayou Vista Municipal Court, he said.

“I would have to send our reserve officers to court, and they work other jobs during the day,” Flanagan said.

Lucas said in the letter he was concerned for the potential for high-speed accidents when Bayou Vista residents enter the feeder road from Tarpon Drive or Sailfish Street.