Monday started off with a full belly at 'Fuzzy's Taco Shop' one of Lewisville's newest corporate citizens.  At 7:10 I was informed by JT and Will (operations manager and partner respectively) that I was their first customer for the new restaurant.  I gladly paid for my sausage, egg, and potato taco, slathered on the hot sauce and got my picture snapped for their Facebook.  I've been back twice since.

I asked Will "why Lewisville?" and he responded that the building was ideal, the landlord was good to work with, the demographics and high concentration of homeowners, as well as the 60,000 cars a day that come by the area were all big motivators to put this new store at 1288 Main Street.  Interestingly enough, the new plazas in Highland Village and Flower Mound only get about 50,000 a day in traffic.  I-35 is projected to have 300,000 cars per day by 2025.

When I hit the office about 40 minutes later, my wife called to let me know that her aunt had lost everything in a huge apartment fire in Irving.  News 8 even has footage of my aunt and her dog.  The picture to the left is all that's left of her apartment.  What amazed me wasn't that I now had a family member who had been saved by Lassie, or that no one was hurt, that the fire alarms didn't go off, or that the fire hydrants in the complex didn't work.  What truly amazed me was the generosity of friends, neighbors and acquaintances who immediately responded to my request for help to get my aunt back up on her feet.  Let me tell you, neighborly doesn't mean "I live next door and keep my radio down".  It means holding out an hand in someone else's time of need.  My aunt thanks you, and I thank you.  If you're keeping score, Patricia is doing as well as can be expected by the 'Do-Over' opportunity that's been given her. 

 Now that Monday was done, I turned my sights to entertaining the 81 Cub Scouts of Pack 233.  Pack 233 is a 31 year old institution in Lewisville that is supported by First United Methodist Church.  I received the reins as Cubmaster from Mr. Michael Labedis.  Talk about huge shoes to fill.  This guy even had the 'Smokey the Bear' hat and could build a space shuttle if you gave him enough bailing wire and bubble gum.  We've been working on our push carts for our races on the 6th (y'all are invited!) and I had to make sure that our monthly pack meeting ran smoothly.  While I'm not sure about the smooth part, I do know we got out a few minutes early.  Do not run late when you are entertaining 81 elementary schoolers.  I think the last guy who ran late is still crying and living in a basement.

Just a quick plea; I have to run the family campout campfires and I desperately need a few good ideas.  Right now all I've got is "pour lots of flammable things in the fire".  And while that might keep the boys engaged, I am pretty sure my tenure as Cubmaster would be cut incredibly short.

Friday was my next bit of eventful activity worth noting.  I rode along with the Lewisville Police Department.  Yes this was voluntary.  No I did not wear handcuffs or sit in the back seat.  As a graduate of the Lewisville Citizen's Police Academy I was afforded the privileged of signing away any liability and riding along with an officer from 6pm to 2am.  I was involved in 3 significant calls on Friday evening.  The first started out as a DUI call.  The officer I was riding with mentioned that Lewisville citizens are REALLY good at calling in DUI and in fact, Lewisville had the highest amount of DUI convictions in the state.  He also mentioned that to get a conviction rate like that meant that each arrest had approximately 4 hours of paperwork to make sure the driver didn't get off on a technicality.

After that explanation we pulled into a parking lot where the suspect had stopped and I watched as he was searched and large quantities of cash and what to my uneducated eye looked like oregano were found.  The truly sad part of all this was that there were children involved.  I used to ride with my police officer aunt when I would come home from college, and we never ran into something this convoluted.  After processing the scene I went back to the Police Station where I was handed off to another officer since my first partner was going to be spending several hours processing paperwork.

My second partner and I proceeded to spend about an hour telling a father that the police weren't responsible for punishing unruly children.  I felt bad for the daughter, already on her way to a pretty crappy life because her father was afraid to be strict.  My officer mentioned that he'd been to this house several times, at which point I was a bit frustrated by the whole thing.  I understand this was important to this family, but I personally would prefer our police be spending their time on criminal issues.  Especially since the daughter wasn't home and the father didn't want to press any runaway charges.

Our third outing was to break up a beer pong party that had gotten a bit loud.  It was all I could do not to feel for the 6 teens we had busted, there but for the grace of god have many of us gone.  There were a LOT of upset parents having to drive from all over to pick up their kids.   The way the officer handled the situation was great, and hopefully these kids will think twice next time.

What I learned from all of this is that our police do a great job, from family issues, to minors, to drug busts, but that they're pushing the limits of what they can do with the staffing and resources they currently have.  All night the dispatch center had calls lined up ready to be taken by officers, and all night we were running from call to call with zero down time. Perhaps this was an atypical evening, however, with Chief Kerbow suggesting we need more staffing at the last council retreat, I don't think I'm off base.  Of course that means coming up with funding at a time when our expenses are exceeding our revenues by about 1.5 million to date.

Finally I had the chance to meet quite a few families in Old Town this weekend as I introduced myself as a candidate for City Council.  The number one issue?  Code enforcement and redevelopment of the Old Town neighborhoods.  It was great to see a lot of the redevelopment funding that the committee I serve on had recommended was still doing well and had improved the feel of a couple small areas, however, it was disheartening to see a smattering of homes where someone had obvioulsy taken great pains to keep their home up, while the neighbors had obvious code violations- illegal siding, boarded windows, unpainted and rotting wood were just a few.  Since code enforcement falls within the Community Development department (we have specific code enforcement personnel), I believe this is another area where thin resources are beginning to show.  There are a few ideas that should help close the budget gap and incentivise people to invest in their homes, but that's on the campaign page.

I've left this week charged up for what's possible, but with a clearer understanding of what we have to overcome.   It was definitely an interesting week.