Garland Teens have demonstrated they are paying better attention while driving. The Garland Youth Council has worked to help that awareness for several years and continues its effort Saturday at Firewheel Town Center. If you have a teen driver, or a pre-teen driver, you could be doing them the greatest favor of his or her life Saturday by stopping at the Safety Expo.
 

City of Garland Press Release

Youth Council Hosts Safety Expo for Teen Drivers

The Garland Youth Council (GYC) will host its annual "Teens in the Driver Seat" Day at Firewheel Town Center on Saturday, March 6, 2010. The event focuses on safe-driving for teens and will take place in the park at Firewheel Town Center from 10 a.m. to 3 p.m.
 
The Garland Youth Council and student teams from all seven Garland ISD high school campuses launched the "Teens in the Driver Seat" (TDS) program in 2007. The program’s goal is to make teen drivers and their passengers more aware of the behaviors that put them at greater risk of being involved in a car crash. The program utilizes the power of peer-to-peer communication to spread its message.
 
Each student team will facilitate a game or activity to help their peers understand these important safety messages. Some of those activities include a chance to wear a special set of goggles that simulate the effects of alcohol, participation in a seatbelt pledge drive, and much more.
 
One of the interactive exhibits will feature the Amber Menefee Mobile Memorial Trailer. The exhibit includes the actual wreckage from a car crash involving a drunk driver. 21-year old Amber Menefee was killed in that crash. This moving and educational exhibit will help teens understand the importance of NOT mixing alcohol or drugs with driving.
 
The North Texas Tollway Authority is teaming up with the GYC for the first time to help educate young drivers about how to safely navigate highways and freeways. Staff members from the NTTA will provide the latest safety information compiled by a team of in-house experts.
 
"The NTTA is very pleased to participate in this worthwhile program which has already proven to enhance the safety of teens in cars," said Marty Legé, Director of the System and Incident Management Department at the North Texas Tollway Authority. "Teens and young adults, as in all aspects of their lives, have many lessons to learn about driving. We feel it is tremendously valuable to help them learn these lessons through educational programs and demonstrations where they can do it safely, rather than a hard lesson learned through tragedy on a roadway. I encourage parents and community members to support these events as we focus on helping these young drivers who share our roads now and in the future," Ms. Legé said.
 
Special information for parents will be provided by Dee Dee Bates State Farm Insurance about how to train your teen to be a safe driver. The theme will be "Arrive Alive… Don’t Text and Drive." The State Farm booth will offer information about keeping auto insurance rates lower with a teen driver in the family.
 
Firewheel Town Center is providing discount coupons for a variety of Town Center stores for youth who visit the GYC booth during the event, as well as special gifts for each participating high school student team.
 
For more information about Teens in the Driver Seat Day and the Garland Youth Council, visit www.GarlandYouthCouncil.org or call 972-205-2879.
 

From the DMN Garland Blog:

Scouting for Food pickup is tomorrow

Ray Leszcynski/Reporter
 
Pickup for the Boy Scouts' 2010 Scouting for Food Drive is tomorrow. While thousands of scouts will be hitting the streets and hustling up tons of food, you as donor have a much easier task. Simply fill the yellow bag they left on your door last week and leave it on the door. Do it tonight, as pickup starts at 9 a.m.
 
Among the food pantries to be stocked are four belonging to Garland charities, Good Samaritans, Friendship House, New Beginning Center and St. Michael's Catholic Church.
 
Scouts are looking for non-perishable canned, boxed or bagged items with a high nutritional value. Necessary food items include goods such as vegetables, meats, chili, soups, pasta, juices and baby formula. The Boy Scouts are unable to accept monetary donations as well as foods that are perishable, frozen or in glass containers.
 

 
Garland neighborhoods with have Cub Scouts and Boy Scouts walking the streets collecting food. I'll be helping the effort with Troop 57, my son's troop. I hope you'll take the chance to help these very worthwhile local charities. If you can't be home, put food in any sack, mark it "Scouting for Food," and leave it outside your front door. Your positive deed goes a long ways beyond just giving a bite to eat during these challenging times; it makes a very strong, lifetime impression on these young community members as to what kind of community we have.
 
So, instead of helping carry our groceries across the street, on Saturday morning the Scouts are willing to carry the load all the way to these various pantries!
 

