Sunday, January 31, 2010

Breaking News!

Lakeway Police Chief Todd Radford was named Lake Travis Chamber of Commerce "Citizen of the Year" at their 18th Annual Awards Banquet. Congratulations Chief Radford!

As a side note, Highlands Blvd. opened today between Lakeway and Bee Creek Road and the Pancake Breakfast was a huge success at the 10th Anniversary of the Activity Center.

Joe Bain
lakeway@bain.us

Friday, January 29, 2010

Weekly Update

Several GOOD NEWS items!

TxDot has issued a "notice to proceed" to Capitol Excavating to start on the intersection of Serene Hills and Hwy 71 on February 10th. This means all is good and they can get started - won't be long until this will be another rout to Hwy. 71 from the Lakeway area.

If you wondered what was going on on Lohmans Crossing by the CVS, they were doing another French Drain to get rid of the wet area in the median. Hopefully the road will now dry out!

Our new Police Chief was nominated as a candidate for the Lake Travis Chamber of Commerce citizen of the year. What an honor! Hope he does well in the process!

The City will be planting trees on the South side of Lakeway Blvd. between Stony Creek and Hayden Ridge Drive. This area was cleared last year and the new trees will add to the appearance of this area.

We have two new officers that started to work for us on Monday. They are Mark Thomas and Sheldon Banta - if you see them welcome them to the force. Hopefully they won't be outside your car window.........

Highlands Blvd. is scheduled to open Saturday. I'm sure there are many folks that are looking forward to completion of the project.

The City is changing phone service from AT&T to Logix to take advantage of about a 30% savings. Their service is supposed to be at least as good as AT&T and customer service is touted as being better.

There appears to be interest in two new ordinances, one to prohibit texting while driving and the other to impose a fine for excessive police response to false alarms. We will see more on this soon.

Last but not least, Saturday morning is the annual pancake breakfast at the Activity Center. All Activity Center members eat free! The Mayor and City Council members and staff will serve you breakfast! See you there! Pancake Breakfast

Thanks for LOOKING! To get on the email list of new posts email me at Lakeway@bain.us!

Joe Bain

Saturday, January 23, 2010

Weekly Update / Highlands Blvd!

Here we go!

The Charter Review Committee has been hard at work and identified 22 possible amendments that are categorized as high, medium, or low priority. At the last meeting, they paired it down to 12 propositions they are bringing to council for consideration. Those that are approved by council will be included for citizens to vote on at the next election.

The City received a draft of our FY 2009 audit. They received a "clean" report that means our financial statements accurately reflect the city's financial position.

There appears to be a problem with the Lifeguard Certification program and the Red Cross has revoked the lifeguard's certificates. The City is working to resolve the situation with the Red Cross and the Contractor.

As previously reported, Lohmans Crossing between Lakeway Blvd. and Sailmaster is failing and will need to be completely redone. This will be an extensive and expensive project and will probably require all traffic to be re-routed to Lakeway Dr. More on this as it comes available!

Work is progressing well on Rough Hollow Dr. and they are nearly finished building the new retaining wall. Once complete, they will restore the road and it will re-open to traffic. I know all in the area will be glad to see completion of the project. You still have a little time to take advantage of the 1/2 price specials at the Rough Hollow Grill. Check it out!

OK - for the big news! A message board was installed Friday to warn drivers of an impending change to the intersection of Bee Creek Road and Highlands Blvd. The current plan is to OPEN HIGHLANDS BLVD. to traffic on January 30th. I will try to let you know if there are any changes to this date.

Thanks for looking! As always, if you want to be notified of new posts, email me at lakeway@bain.us and I will put you on the email list!

Joe Bain
lakeway@bain.us

Wednesday, January 20, 2010

City Council Results

Here we go!

First the Mayor proclaimed February 10, 2010 as Lake Travis Cavalier Day in the City of Lakeway recognizing the accomplishment of the football team in the last few years.

Pedernales Electric presented their franchise check for last quarter and the financial report was given by Al Tyson. We are well under budget at this point! GOOD WORK!

An Ordinance for control of Golf Carts in the City was presented. One person spoke for and one against - the Ordinance was adopted. Here is the Golf Cart Ordinance.

Finally, there was a request to change the zoning of a piece of property at RR 620 and Oak Grove from C-1 Commercial to HM Hotel / Motel to allow Holiday Inn Express to build a hotel at this location. Zoning was passed and here is the Holiday Inn Express Ordinance.

Thanks for the support!

Joe Bain
lakeway@bain.us

Tuesday, January 19, 2010

Fire Station Renovation

The Fire Station is doing renovations on Lohman's Crossing. That is why all the temporary buildings are in the area between the building and the road. Work should be done within a couple of months and the buildings will be removed. The Building Commission felt we needed to work with the Fire Department and make sure they had quarters while the building work was going on. I agree!

