Meeting Minutes: Meeting Min. Jan 19
The meeting started at 7:07pm
Patrick Kennedy opened the meeting and introduced Sal Espino, our City Councilman.
Sal talked about gas wells in the area, our park, development, but mainly focused on roads.
We have 2 gas wells in our area—one on Haslet-Roanoke Rd. by the new school, and one on Haslet-Roanoke Rd. toward Westport Pkwy. Benzene was found in the water supply in Dish, which is by Denton, and has concerned the Fort Worth Counsel, but so far no Benzene has been found in the City of Fort Worth from the gas wells.
Sal mentioned that the City would help our neighborhood with the park plan after September 1st of this year for the 100,000 dollars we have in escrow for signing our mineral rights to the gas company.
He then moved onto the issue of sidewalks for the new school. They plan to make temporary sidewalks (made of asphalt) for the students to walk to and from school. One concern he mentioned, though, would be the pond that is so close to the road on the way to the school. He said we would have to contact the developer to possibly put a fence around it.
The development in the area has slowed because of the financial crisis. This is why we are focused on the Alliance Town Center off of Heritage Trace, which is where the Kroger will open in 2011. BJ’s will open there next month and Olive Garden is planned to open there later this year.
Jim Walker was then introduced. He is the AICP Assistant Director for the City of Fort Worth. He talked about various roads in near Keller that will be expanded soon, like Golden Triangle, North Beach, and Keller-Hicks. Then he mentioned that Litsey Rd. near Roanoke will eventually connect with Independence Pkwy.
Mr. Walker moved on with questions, when concerns were raised about Alta Vista. He and Sal agreed that there was a major problem with Alta Vista, and Sal insisted that it would be a priority at his next council meeting. Alta Vista was not meant to be a major arterial street like it has become, but it still has suffered a premature street failure. That is why it is currently is in litigation and arbitration to place blame before money is spent to fix it.
Mr. Walker went on to discuss concerns raised over sidewalks. He said that arterial streets, like Cattlebarron, will get sidewalks, but collector streets will not. Because he was concerned about the pond, he went on to mention that his long-term goal is going to be to put a walk-though around and behind the pond to the school for the students.
Questions:
A concerned neighbor then brought up her concerns about Ridgetop and Lazy River’s Road collapse. Jim Walker responded by talking about the same type of problems in many of the neighborhoods here in Fort Worth.
Another neighbor mentioned that we should have a right-only turn lane from Alta Vista in our neighborhood onto 170. Because there is already enough room for it, it doesn’t seem like that difficult of a job to complete. Mr. Walker took note of this; he said that it might be easily fixed.
A different neighbor brought up the problem with the trash pick-up. There is only one trash pick-up a week and in Roanoke there is two which costs less. He also mentioned that bulk-pick-up is ridiculous; our streets are lined with trash for a week or more while waiting for the pick-up to come. Sal responded to the first question with a political answer having to do with past people in office and the fact that Fort Worth spends a lot of money on recycling so they can’t afford to come more than once a week. He further offered that The City of Fort Worth has a storm water fee, which is in place because when it floods there are parts of the city that flood so bad that people can die. To the second question about bulk pick-up, Sal answered that it is because they have up to a week to come, which sometimes can and will take a week. He agreed that it was a problem, though.
RNA Meeting
At 8:20 Patrick Kennedy wrapped up the meeting with introducing the new officers as follows:
President: Vicki Flock
Vice President: Diana Branson
Treasurer: Donna Polaro
Secretary: Morgan Nevarez
Hal is in charge of Dad’s on Guard/Watchdogs up at the school and talked briefly about the impact and security it makes for the children if 1 dad is at the school every day of the school year. Studies have shown that education ratio’s go up when dad’s are involved at schools. He mentioned that they need more members, and to go online to www.HughesWatchdogs.com/. Ken is in charge of the lights in the neighborhood, so if you notice a light is out, contact him.
Diana talked about Code Blue and asked for more people to join. It is good for the community to look out for one another. They patrol and call the police if they see something suspicious going on and have them handle it. She mentioned that if you have a car in front of your house that is clean, opposed to a dirty one that has visible valuables inside, a burglar is less likely to break into your car. It also helps if you keep the lights on outside at night.
Old Business:
Jacqueline Slockner let everyone know that there will be trees planted at Hughes very soon.
Patrick mentioned that the 4.062 dollars we have set aside for the park picnic tables cannot be used until we have a bonded and licensed contractor willing to put it in for that price.
We have new more professional-looking signs.
New Business:
This year is going to be “The Year of the Park”. We are going to have all our meetings there from now on, so that they are family friendly and brief (unless the weather doesn’t permit).
We are going to do our annual Neighborhood Garage Sell this year, and we are going to have our “Party in the Park”. We NEED “Block Captains” to pass out fliers for our upcoming events or meetings. Please contact us at ranchesna@gmail.com to let us know if you would step-up to that position.
We will advertise for you on our www.ranchesna.org website on our businesses/churches tab if you are a paid member. Dugless Smith is running for Precinct Chairman and is having a block party the first week of February. He will be having hamburgers and hot dogs.
Meeting adjourned at 8:35pm.
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