Recap of City Issues - April 30, 2010

Scott Kriston reports that the TXDOT FM 2499 section 4 project contractor is pouring the concrete coping walls, cut outs, sidewalks, added storm water inlets and driveway connections on the north bound outside lane as weather permits.  Most of the work is taking place on the Corinth side of the project now.

COMMUNITY DEVELOPMENT

On Friday, April 30 Charlotte Wilcox, Sandy McCoy and Laurie Mullens attended the Grand Opening Celebration and ribbon cutting for the new Texas Health Presbyterian Hospital in Flower Mound. Ms. Wilcox was kind enough to fill in for Mayor Costa at the event. The facility will serve the residents of Highland Village, Flower Mound and Lewisville.

PUBLIC SAFETY (POLICE AND FIRE)

Fire:

Firefighter Personnel assisted with several Special Events this past Saturday; Adventure Triathlon Run Sponsored by Terra Firma, Mom's 5K Run, Heritage Elementary Carnival at Marcus High School, and the Rotary Dog Run.

"A" Shift Crew, Captain Jones, Charles Hinkle, Tony Sorsby, Scott Taylor, and Richard Caudle participated in the Baskin Robbins Fundraising Event "31 Cent Scoop Night", that took place on Wednesday evening to honor America's firefighters and provide an opportunity for community members to donate to their local fire service organization.  In addition, Baskin-Robbins will be donating $100,000 to the National Fallen Firefighters Foundation.

Fire Department personnel responded to 33 Calls for Service - week of April 23-29

• Medical Emergencies - 14
• Motor Vehicle Accidents - 1
• Residential Fire Alarm - 1
• Commercial Fire Alarm - 1
• Public Service Calls - 3
• Public Assist - 1
• Public Education - 4
• Gas Leak - 1
• Structure Fire - 1
• Odor Investigation - 1
• Commercial Plan Reviews - 4
• Commercial Fire Inspection - 1

Police:

This week, the police department responded to 149 calls for service, made 102 traffic contacts, made 2 arrests, responded to 4 traffic accidents and performed 356 community policing activities.

Corporal April Roppolo spoke to Girl Scout Brownie Troop # 3857 and they said to thank all the officers for all we do in the Community.  They sent boxes of cookies for us to share.

Senior Animal Care Officer Michelle Burke recently received the following note from one of our recent adoptors, "I just wanted you to know that the Lab pup is doing great and we love him!!!   The husband has named him Tybalt and he is scheduled for his neutering at Southridge Animal Hospital in Denton on May 3rd.  Thanks again." 

On Friday, Corporal April Roppolo completed a Lecture at DKH for the Kindergartens for about fifty children.

Senior Animal Care Officer Michelle Burke recently participated in the Highland Village Rotary's annual dog walk that was held in Highland Village in the LA Fitness parking lot.  We were able to find homes for over seven dogs and the event was a resounding success.  There were several Police Auxiliary that were able to assist and Officer Tim Henderson and Corporal April Roppolo were also there and a great help!  Auxiliary Ken Morgan led the dog walk and Auxiliary Tim Morgan worked the intersections. 

Lieutenant Karl Schlichter and Captain Mark Stewart attended a planning meeting for the upcoming Red, White, and Blue festival.

The new license plate reading system that Captain Corry Blount was able to get grant funded, has now been installed in three of the Police Department units and is up and running.  Tom Rollins assisted in the computer set up for the new system.

Sergeant David Pittinger and Corporal Patrick Finley recently participated in the fitness event held held at Camp Tsungani.  They had a great time and we're proud of their representation!  Thanks guys!

STREET / UTILITY DIVISIONS PROJECTS

Streets:

The Street Division crew cracksealed in the Montclair subdivision and will continue next week.

The Street Division started a painting program and painted the stop and school beginning and starting bars in the Village Estates lll, Village Estates II and Highland Meadows subdivisions.

Due to the high winds, Street Division has been removing trees that were blown down into the streets throughout the city.

Utilities:

Scott Kriston reports that the MSC project contractor opened the parking paving area located on the east side of the lot.  The fuel pumps will be closed until the paving is completed in that area.  The window contractor is installing the store front windows on the REC building.  The flooring contractor started to install the tile floors in the REC building this week.  The dry wall & painting contractors continue to work inside the Parks & Rec building.  The electrical & duct work rough is being installed in the PWB.  The equipment building and the storage building steel is currently being installed as weather permits. 

Scott Kriston met with BW2 Engineering , Inc. & discussed the status of all open Public Works projects.

Scott Kriston & Bobby Salmon conducted 5 Drainage Tech interviews this week.

Oak St GSR & site Improvements project was awarded this week to Dake Construction.  This project consists of painting the Oak St. ground storage tank, rebuilding the pump house and some site rehab.  Staff is currently working on having the contracts executed and will set up a pre-construction meeting in a few weeks.

Highland Village Road water line replacements: Section 1 & 2 project is advertised for bids.  This project consists of replacing approximately 4,200 linear feet of AC water line adjacent to Highland Village Road from Brazos Boulevard to Blue Bonnet Drive.  Staff will open bids on May 18th.  The construction for this project is anticipated to start in late May & take approximately 3-months to complete, weather permitting.  Residents should expect to experience some traffic delays/detours during the construction phase of this project.

