October 24th meeting

I was out of town for the October 24th meeting. The audio file is here.

Agenda for the October 24th meeting

The agenda for the upcoming meeting has been posted on the City's website here. This agenda is probably the shortest I have seen in 18 months on the Council, as there was a meeting only a week ago.

An upcoming opening on the Woodway City Council

I want to give anyone who wants to run for my seat on the Council plenty of notice: I won't be running for re-election in May. I have enjoyed being on the Council, have learned a lot and met a lot of good people, but I think there are some who really want a chance to be on the Council and who would do at least as good a job. If you are interested, this position requires that you live in Ward II (see map below for approximate boundaries). The filing deadline is in March; contact City Secretary Jennifer Canady (772-4480 or jcanady@woodway-texas.com) if you are interested. I hope someone on the Council will take over this blog, or start their own.

Incidentally, I have found that Woodway is very well run and the employees I know are hardworking, honest, and happy with their management. City Manager Yost Zakhary is very good at planning ahead and well-liked by the employees. Finance Director William Klump is extremely meticulous and honest. The staff I got to know the best ((Jennifer, Natalie and Donna) were great to work with. Every police officer I met was very professional and friendly. The Animal Control Office Albert Lopez is great at "finding new homes" for raccoons that I evicted from my attic. I also want to say that I am impressed with all of the other members of the City Council. To a person they are outstanding citizens and fine public servants.

Results of the October 17th meeting

I apologize for the delay in getting this posted; I was busy with a visitor to the Chemistry Department and a few other things.

Mayor Don Baker opened the meeting at 5:35 pm, and the invocation was given by Pastor John Dirk of Woodway First United Methodist Church. Having local pastors do the invocation was Mayor Baker's idea, seems good to me.

The next agenda item was to make Yard of the Month Awards. The winners were the Nosworthy, Grandy, Davis and Johnson families, but none were present. So we just looked at the photos of their yards and thanked them in absentia for buying so much Woodway water!

The next agenda item was to hear from visitors, but none were present.

Then we had the quarterly presentation of the Public Safety Department and the Community Services and Development Department. Notably, traffic citations are up 67% for the quarter (over last year) and 62% for the year. There is a new laser radar in use (one Councilmember joked that they were trying to pay for it with increased citations). Criminal investigations have tripled this year over last year; Assistant Police Chief Robert Smith said it was not any one area that was responsible. In looking at some of the other numbers, I think theft is one of the main areas of increase. However, a car burglary ring was caught awhile back, resulting in a big decrease in that category. And the theft of mail from residential mailboxes has decreased too.

The next item was amendments to the City Charter and proposed wording for the May 2012 ballot. But the City Attorney David Cherry asked that this be deferred until some wording adjustments were made.

The next item was discussion of a feasibility study to raise funds for the Arboretum. But the representative from Bacon Lee (the company the Arboretum Board recommended to carry out the study) could not attend, so this was deferred too. The basic idea is that we would hire a firm to conduct a survey/interviews to determine what level of support there is for private and corporate giving to the Arboretum development. One of the Arboretum Board members happens to be very knowledgable about this sort of thing.

Next was the "consent agenda" with several items on it, including buying t-shirts and caps for the teams at the Woodway Family Center ($16.5k), and the purchase of some replacement vehicles for the City ($184k). One interesting note: state law allows for purchasing locally even if the bid is up to 3% above the lowest bidder. But "locally" means "business located in Woodway", so vehicle purchases from Allen Samuels or any of the other Waco dealers are not allowed unless they happen to be the lowest bidders. The consent agenda was approved unanimously.

Incidentally, the bid to provide pizza to the Woodway Family Center was won by Rosati's, at $5 per pizza.

There was a City Manager's report. The main item of interest was that the Council will be going "paperless", using laptops or ipads, etc., instead of paper copied of the documents. This will probably take place in a few months. There was also a discussion of some complaints about water taste or odor, and about a complaint of the condition of one of the streets.

The meeting adjourned about 7:10 pm.

There is another meeting in one week (October 24th), because we skipped the meeting that would have taken place on Columbus day.

Agenda for the October 17th meeting

The agenda for the upcoming meeting has been posted at the City's website here.

Also, you can view the entries for the best scarecrow contest here.

This marks my 150th post on this blog.

Children's Garden Fair This Sunday

This Sunday (October 16th) starting at 2 pm will be the annual Children's Garden Fair at the Woodway Arboretum. This is always a fun event. You might even spot a cardinal as big as a high school student!

Anyone you know?

Two stray dogs were picked up by Woodway animal control last Sunday. Anyone you know?