More 100° heat, Lake Travis on it's way down and maybe a little rain in the forecast. We did get 1.6 inches last week but there was little run off. The Lake stopped dropping for two days but is on it's way down again. As o Friday the 17th, Travis was at 655.74 - about 9 feet below normal for this time of year, about 64% full. That's about 408,897 Acre Feet below full. Inflows to the lake were about 178 AF and Travis is sending out 1,515 AF. A deficit of about 1337 AF per day - this doesn't include the evaporation.
Election news. It appears as of Friday there were four candidates for council.
One moved from California a few years back without paying his state taxes there ($2,748 Nov. 15, 2004), and then skipped out on a bill in Denton County ($12,656 lien) August 28, 2006 and moved to Lakeway a little less than 5 years ago.
One lives on Rolling Green and doesn't want any improvements on the Lakeway MUD land and was very outspoken about it when it was in front of ZAPCO. She resigned from the Art's Committee because she didn't have the time to work on it. She's running for a "full" term on the application - the November election is for two "unexpired term" positions.
One was Chairman of the Ethics Board, rejected a complaint that was filed against Council Member Hennagin because of a clerical issue and resigned the next day. Now appointed to the Board of Adjustment. She is also running for one of the non-existent "full terms".
Last is a current Council Member's wife. All good with her!
Who knows, there was a lawsuit filed last week about the way the issues were handled in the last election. Thomas Kilgore has filed suit to either use "place positions" for council or delay the election to May.
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Let's get back to basics, but first a short story. This year's July 4th parade didn't have a "Previous Mayor's) car as is usual. Wonder why? The Women's Club had a float for the past recipients of "Volunteer of the Year" awards from the City. All of the living Mayor's were recipients - isn't that interesting! They ALL worked hard for the good of the City, not just single interest.
Since it's inception, Lakeway has been led by volunteers that worked hard for the city and it's residents. That's why we have the wonderful city today. We have ordinances to keep the city safe and clean and low taxes because everyone worked hard and worked together. I hope this will continue.
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Council has two (2) meetings Monday. the first is a budget hearing and the second is the regular council meeting. Lets look at the agenda items.
Here is the Special Session agenda.
Item 3 is another stab at the FY2019 Proposed Budget. Hopefully they have looked at some items and will lower the rate a little. City Manager Steve Jones will give a presentation.
Here's what you need to know: The "effective tax rate" the rate that would give the city an equivalent tax income is $0.1644. That rate takes into consideration the increases in property values and increases in sales tax income. The proposed rate is $0.174 which would be a little over a 5% increase in the city tax rate. These figures have probably changed some as Julie makes adjustments. that would equate to about a $40 increase on a $400K house.
There will be a public hearing for citizens to speak about their thoughts for the budget and tax rate.
This meeting starts at 2:00 P.M.
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Here is the agenda for the regular meeting. It includes the aouncil member packet.
Item 4) Reports on previous meeting issues - the list is growing. There was no information on the appointments for the Comprehensive Plan Committee in the Packet - I guess they will spring it on us at the meeting.
Item 6) A Special Use permit for a property at 15301 Pheasant Lane. This was covered at ZAPCO and approved by them.
Item 7) This item involves boat dock permits. Previously, a limit on how close boat docks could be to each other was placed in the ordinance because there were many complaints of docks intruding on each other when the water levels dropped. It appears the council has a solution for that and wants to take out that limitation.
Item 8) Council evidently wants to redo the Heritage Commission and make it a Committee and otherwise make updates to the ordinance.
Item 9) It looks like they are codifying the rules for all committees and commissions, what is published and what will be video'd and audio taped and length of time those items will be kept.
Item 10) Is a resolution to "suspend" the deer control program. In my opinion, we are getting the cart before the horse on this one. This should wait until there is a study that shows the current condition of the program. The data that Texas Parks uses shows that the deer population is controlled. There is plenty of time to hire a good biologist to do a study and bring back data. Then a decision can be made as to the way to proceed.
Item 11) Contract award for park improvements.
Item 12) Interlocal Agreement approval for operation of the PSAP. That is the funding and equipment for our 911 operations.
13) Looks like they are going to talk about public on future development projects. I'm a little confused on this one.
It appears they have scheduled 3 items for discussion in Executive Session. City Manager's annual performance review is pretty standard, and they are going to discuss issues with releasing properties located at 19618 and 19726 Bee Creek Tavern road from the ETJ.
The last item is discussion of a lawsuit filed by Thomas Kilgore vs. City of Lakeway. He has been outspoken on the way the city has handled the 3 year term walk back as per Secretary of State instructions. I haven't been able to find the filings yet but will post them when I do. Here's a link to the Statesman Article.
Looks like a looonnnggg meeting!
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Get your calendars out and mark off October 2. That is the date for National Night Out! Start now to put together a meet up and have the police join you to answer questions and give pointers. I'll remind you again next month. Here's a link to more information.
The next Lakeway Blood Drive is September 15 at the Lakeway Activity Center from 8 A.M. until noon. Here's a link to more info.
That's all I have for today - if you haven't yet, go to my new website, www.skypict.com for Sky Pictures. There are a lot of new area pictures of new construction and updates on the Police Facility.
Have a GREAT weekend. If you want to be added (or removed) from my email list, send a note to lakeway@bain.us and I'll get it taken care of.
Joe Bain
lakeway@bain.us
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