Thanks for looking!

Joe Bain
lakeway@bain.us

Friday, January 15, 2010

Weekly report / Council Agenda / Restaurant Scores

The contractor is making progress on the repair of Rough Hollow Drive. They are installing stone on the new, larger retaining wall to hold back the ground under the road. They will also be backfilling and compacting the void. Once the subgrade is complete they will rebuild the road on top of it. They are also installing French Drains to avoid other issues caused by drainage in the area. Depending on the weather, estimated completion is about 4 weeks. Plenty of time to take advantage of the special prices at the Rough Hollow Grille!

Capital Excavation has submitted all of it's paperwork to TxDot and is waiting on an executed contract for the construction on the entrance to Serene Hills Dr. and Hwy. 71. They expect a start date in February. Once the construction is complete, Serene Hills Dr. will be open to Hwy. 71.

Chessie Blanchard (Assistant City Manager) has submitted our grant application for an energy conservation grant from the State Energy Conservation Office. This is another Stimulus Project. There are two parts to the project, one is to replace lighting in the courtroom with energy efficient lighting that will reduce energy consumption by 25%. The other part is upgrading the HVAC system at the Activity Center and we anticipate a reduction in energy consumption of about 20-30%. GREAT work!

The city is working to get the Exxon site cleaned up including among other things, removal of cones and tape.

Financially the City is doing well on budget vs. actual according to analysis of the first 3 months in this cycle. Hopefully this trend will continue!

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The City Council meets in regular session on Tuesday, January 19th in Council Chambers at 6:30PM. Here is the Agenda. Items of note are a request to rezone property for a Holiday Inn Express and the Golf Cart Ordinance. See you there!

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As previously reported, I now have a link to the database that keeps the scores for Restaurants in Travis County under "helpful Links" top right. Here are reports I've pulled for Lakeway and Bee Cave.

Joe Bain
lakeway@bain.us

Monday, January 11, 2010

Lakeway Directory / MUD / New Links / Building Commission

I have had questions about why many residents are not in the Lakeway Directory! Here's the scoop! You have to sign up. Here is the sign up form to get in the next release. Lakeway Residents Directory Please fill out the form and send it in or go to the Activity Center and sign up there - we want you in the directory!

The Lakeway Municipal Utility District met Wednesday at their regular meeting time and the 1st item on the agenda was "Eason Employment". The Board went into executive session and after about an hour they resumed the meeting and voted to retain Richard Eason as general manager of Lakeway MUD. The motion passed 3 to 1 with Heiptas against and Andrews abstaining.

If you will look at the right of this post and up a little, you will notice "helpful links". Click on these and it will give you the Mens Breakfast Club schedule, Brown Bag Lunch Schedule, and newly added a link to the Austin / Travis County Health Restaurant scoring page where you can look up your favorite restaurant and see how they rate! Thanks for all the comments on the last post! There is also a link on the City of Lakeway Website in the BDS section. Link

The Lakeway Building Commission met this morning and there were two items of interest. Tuscan Village was given a waiver to use garage mounted lights in lieu of standard street lights and a height approval was given to a remodel on 814 Mariner. Neither was contested.

Thanks for LOOKING! I really appreciate all the support. If you wish to be added to my email update notification list, email me at lakeway@bain.us and I will put you on!

Thanks Again!

Joe Bain
lakeway@bain.us

Breaking News +

Hi everyone! Unfortunately the road repairs on Rough Hollow Drive are more significant than previously thought. Rough Hollow Drive will be closed from Rocky Coast Drive to Canyon Turn Trail until further notice. Here is a detour map. Currently the thought is that repairs will take a couple of weeks - of course this is depending on weather. Thanks to the developer, Haythem Dawlett for taking care of this situation!

For those of you that eat out in the area like I do, here is a link to the restaurant inspection report that Travis County does for our area restaurants. I will try to put it up periodically if there is an interest! Restaurant Inspection



Joe Bain
lakeway@bain.us

Saturday, January 9, 2010

Weekly Update

Hi folks! Our City Manager returned this week from vacation and had a full week! Welcome back!

Steve Jones spent two days at the Texas Transportation Forum. He learned of a possible long-term way to fund improvements to Flintrock Road. With luck we can partner with Travis County and the Feds to do the improvements with little cost to the City! I know I'm excited about the possiblity!

The City is planning to restripe the portion of Lohmans crossing where the crack sealing was done - new striping will improve the looks of the road.

Parks and Recreation Commission will meet on Tuesday at 6:30PM in Council Chambers. Here is the Agenda.

The City Building Commission will meet on Thursday January 14th at 9AM in the Council Chambers. Here is the Agenda.

The City is working to hire a new finance director. There have been some bumps in the road but they are moving forward and have a candidate. More on this soon.