Utility Crews:

• Responded to four after hour call outs and several resident concerns.
• Excavated and repaired a sewer service on Delano.
• Located five areas of utility infrastructure.
• Cleared a sewer stoppage on one private sewer line.
• Installed four sewer line clean out caps that were found missing during the recent smoke testing project of wastewater infrastructure.
• TV inspected nine sewer lines for areas in need of repair.
• Replaced a bad 8" butterfly valve and repaired a 8" booster pump valve at the FM407 Well Lot. 
• Replaced five old style water meter curb stops in preparation for proposed AMR installation.
• Removed all pump controls and SCADA equipment from the Oak Street Well Lot in preparation for upcoming improvements of the station.
• Performed meter rereads, water turn on/turn offs, and leak checks.
• Took delivery of the hardware upgrades to TV inspection camera & installed them.  This will allow for underground drainage pipe TV inspections. 
• Performed maintenance on well lots, lift stations, fire hydrants and the water distribution and wastewater collection system.

Drainage Crews:

• Excavated the driveway culvert, reset RCP to flow, graded the bar ditch and  laid sod in the 1200 block of Highland Village Rd. to eliminate standing water.
• Redefined the bar ditch in the 100 block of Brookdale to eliminate standing water.
• Met with a resident in the 900 block of Summer Trail Ct. about standing water.
• Met with resident in the 3000 block Wimbledon about drainage issues.
• Cleared debris and redefined the swale in the drainage easement to eliminate standing water in the 3000 block of Whispering Oaks.

PARKS DEPARTMENT

Contractors are in the process of installing an automatic self pay station at the Copperas Park gate house.

Staff made repairs to soccer goals at Copperas Park as well as repairs to areas of Kids Kastle at Unity Park.

Parks staff is currently planting spring flowers in the shrub beds at parks, municipal grounds and around entry monuments. 

A contractor will begin work this week on repairing the boat dock at Copperas Branch Park.

Wes Neinhuser made fertilizer applications to various Parks and medians in the City.

A volunteer youth group from the Village Church re-stained all the wooden bollards in the parking lot at Copperas Park over the week end. They did a great job, the City and Parks Department are very appreciative of their work with this project.

Park staff is preparing for the Spring Clean Up this Saturday.  There is a chance that it will be cancelled due to rain and lightning.  If it is cancelled, we will have the clean up the following Saturday, May 8th at Copperas Branch Park from 9:00 a.m. to noon.  We will be accepting household debris, documents for shredding, all electronics, batteries and household hazardous waste.  This event has been approved by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers and Texas Commission on Environmental Quality (TCEQ).  

Parks staff has installed two water fountains on City Trail.  One is located at City Trail at FM 2499 amenity station, is ADA accessible, includes a pet fountain and was donated by the Highland Village Wal-Mart.  The second is located on City Trail at Briarhill Boulevard amenity station, is ADA accessible, includes a pet fountain, an eight foot tall mister and was donated by the Highland Village Parks Foundation.

Parks staff met with various Red, White and Blue Festival committees to finalize plans for the bands, VIP tent, staff tent, sponsorships and audio video production. 

Projects:

The Highland Village Sidewalk / Lake Vista Trail Connection project is nearing completion.  The contractor has poured all of the concrete, installed all of the sod and is in the clean up process in which they will be removing all of the construction signs and erosion control rock berms.  Park staff will have a walkthrough scheduled next week to ensure all of the items are complete and in place.  The City has enjoyed working with Axis Contracting, Inc.

The Highland Village Senior All Stars met on Monday (19 attendees) and Thursday (29 attendees) for game day. 

Twelve Senior All Stars met on Tuesday for open game time.

On Friday, 6 Highland Village Senior All Stars went to the Canton Flea Market.

Fince Espinoza and Andra Boxberger participated in the Young Life Adventure Race that took place on Saturday at the Camp Tsungani in Highland Village. The race consisted of kayaking 1.25 miles on Lake Lewisville, a 4 mile run, and kayaking 1.25 miles back.

HUMAN RESOURCES / STAFF TRAINING

Human Resources:

• On Wednesday Heather Miller and Bobby Salmon attended the Supervisory Series training class, Managing Employee Performance.  Three more classes remain to complete the series training sessions.

Fire:

• Chief Lonnie Tatum attended Denton County Emergency Managers Crisis Application Training on Friday at the Denton County Emergency Management Training Facility. The training covered the basics of WebEOC, the Request Process, the Texas Special Needs Evacuee Tracking System (TxSNETS) and the Texas WebEOC Interoperability Project (TWIRP).

CITY MANAGER / CITY COUNCIL

Mayor Costa attended the 1st Annual Running Moms Rock 5K Run, benefiting The Children's Advocacy Center for Denton County, on Saturday, April 28th.

Mayor Pro Tem Combs and Council Member Meek attended the monthly Precinct 3 meeting in Flower Mound on Tuesday.

Mayor Costa held the final "Evening with the Mayor" event scheduled for this month on Thursday.  Council Member Wilcox also attended.  This meeting was held for residents north of Brazos Boulevard and east of Sellmeyer, who are not represented by a Home Owners Association, to allow for open discussion of city and area issues and concerns.

Council Member Wilcox represented the City of Highland Village at the combined Highland Village Business Association and Flower Mound and Lewisville Chambers Texas Health Presbyterian Hospital Grand Opening Celebration and Ribbon Cutting on Friday.