City of Garland Press Release:

Severe Weather Awareness Week: February 21-27, 2010

Each year, large portions of Texas are impacted by floods, tornadoes, hail storms, straight line winds and other severe weather emergencies. Citizens are encouraged to prepare for severe weather events and to educate themselves on safety strategies.
 
Mayor Ronald E. Jones has officially recognized February 21-27 as Severe Weather Awareness Week in Garland, conjunction with the statewide observation. Garland’s Office of Emergency Management joins the Texas Division of Emergency Management and the National Weather Service in urging everyone in our community to learn more about severe weather preparedness.
 
"Every family should have a plan for how to respond in a severe weather emergency which should includes proper supplies, a plan for communicating and how to access important emergency information," says Darrell Toups, Emergency Management Coordinator for the City of Garland.
 
An All-Hazards Radio is one of the most important items to include on any emergency supplies list. Such radios are available at most department and electronics stores and can be programmed to broadcast announcements about severe weather and other hazards in a specific geographic area.
 
For more information about severe weather preparedness, visit www.Garland-OEM.com or www.knowhat2do.com.
 

City of Garland Press Release:

Winter Weather Continues to Cause Delays

This past weekend's heavy snows continue to cause delays in the pickup of brush and other bulky goods.
 
Poor road conditions forced Garland's Environmental Waste Services Department to delay last Friday's collection routes, which were completed Monday. However, the high volume of damaged trees and shrubbery, combined with that delay, is causing the Brush/Bulky Goods Division to operate about one day behind schedule.
 
It is anticipated that brush/bulky goods collection for the Tuesday collection area will begin on Wednesday, February 17, 2010. For more information, contact Environmental Waste Services at 972-205-3500.
 

 
The delays last Friday didn't affect any District 1 neigbhorhoods, however, the subsequent delays might affect collections this week, especially gathering the higher than usual number of broken limbs that fell because of heavy snow loads. If your brush and bulky items day comes and goes, please know that crews are coming and give it another day. If you have questions, feel free to call the number above.
 

City of Garland Press Release:

Water System Maintenance May Cause
Temporary Taste, Odor Change

The North Texas Municipal Water District (NTMWD) has scheduled a free chlorine maintenance that will be conducted on the NTMWD Wylie water transmission system and customers’ distribution systems for a 30 day period from February 19, 2010, to March 25, 2010. The City of Garland is a member of the NTMWD.
 
Consumers who are sensitive to taste and odor changes in drinking water might notice a change during this period. This process does not alter the quality of the drinking water provided to consumers. Your water is still safe to drink.
 
The Texas Commission on Environmental Quality (TCEQ) allows water suppliers to perform free chlorine maintenance. Free chlorine maintenance helps reduce the need for water suppliers to flush systems in order to maintain chloramine residual (required by the TCEQ) during the warm weather periods, thus conserving water. Free chlorine maintenance lasts about 30 days and is performed in cool weather months when water temperature is lower.
 
The NTMWD utilizes chloramines, a combination of chlorine and ammonia, in the water treatment process and to provide the disinfectant residual in the transmission and distribution systems as required by the TCEQ. Chloramines provide a longer lasting residual disinfection in water pipelines and storage facilities.
 
For more information about the North Texas Municipal Water District and the free chlorine maintenance process, visit www.ntmwd.com. For more information about the City of Garland Water Utilities, visit www.GarlandWater.com.
 

 
Contrary to what the title of this post might suggest, I don't have any idea how noticeable the change will be. For those that might notice, it's nice to have advance information.
 

It's Sunday and a look at e-mails received today, usually a very light day, revealed the animal shelter protesters that have picketed Council meetings and pushed their agenda against carbon monoxide euthanasia have decided Garland does not deserve its recognition in 2008 as one of the Top 100 Best Places to Live.
 

Two of the emails in my Inbox that were addressed to CNN/Money and copied to the Council requested that Garland be removed from the list. However, neither email was from a Garland resident. Irrespective that both made claims not supported by fact, this new pressure tactic by the protesters will fall on deaf ears because the list has moved on.
 
The collaborative effort between cable channel CNN and Fortune and Money magazines prepares a new list each year and the list will change quite a bit from year to year. In 2008 when Garland was selected, so were several other North Texas cities, including Richardson. The latest list, for 2009, only has two North Texas cities: Keller and Mansfield, both quick-growing suburbs. Most of the remaining Texas cities on the list this time are from Central Texas. Friendswood near Houston is the remaining Texas city. The list in 2008 included several cities Garland's size but the current list focuses exclusively on smaller cities, all under 50,000. The largest city in the top 25 is only 44,100 (Mansfield)—about a fifth the size of Garland—and the second-largest city on the list of 100 cities is Georgetown (#45) at 46,900.
 

