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