The CDBG meeting this past week had a couple of interesting points that residents might want to know.
First- The City's First Time Homebuyers program has added 11 new homeowners to the Lewisville tax rolls. This makes 94 total home buyers in Lewisville since the program began, exhausts our funds for this program until October, and there has been only one default out of all 94 homebuyers.
Second- Recommended Budget for CDBG expenditures next year. This will be $769,849 from Housing and Urban Development ($134,000 from construction that is rolling to this year and 635,106 allocation, a 9.1% increase from last year). There is also $170,000 from the City to fund Social Service Agencies.
These funds are for 1 year. CDBG will be asking for 3 year funding programs after a Community Needs Assessment (assuming the City will pay for one. The City also desperately needs a new 10 year plan, but budgets have killed that also). If you work with a non-profit that is partially funded by the City you might want to attend Monday's Council Meeting.
Other recommendations for Brick and Mortar (Category 1 projects) are: $183K for street improvements along Edward St., $150,000 for the First Time Homebuyer program, $185,000 for a housing rehab program (I'm glad we could recommend reviving this program). CDBG is exploring a grant program called HOME to add to this budget.
Third- Category II funding (Social Service Agencies) will be reviewed by Council on Monday.
Fourth- The committee discussed a Community Co-op kitchen. A couple of local social service agencies had mentioned the desire to build a commercial kitchen. These types of capital improvements are typically what Housing and Urban Development funds are well suited for and there are many ways that a commercial kitchen could help not just low to moderate income families and social service agencies, but it could also be a resource for food entrepreneurs, local businesses, and the farmers market. Next steps are to see if there is any interest from the social service agencies.
Fifth- There is a weatherization program available to low to moderate income families in Lewisville. Please review the attached flyer and get a copy to your Church. This is a great program, and doesn't use City funds. This isn't the Federal Cash for Caulkers program (which is being finalized), but is part of the Stimulus.
Finally- my neighbor stopped me this morning and shared with me that she had called about getting a patch in our alley from where the garbage trucks had damaged the concrete on her drive over the years. In less than a day, public works came out and placed an asphalt patch on the damage. She was tickled that the city was so responsive to her call. Great job Public Works!
The Lewisville Community Development Block Grant committee has recently finished up their recommendations for the 2010-2011 budget which will be presented to City Council in mid June. This is always a difficult decision because there are so many deserving organizations and so few dollars.
One of the things that we're hoping to bring back will be the housing rehabilitation program. Having walked and spoken with many residents while campaigning for council this year there are quite a few properties that need work, and many of them are owned by our elderly and working poor. One of the mandates of the CDBG is neighborhood improvement, specifically in economically disadvantaged areas of town. We target federal and a tiny amount of city funds to improve neighborhoods by adding new amenities, speeding up funding of projects that aren't a top priority (street and sewer upgrades are a good example) but are making a neighborhood look run down, and even housing rehabilitation, which we last did about seven years ago.
While reviewing the budgets and business practices of SPAN, CASA, CISNT, CCA, Day Stay for Adults, CACDC and the rest of our local social service agencies I'm constantly amazed at how much these organizations do to help reduce crime, fight poverty, and improve the lives of children, elderly and the poor in our community with nothing but a shoestring budget. Which is why I'm concerned by a trend that was being reported on this week by National Public Radio: Taxing the Tax Exempt. What I found interesting was that not once in the story was the idea of taxing a church brought up. Not that I believe we should target any non-profits, but I guess some are more politically expedient than others. Instead, taxing not for profit hospitals, arts centers, historical preservation groups, seems to be a new way for local governments to raise revenues without 'raising taxes'.
I'm all for paying your fair share and that there needs to be some level of taxation to support public education, public roads, public police, libraries, etc. However, the vast majority of the non profits that Lewisville helps fund, aren't a net loss, but a net gain. They put child abusers in prison, help families with elder and adult day care needs, feed the elderly, keep children out of gangs, and many other services that make Lewisville a safer, family friendly community. Most of these organizations run better financial books than for profit businesses due to the restrictions imposed on them by the city and federal government to show that their funding is having a measurable outcome.
As a fiscal conservative, having worked with many of these agencies for the better part of a decade, if only in a small way, I'd hate for cities like Lewisville to be penny wise and pound foolish.
If you do work with any of these organizations make sure to find time to volunteer, and be involved with our city's budgeting process this summer. While there's nothing making me think that Lewisville is looking at these types of options to fill our budget gap, I'd hate to think that politicians would make the poorest and neediest shoulder even more financial obligations, especially when the outcomes of those same organizations create a safer Lewisville.
Thanks for putting up with the Campaign Hiatus. Now that I've got free time again, I'll be continuing to post council live blogs, commentary and Lewisville issues. The goal of this blog has always been to focus on issues that impact Lewisville. With that being said, if you have any story ideas, or concerns about "what's going on in Lewisville" feel free to hit the Contact Me link. Hopefully we can build this site as a community resource.
There will be a couple of additional features on this site over the next few months, the one I'm most excited about is "Neigoborhoods" If you have a neighborhood association, please let me know your contact info. I have a large resource library for neighborhood association tools that might be useful and will be enlarging that section of the website.
Thank you for reading and being involved. It's our city. Only by being informed on the actions of others can we make informed decisions to help grow Lewisville.
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.
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The CDBG meeting this past week had a couple of interesting points that residents might want to know.
Monday started off with a full belly at '
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 
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.
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.