Recap of City Issues - January 4, 2008

A 60% complete set of construction drawings for the FM 2499 tunnel was received from HNTB.  This document was included in the submittal to TxDOT requesting approval of the tunnel design and location to be added to their contract for construction of FM 2499 via change order.  The following rendering for the pedestrian tunnel was provided to the City and is presently on the front page of the City website.

The City is another step closer to providing electronic access to city documents.  In 2007, the city purchased Laserfiche (document imagining software), which allows the City Secretary's Office to make city documents available via the city's website.  The City Secretary's Office has been in the process of scanning and indexing city documents (ordinances, resolutions, etc.) to be made available to the public as well as city employees.  This added feature will prove beneficial to both the public as well as city employees, because they users will have the option to view certain documents that are on file in the City Secretary's Office.  On Thursday, January 3rd the following employees received training on how to retrieve and perform searches: Lori Wright, Laurie Mullens, Vanesa Childers, Gay Durden, Autumn Aman, Sandy McCoy, Patty Hamilton, Jannie Baughman and Shelly Clark.  The city expects to roll out Laserfiche to the public the later part of February.

Rhoda L. Savage conducted second interviews with two candidates for the Parks Administrative Assistant.

A bid advertisement was published in the local paper for Victoria, Market and Village Park Trails.  Bids will be opened on January 29, 2008.

On Monday night the Senior All-Stars rang in the New Year together.  Elvis stopped by to Rock n’ Roll with the All-Stars at the Highland Shores Community Center.  (25 Residents and 13 Non-Residents attended.)

On Thursday the Senior All-Stars met at the Highland Shores Community Center for game day and Meals on Wheels provided lunch.  (32 Residents and 11 Non-Residents attended.)

Parks staff did electrical repairs to the entry sign at Highland Village Road and I-35E.

Staff cleaned graffiti from concrete and brick surface areas at some of the Parks and along city streets and drainage ways where vandals spray painted what appeared to be their initials on the hard surfaces.

Crews are getting prepared to level playing surfaces at Unity baseball and soccer fields with the help of Texsand Sports Turf consulting firm.

The Inland Trail crew is doing routine maintenance as are other Parks crews.

The Police Department conducted a safe New Year's Eve deployment along with help from our VIP and extra patrols.

This week, the police department responded to 145 calls for service, made 94 traffic contacts, made 5 arrests, responded to 2 traffic accidents and performed 670 community policing activities.

The Highland Village Fire Department had 31 calls for service the week of December 27th-January 3rd.  This includes: 10 EMS calls, 4 structure fire calls, 6 commercial fire alarms, 4 public assists, 1 odor investigation, 1 gas leak call, 1 hazmat, 1 fill-in at Lewisville, 1 motor vehicle accident,  and 2 inspections/code violations.

The Highland Village Fire Department responded to 1,133 calls for service Jan – Dec 2007, an increase of 87 calls from 2006.

Assistant Fire Chief Jason Collier started with the City on January 2, 2008.  He has twenty years of experience in fire service and we are pleased to have him join our staff.

On Wednesday, the Swearing-In Ceremony was held for Assistant Chief Collier, who began his position with the City of Highland Village Fire Department. 

Chandra Artham is the Police Department's newest Auxiliary Member.  He has been assigned radio #641.  Chandra recently completed the basic auxiliary training.  We welcome him to our team and look forward to working with him in the future.

Officer Delana Jones completed Field Training and has been assigned to Day Shift patrol.

Cheryl Dudich joined our staff on January 2, 2008 as the part time Senior Specialist.  She will coordinate activities and support the Highland Village Senior All Stars.  The Parks and Recreation staff is happy to have her on board.

Council member Robichaux joined Mayor Costa on Wednesday morning January 2nd at a ceremony in the Council Chambers to welcome  our new Assistant Fire Chief Jason Collier to Highland Village.  Mayor Costa administered the Oath of Office to Assistant Chief Collier as members of the fire department and other city staff joined in to celebrate the new addition to the Highland Village Fire Department. 

Michael Leavitt, City Manager
01/04/08