Judge Kevin Madison asked me to help him get folks to his new Traffic Safety Judge Facebook page. He works tirelessly to promote safety on our streets especially for our young drivers. Here is a link to his page, www.facebook.com/trafficsafetyjudge Here's a clickable link.
With other court news, Judge Madison will be holding hearings to continue with the legal maze to get two houses demolished that were deemed unsafe 90 days ago. The hearing will be held at 6:00 PM on Monday September 9th, 2013. See you there!
Council met Monday afternoon for another budget work session at 2:00 PM. Here is that agenda. Staff and Council are working hard to be good stewards of your tax dollars. Staff has found some savings and is proposing that the tax rate be lowered to the "equivalent tax rate" - this means your taxes will remain the same as last year even though values have increased somewhat on average. The new proposed tax rate is $0.1748 per $100 evaluation down from $0.18 originally proposed. For comparison, FY 2011 was $0.1996 and FY 2012 was $0.1815 per $100 evaluation.
The next Budget work session will be on Monday, Sept. 9th at 2PM. Here is that agenda. It appears that most issues have been addressed and finalization of the new budget is near.
Our Police have been honored once again! The company that supplies their uniforms has selected Lakeway Police Dept. as "Best Custom Honor Guard Jacket" and are picturing our honor guard team on their national magazine cover!
We also have a new officer - her training is going well and she is getting used to her new surroundings. We are looking forward to seeing Cory around the City!
Here's a Summer report from Andra Dearing on the activities around Lakeway - looks like they were REALLY busy! Here's the link.
Council Member Bruce Harris and Chessie Zimmerman met with representatives of residential areas surrounding the proposed Lexus Dealership on 620 Friday morning. I'm told it was a good meeting with the main concerns being traffic in surrounding neighborhoods on test drives and lighting of the property. I know that Lexus has committed to making sure test drives are done away from the neighborhoods on Clara Van - no definitive answers are available - but the City has hired a lighting specialist to help us with those negotiations.
Remember, this is a 40 acre commercial tract that WILL be developed. It could support many different things - several other major retailer's have looked at the site and could have had up to 70% impervious cover and significant traffic compared to the 5-10 cars per hour from Lexus. It could also be many other types of commercial tracts - fast food, department stores, etc. This project will have public hearings at both ZAPCO and Council for citizen input, it is not a done deal. However, it may be a LOW impact option, 42% impervious cover and using current topography and tree cover to enhance the project.
Mayor DeOme, Steve Jones and I met with TXDOT Friday at the high school to discuss improvements to the traffic issues there. As previously reported, a joint study is in the works to look at traffic and ways to mitigate the near failures of some of the intersections. We found out that 620 will be repaved starting next Summer - this gives TXDOT the opportunity to make some traffic changes that might help. Included is changing the main entrance intersection to have two left turn lanes Northbound which would include the school changing traffic inside their property to allow space for the added influx. The will also look at striping changes at the Lohman's traffic signal that would allow dual left turn lanes there also. The school district also believes that once the middle school moves, traffic will decrease dramatically for a few years because a significant amount of the current issues are caused by middle school parents dropping off and picking up students. I'll let you know of future developments.
We also learned that TXDOT is currently doing studies on Hwy. 71 to get traffic counts for intersections on that highway. We are especially concerned about getting a traffic light at the intersection of Serene Hills and 71. The through traffic supports that light but the traffic entering 71 from Serene Hills may not - I know it has increased significantly since the last survey done in 2011.
The search for a Financial Director has finally come to an end. After what appears to be about a 5 month vacation at another job, we will welcome back Julie Oakley to the position! We are looking forward to rekindling our friendship and getting her back to work with us!
That's all for today! Hope you all have a GREAT Labor Day Weekend!
Joe Bain
lakeway@bain.us
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