ZAPCO recommended approval of a request to rezone the corner of RR 620 and Oak Grove Rd. form commercial to hotel-motel for a proposed Holiday Inn Express. Final approval of the re-zoning will be on the next Council Agenda.

The Activity Center sprinklers ran night before last and caused some ice in the parking lot. When they tried to sand the area, they found the sand inside the spreader was frozen solid. The truck and sand have since been thawed and were ready in case of any issues - luckily we didn't have any precipitation and didn't have any problems!

The repair work on Rough Hollow Drive started Monday - repairs should be done within a month and should not require road closures with any luck weather permitting.

The Lake Travis Band is delivering Lakeway telephone books Saturday - look for your copy on your front porch.

The City is reviewing plans for a 13,000 square foot Goodwill store to be built in front of the Vistas Condos (Glen Heather and 620). Goodwill has indicated that they are willing to work with the Thrift Store to minimize impact on them and the local crisis ministry.

There's a rumor that Buster's BBQ is still alive and plans to open up in the Town Center Shopping Center - This is good news!

Have a GREAT weekend!

Joe Bain
lakeway@bain.us

Thursday, January 7, 2010

Breakfast Club / ZAPCO / Brown Bag

Hi Everyone! Hope you are keeping warm! Looks like we are in for a cold couple of days! be sure to keep your plants, pets and phaucits warm.

Chief Radford spoke to the Breakfast Club Wednesday morning and gave his plans for the force in 2010. It was a GREAT presentation and was very well received by the audience.

ZAPCO met directly after that at the Council Chambers and the following was decided:

Permanent signs were approved at:
The Entrance at Lakeway
Scrapology
CVS Pharmacy
Independence Title Company

An extension of time on a Development Permit was granted for Fairlake Condominiums for 18 months.

A variance was granted for 117 Edgewater Cove to allow a retaining wall to be constructed in the flood plain.

The big issue was the Zoning Change request from Willow Springs Development from C-1 to HM to accommodate a proposed Holiday Inn Express on the property. The Board voted to recommend the change to the City Council at their next meeting.

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Please note the new links to schedules a the top right on the Blog. I will try to keep these events up to date here - just click on the link!

Thanks t all for the continued support! To be added to the notification email list, please send an email to lakeway@bain.us

Thanks again!

Joe Bain
lakeway@bain.us

Tuesday, January 5, 2010

Men's Breakfast Club Schedule / ZAPCO / Blood Drive

Hi folks!

Three items of interest on the beautiful Tuesday!

The Men's Breakfast Club will have Chief Todd Radford presenting an update on the Lakeway Police Department tomorrow morning January 6, 2010. Click the link to view the rest of the schedule for January.

ZAPCO meets directly after the Breakfast club at 9:10AM. Here is the Agenda!

The first Blood Drive of 2010 is scheduled on January 16th. Here is a link to all the info! Blood Drive Info

Thanks for all the support! To be added to the email notification of new posts, please email me at lakeway@bain.us

Thanks again!

Joe Bain

Friday, January 1, 2010

New Year is here!

I hope everyone had a safe and happy New Year! Things have been pretty slow around the City and it's been a while since my last post. Here's whats new!

First on a somber note, my good friend Deacon Boyce Foreman passed away December 24th after a short illness. He was a wonderful person and a unique soul that really made a difference in my life and in our community. We will miss you Boyce!

We will have a ZAPCO meeting on January 6. Several items will come before the Board, mostly sign issues with the exception of a request to re-zone the property North of the Methodist Church at 1602 RR 620 North from C-1 (Office / Retail) to HM (Hotel Motel) to accommodate a proposed Holiday Inn Express on the property. A variance was denied for additional height on this project and they are moving ahead without variances at this time. For a full agenda, see ZAPCO.

If you didn't see the article in the View, the new hospital is being held up for financing issues. The HUD guarantee seems to be delayed because of the Health Care Bill and the developers are unable to move forward until it is resolved - more soon on this I'm sure.

The personnel committee will be interviewing candidates for the position of Finance Director this month. Hopefully we will be able to fill the position in the near future.

Chief Radford has created two additional supervisory positions within patrol and has selected two officers for these positions. Two candidates have also completed the selection process for employment as patrol officers and will probably come on line in late January.

Our new Deputy Clerk for he Municipal Court is Kimberly Armosino. She is orginally from Oregon and has experience there in municipal and county courts.

We have received notice of our final funding allocation for the Energy Efficiency Community Block Grant from SECO. We should receive slightly more than $57K. This money will be used in upgrading the AC at the Activity Center, upgrading lighting in the Justice Center and scheduling energy audits of all eligible facilities. Chessie Blanchard has been instrumental in securing this grant - thanks Chessie!

Once again, I hope all of you had a great New Years Holiday and will have a prosperous 2010!

Joe Bain
lakeway@bain.us