I hope you caught this story in today's Metro section of the Dallas Morning News or followed the lead at the DMN Garland Blog. We knew there were burglaries being committed by teens skipping school. It's not indicated by this article, but I assume that previous report was a harbinger to this news.
 
Once again and every day, we owe thanks to the dedicated professionals that expertly work to constantly protect our community! Thank you.
 

From the Dallas Morning News:

19 teens arrested in string of home break-ins in Garland

12:47 PM CST on Friday, February 5, 2010
By ABIGAIL THATCHER ALLEN / The Dallas Morning News
 
Garland police have arrested 25 people, most of them teens, in connection with at least 15 home burglaries in the city.
 
One of the suspects faces a charge of possession with the intent to deliver heroin, and police believe the thieves were stealing flat-screen TVs and other valuable electronics to fund drug purchases.
 
"All of them are connected either through the offenses that they've committed or through the drugs that they were purchasing or selling," Garland police spokesman Joe Harn said of the suspects, who were arrested last month.
 
Of the 25 people arrested, 19 are high-school-age teenagers. Those still in school attend Rowlett, South Garland or Naaman Forest high schools, all in the Garland school district.
 
Around the beginning of the year, police noticed an increase in home burglaries in south Garland. While investigating one break-in, they arrested the first suspect, Harn said.
 
Police have issued a warrant for another suspect, 17-year-old Jonathan Barros, and Harn said more arrests may be made.
 
"This is still very much an ongoing case," he said.
 

Our crime stats for the last six months have been a roller coaster ride, up one month and down the next. January was a down month overall. Home burglaries matched November but both months represent the lowest reports in a year and a half. Building burglaries weren't as bad as some recent months but still higher than we usually see.
 
The category taking a jump this month were vehicle burglaries. We would have to go back to June to find a worse month. Catching the thieves is always a challenge. Fortunately they usually keep going until they are caught but that doesn't give much satisfaction to the victims. For thefts, incidents were down considerably and as most were shoplifting arrests, so more thieves were caught.
 
One District 1 neighborhood took a proactive stance against crime and it has paid off. They have a crime watch and have also installed high-quality security cameras and a recorder. Not too long ago a thief broke into three cars in the night. He took several items, including a wallet with credit cards. As he left the neighborhood his license plate was recorded. Not much later cameras at WalMart recorded him using the credit card. The investigating detective identified the man—who had been recently released from prison—as someone that had been arrested a couple weeks earlier for burglary. Police staked out the house where he was living and stopped him when he drove away in the truck photographed in the neighborhood. Several of the stolen items were still in the truck. He was arrested and taken to jail.
 
We don't have to be victims and there is a lot that we can do to help the police. After all, the more we help them, the more they are able to help us and our community.
 
If you want to review the areas that have reported incidents over the last month, download the complete report here for address-by-address information that includes your neighborhood. If you are reading this but do not live in District 1, you can get reports for your area here on the Police Department's website.
 

City of Garland Press Release:

Garland’s Atrium Named Wedding Favorite

WeddingWire, the nation’s leading wedding technology company, just announced The Atrium at the Granville Arts Center has been selected to receive the WeddingWire 2010 Bride’s Choice Awards™ for Wedding & Reception Venues!
 
The annual Bride’s Choice Awards recognizes and celebrates excellence in quality and service within the wedding industry, as determined by recent reviews and extensive surveys from over 500,000 newlyweds.
 
The Atrium at the Granville Arts Center is among the top five percent of all vendors in the WeddingWire community, which includes over 100,000 wedding professionals across the US and Canada. Awards were given to winners across 19 different service categories, from wedding venues to wedding photographers.
 
"We are excited to recognize and honor the success of the top wedding professionals within the WeddingWire Community" said Timothy Chi, WeddingWire’s Chief Executive Officer. "The annual Bride’s Choice Awards program has given us the unique opportunity to highlight the best wedding professionals in each region as reviewed by brides and grooms who have utilized their services in the past year."
 
