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WEDNESDAY • SEPTEMBER 27, 2023
Sugar Land man charged under new law in crosswalk pedestrian death
Fort Bend / Southwest • Volume 48 • No. 37 • $1.00
Missouri City mayor, city manager tell audience the city leadership has been righted By Ken Fountain KFOUNTAIN@FORTBENDSTAR.COM
Staff Reports A Sugar Land man has been arrested for striking a pedestrian with his car in a sidewalk, resulting in the victim’s death. According to a news release from the Fort Bend County District Attorney’s Office, it is believed to be the first arrest under the Lisa Torry Smith Act, commonly referred to as the Crosswalk Law.
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Missouri City Mayor Robin Elackatt kicks off the State of the City address at the Quail Valley City Centre. Photo by Ken Fountain
Missouri City Mayor Robin Elackatt and City Manager April Jones told an overflow audience at the Quail Valley City Centre on September 21 that after a few years of turmoil in city leadership, the ship of state has been righted and Missouri City is poised for success. Elackatt, in his first term after being elected in
2020, and Jones, who was appointed last fall by City Council, took a tag-team approach to the state of the city address, similar to how Sugar Land Mayor Joe Zimmerman and City Manager Mike Goodrum gave their combined address in March.
to the normally staid address in the main ballroom of the city-owned Quail Valley City Centre. It was the first time the address was held in that facility rather than at the city’s main community center adjoining City Hall.
But Elackatt and Jones took a somewhat unique approach, displaying the repartee and timing of a comedy duo while also incorporating videos and other multimedia elements
Elackatt himself roused the audience in the manner of a rock star while entering the ballroom following
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Coffee business owner gives and receives community support
Bao Giang was arrested September 22, 2023, after Sugar Land police responded to responded to an auto-pedestrian crash in the New Territory subdivision. He was charged with the offense, formally known as “motor vehicle collision involving pedestrian or other vulnerable road used within an area of crosswalk.” The law is named after Lisa Torry Smith, who lost her life to a motorist in a Fort Bend County crosswalk while walking her son to school in 2017. The law makes it an offense to fail to yield right of way to a pedestrian in a clearly marked crosswalk and requires drivers to come to a full stop for any pedestrians or cyclists who are in the intersection. It is a felony offense for a motorist to cause serious bodily injury to a pedestrian legally in a crosswalk. Fort Bend County District Attorney Brian Middleton drafted the proposed law. State Rep. Ron Reynolds, D-Missouri City, and state Sen. Joan Huffman, R-Houston, sponsored the legislation in the 2021 Texas Legislature. The legislation received bi-partisan support and was signed into law by Gov. Greg Abbott on June 18, 2021. “We have a real problem in our county,” District Attorney Brain Middleton said in the release. “We are hearing multiple reports of motorists completely ignoring pedestrians in crosswalks across the county, including children in school zones. I pushed this in the media and had my investigators enforce the law at local schools within the past two weeks alone. Our county is better than this. Drive respectfully and responsibly and save lives.” According to court records, Giang is free on a $75,000 bond. The case has not yet been formally indicted, according to a spokesman for the district attorney’s office.
Mike Ouano, owner of two Bean Here Coffee Lab and Studios in Fort Bend, has gained a loyal following through his efforts to help the community. Photo by Dayna Worchel
By Dayna Worchel NEWS@FORTBENDSTAR.COM
The tantalizing smell of recently roasted coffee greeted visitors who recently walked inside the Bean Here Coffee Lab and Studios, on McKeever Road in Arcola, the tiny east Fort Bend County city. Owner Mike Ouano smiled warmly and offered handshakes as if he were welcoming them inside his own home. At the Arcola location, there are three studios where an artist rents space to teach classes, tables and chairs upstairs and down for sipping coffee and eating pastries, and two gleaming coffee roasters. One is a large, commercial roaster which serves all three of Ouano’s shops, and the other is a much smaller version that sat in Ouano’s home garage for a year as he learned all about the craft and science of roasting coffee beans.
There is also a commercial kitchen space available for rent if someone wants to sell baked goods. “I opened my first location seven years ago, but started roasting coffee in my garage one year prior. I moved my original roaster to the current shop in Arcola and bought a bigger roaster,” he said. Ouano, who came from the Philippines to the USA when he was 21, said he always loved coffee. In his native country, he would drink a hotpot of coffee each day, and one Red Bull, as he studied for his medical technology classes. “My wife did a 23 and Me genetic test on me once, and it showed I have a very fast caffeine metabolism,” he said with a smile. But Ouano’s journey from studying medical technology in the Philippines to being a business
owner in the United States came with one detour. For 14 years, he worked as a branding and marketing manager for Norton Rose Fulbright, the downtown Houston law firm formerly called Fulbright & Jaworski. The job paid well and offered full benefits for him and his family. But Ouano wanted to do something he really loved in which he could engage with the community around him. “Money was not important to me. The driver for me was the community and talking to people throughout the day. You’re more visible and you have a name,” Ouano said. Ouano took a barista roasting class, did lots of research, and sold his roasted coffee beans at farmer’s markets. He resigned from his law firm job a year before he opened his first store, and has no doubt it was the right decision.
“I wanted to be able to leave something for my kids,” he said of his three children, who are aged 18, 16, and 5. His wife doesn’t work in the coffee business, but helps him with it, Ouano said. Since he opened his first location in 2016 on Sienna Parkway, he has served his community well, even when things were tough for him personally. When Hurricane Harvey hit the area in 2017, Ouano said the Sienna neighborhood flooded, but his shop didn’t. He offered free coffee and filtered water to his neighbors. “It was a blessing in disguise because no one knew us,” he said. “We’ve had rough times, especially during the pandemic, when we got into the red,” he said. Ouano applied for and received a Paycheck Protection Program federal loan so he could keep his full staff working. Most of
his staff from that time still works for him. Right before the pandemic started, he signed a lease for his location on McKeever Road. Ouano says he works more than 120 hours each week and will hopefully be able to start paying himself a salary in the three to five years. Other struggles since he’s had since he’s been in business have included a teenager who accidentally crashed her car into the front of his Sienna Parkway store soon after it opened (he sent her a gift card and told her there were no hard feelings), air conditioning problems since repaired, and would-be burglars who tried to steal an ATM from Welby Financial using construction equipment, but destroyed Ouano’s coffee shop drive-through instead. They still have not been apprehended.
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