2nd Quarter WGNA Meeting Summary 4/27/18  K.Agee

Our 2nd quarter WGNA meeting was held on 4/26/18 at our usual location (back of the Christian Church at 3525 Lawler). President Ricardo Rocha called the meeting to order at 7:02 p.m.

The Old Business section of the meeting centered around our involvement with the Texas Trash Bash, in cooperation with the Iglesia Christiana Bethel Church who also hosts our quarterly meetings. After approval of the 1^st quarter WGNA meeting minutes, Treasurer Robert Vera reported a balance of $1568.11 after a single withdrawal of $32.48 since his last report.

Discussion during the New Business section of the meeting involved the need for a US Flag for future meetings, so we can open with the Pledge of Allegiance. Also President Rocha announced the possibility that this year’s Neighborhood Night Out (2-Oct-2018) can be held at the Iglesia Christiana Bethel Church with their consent and support.

On a related note, Yolanda Estrada announced an upcoming “summer camp” program that will be sponsored by the Church, for children from Kindergarten age to 5^th grade. The program will last approximately 2 weeks and will include academic training as well as the arts of cooking, gardening, and carpentry. The Church can provide more details, but it is currently expected to start during the last week of June and end in early July.

Our former City Councilwoman Lori Dodson reminded the group to vote during the Special Election on Saturday, May 5^th (early voting at Richland College, Walnut St. open now!) Not only are 3 candidates vying for the Mayor’s office, there are 36 proposed amendments to the City’s Code, Charter, and other official documents.

President Rocha introduced the first of our two speakers (selected by Councilman Vera): Assistant City Planner Rick Vasquez. Rick spoke in detail about the 103 acre space at the southwest corner of Buckingham & Shiloh Roads. This is the old Wyrick Farm that is now being converted to a 450+ house residential area, with most homes expected to be in the $300,000 range. Streets & infrastructure (sewer, electricity, etc) will go in first, then home construction begins. The Wilbow Corporation of Australia is managing the development.

Rick also announced that the old Hypermart building and property (Garland Rd, north of LBJ Freeway) will be bulldozed starting May 15^th, and the property will eventually be handed over to the City of Garland at essentially no cost. At this time there are no certain plans for this 40 acre plot of land.

Rick touched on redevelopment of the old Raytheon Corp campus on Jupiter Rd near Miller. Not all of the original 110 acres plot will have immediate activity, but 9 acres will got a ‘Ricky Rockets’ retail/service/gas store, and 30 acres will go to Southeastern Freight Lines for a shipping logistics operation.

There was a discussion about a new federal program that gives the City a new ability to repair – and in limited cases – add new alleys for its residential area. It seems that our District 6 neighborhood has pretty good alleys, except for the few areas with unpaved alleys. For all cases, we are encouraged to contact our Councilman Robert Vera (council6@GarlandTx.gov, personal cell= 469-271-5471) with the specifics.

There was much discussion about sidewalks. Rick reminded us that the original sidewalks did not come with the streets… they were provided by the residential builders. That is an important fact, because most residents assume that the City is responsible for maintenance, which they are not. The City does matching programs available to help neighborhoods with the cost of repairs, and they are trying to allocate even more funds to cover this general expectation. Complicating these facts is the City’s Code of Ordinances that requires sidewalks be flat with no more separation than 3” within consecutive slabs (Code of Compliance Section 31.134). There are locations within the City where this occurs, usually as the result of trees being planted too close to the sidewalk.

Our second speaker was Steve Oliver from the Streets Department.

Steve explained the “PCI” or Pavement Condition Index the City uses to rank our streets and alleys. This is an objective & scientific way to let everyone understand how bad each street is in need of repair, so it can be scheduled fairly. There are exceptions to this system. For example, they cooperate with the Water & Sewer Departments, as well as Garland Power & Lights, and the natural gas companies so upgrades can be done with the best possible efficiency.

There are over 100 miles of pavement in our District 6 neighborhood, with about 12% being fixed during the 3 year period from late 2016 to late 2019. A complete list of repairs can be found at the City’s website: https://www.garlandtx.gov/gov/rz/streets/current_projects.asp. There is an overall trend to apply asphalt over many of our existing streets to gain a few more years of use from these concrete streets that were mostly built in our area between the 1950’s and the 1970’s.

Steve reminded us about a newsletter called ‘Street Talk’ that can be found at their website

http://www.ci.garland.tx.us/gov/rz/streets/default.asp. It has a subscription feature so readers can have new editions automatically sent to their email addresses. In addition to this, Steve says they have a SmartPhone App called ‘E-Assist’ which lets users send immediate complaints and observations directly to their department.

After Steve’ presentation, there was an open discussion, and the meeting was adjourned at 8:26 p.m.

WGNA thanks the Iglesia Christiana Bethel Church (especially Rev. Julio Danilo Estrada & wife Yolanda) for letting us hold our meetings in their Church!