"I am so thrilled and honored that our brides have rated The Atrium in the top five percent of wedding and reception venues! For almost seven years now, we have exceeded many a bride’s dream for a beautiful and awesome wedding reception," says Mark Wilson, Event Director for the Atrium at the Granville Arts Center.
 
The Atrium is located in historic Downtown Garland and features more than 14,000 square feet of event space including a beautifully appointed ballroom, spacious lobby and landscaped outdoor courtyard. For more information, visit www.GarlandArts.com and click on the Atrium link or call 972-205-3981.
 
For more information about WeddingWire, please visit the WeddingWire Storefront.
 

In a subdued vote that marked a subdued process, the Council unanimously passed the 2010 Proposed Capital Improvement Program. The process was much shortened from past years and not a single citizen spoke toward the program at any time—probably because the whole package was much smaller than previous years and was low enough than no new taxes would be required for debt service.
 
From the City Manager Bill Dollar's budget message:

 

The tax-supported portion of the Proposed CIP totals $42.8 million and is heavily weighted towards Street and Drainage projects. A total of $18.4 million (42.9%) is dedicated to street and transportation improvements and $7.7 million (18.0%) is included for major drainage projects. The Proposed CIP also includes funding for Public Safety projects including the critical replacement of Police in-car video cameras and the refurbishment of Fire ambulances.
 
Economic Development is also a significant component of the 2010 proposed plan with funding for continuation of our Downtown Redevelopment efforts and improvements in the City’s commercial corridors. In addition, the Proposed CIP includes funding for the City’s libraries to update and expand the materials collection and to provide for facility improvements. Funding for Hollabaugh Park and the West Garland Recreation Center along with enhancements to existing Park facilities is also included in the proposed program.
 
The 2010 Proposed CIP includes $99.6 million in projects related to City utilities and internal support services. Within this amount, $27.0 million is related to GP&L infrastructure, $37.1 million is dedicated to Wastewater Collection and Treatment, and $19.6 million is to fund the capital needs of the Water Utility. The proposed program also includes funding for the completion of the Downtown Utility Services Building.
 
CIP Funding
The Proposed $142.4 million program will require the issuance of $12.5 million in tax-supported debt, consisting of $8.8 million in General Obligation (GO) authorized Commercial Paper, $2.2 million in Certificates of Obligation (COs), and $1.5 million in Short-Term Tax Notes. In addition, the utility-supported portion of the program will require debt issuance totaling $23.1 million, which includes $975,000 in COs and $22.1 million in Revenue Bonds.
 
Tax Rate Impact
No increase in the Debt Service Tax Rate for fiscal year 2010-11 is required to fund the 2010 CIP as proposed.
 

In District 1, there will be concrete trail development in the Spring Creek Forest area, including behind Naaman Forest HS, much of it with county funds, and will link to a new visitors center off Holford Rd (which is in Dist 7).
 
Two of the largest street projects will be the extension of Naaman Forest to Brand Rd, creating a back route for Special Event Center traffic, and the widening of Pleasant Valley Rd and a new bridge across Rowlett Creek, much of that money from NTTA and county funds.
 
For a complete copy of the CIP, download it here.
 

Is the web the new future for local news? More and more it seems so.
 
When the latest incarnation of the historic Garland News ceased publication several months ago, a greater silence fell over the community. We do have very competent local coverage by the Dallas Morning News but, as in all print publications, space is limited. There is more local news than can be fit to the space allotted. Also, there is the DMN NeighborsGo and the Garland Messenger as print mediums. Together the local picture reported gets a bit broader.
 
On the electronic side, sources vary but the DMN Garland Blog and the DMN Garland Community pages add to or recap the print edition of the Morning News. I think this blog fills a slot. Longtime local web surfers are familiar with the Garland Citizens Forum and Suzy Blitz but those are discussion forums, generally not news sites.
 
Two new sites have been established that are purely local news and both by reporters that were long with the Garland News. Linda Jaresh is continuing to publish stories and photographs at Around Garland and Kim Everett is publishing at The Garland Texan. I've added links below as part of each post that connect to their sites and to two of the DMN sites.
 
If you check all the sites regularly, you'll probably get some repeated information but some things need to be said three times to sink in (especially for politicians).
 

In my last post, I included a Dallas Morning News article that Garland would be at the Public Utility Commission last Friday. I didn't know that a subsequent article had run in the Fort Worth Star-Telegram.
 

From the Fort Worth Star-Telegram:

Garland city attorney and PUC spar over release

Posted Friday, Jan. 29, 2010
By JACK Z. SMITH, 817-390-7724
jzsmith@star-telegram.com
 
Tempers flared as an obviously miffed Texas Public Utility Commission assailed a Garland city attorney Friday over a news release in which he called a court ruling reversing a commission order "a big win for Texas ratepayers."
 
The meeting in Austin featured uncharacteristically heated and personal exchanges, coming on the heels of a Jan. 15 ruling by state District Judge Stephen Yelenosky of Austin. That ruling could halt or delay a $5 billion project to build transmission lines from West Texas wind farms to Dallas-Fort Worth and other populous urban areas with surging electricity demand.
 
In the news release, Garland City Attorney Brad Neighbor said, "The PUC should not put the interests of big transmission line developers before the interests of Texas ratepayers."
 
Commission Chairman Barry Smitherman told Neighbor that he found the release "offensive," Commissioner Kenneth Anderson called it an effort to "try to embarrass" the PUC and "inflame the public" and Commissioner Donna Nelson said it was fraught with "mischaracterizations, innuendos and untruths."
 
"Your proper forum to express your grievances is the courthouse.  . . .  It’s not the press," Smitherman said.
 
Neighbor responded with strong words of his own.
 
"This is your place. You’re in control. So you can continue to berate me if you so choose," he told the three-member body, which the governor appoints.
 
Neighbor said he was being "castigated for trying to represent the interests" of Garland and its residents. Garland, on the northeast edge of Dallas, is the fifth-largest city in the Metroplex, with 228,350 residents.
 
Anderson told Neighbor that the release implied that the commission "didn’t care about the ratepayers."
 
Ratepayers are electricity consumers, whose electric bills are increasing roughly $4 per month to pay for the high-voltage transmission lines, expected to be completed by the end of 2013 under the Competitive Renewable Energy Zones project.
 
Garland has a municipally owned electric utility that unsuccessfully sought contracts from the commission for some CREZ projects in the Panhandle. It appealed the commission’s decision to Yelenosky’s court. The judge issued a ruling that remanded to the commission its 2009 order awarding dozens of CREZ projects to utility companies.
 
The commission, in its order, cited "inherent difficulties" that it said would arise if the projects were awarded to municipal utilities, including that the commission "does not have jurisdiction over municipally owned utilities regarding their routing of transmission lines," nor "the timing of the construction." Yelenosky said some factors that the commission took into account in its order "are legally irrelevant" and that some of its findings "are not supported by substantial evidence."
 
The commission has not yet fully addressed Yelenosky’s ruling, which takes effect in mid-February. But the commission unanimously decided Friday that it will soon enter a separate order designed to prevent 10 "high-priority" CREZ projects from being delayed by the ruling.
 
Among those are seven projects awarded to Dallas-based Oncor Electric Delivery, the major transmission and distribution company in North Texas. Garland did not seek to win any of the 10 high-priority projects, according to statements at Friday’s meeting.
 

City Attorney Brad Neighbor and GP&L Director Ray Schwertner appeared before the Public Utility Commission (center, l-r)

Just as Council meetings are televised and available for later streaming, so are the meetings of the PUC and many other state agencies. The meeting referenced in the above article and in earlier postings is available at the PUC website here. The relevant video is posted as "PUCT Open Meeting 1/29/2010" and the portion dealing with Judge Yelenosky's order and Garland City Attorney Neighbor starts at about the 1:27:01 mark.   Watching the meeting, it is easy to understand the report that tempers flared. The so-called Q&A verged on the bizarre. The chairman seemed to first try to get Garland to castigate the other companies participating in the project, then he seemed to imply xenophobic feelings, and then berated the city for working with out-of-state bond companies. Clearly the commissioners by tongue and tone felt insulted that Garland had challenged their decision process. That the court agreed with Garland seemed to be only an irritant, not a pause to reconsider their decision.   The commissioners claimed the city's press release following the court's decision was "mischaracterizations, innuendos, and untruths" yet they didn't demonstrate where.   For all the probing, nothing in the portion of the meeting with city officials dealt with anything except the press release. No explanations of why in the process of selecting builders the PUC seemed to reverse course and exclude all municipal applicants (who can borrow money for less and are not taxed, allowing lower operating costs). The final result was an agreement by both parties not to issue additional press releases and then: "I'm sorry," "Me, too," and "Meeting adjourned."