The city of Windcrest’s attempt to build a new City Hall, as part of a $5.5 million improvements package, faces a financial firestorm as an effort to move forward with the project remains stalled.

City officials await an Attorney General’s ruling on a petition filed by residents who oppose the city’s attempt to fund the City Hall package using tax notes. The petition sought to gather enough votes to force the city into a referendum election on the issue. But the city’s attorney said the petition, as filed, contained deficiencies that jeopardized its intent. It was forwarded to the AG’s office with a list of the city’s objections on legal grounds.

But regardless of whether the petition is thrown out or stands, the city no longer has a guarantee that the improvements package cost would be $5.5 million. A local financial institution’s guaranteed interest rate percentage expired Oct. 2, forcing the city to seek out a new loan during a much more volatile financial atmosphere than was prevalent when the city first acquired the 3.97 percent rate that backed the $5.5 million.

“It’s lost, it went away on Oct. 2,” Windcrest Mayor Jack Leonhardt said of the 3.97 percent rate. “Now, if the AG does say, ‘OK, you can go ahead,’ we’ll have to renegotiate a rate with a banking institution and, based upon what that new rate will be, we’ll have to decide, do we want to go ahead?”

Petition organizers Rita Davis and Pam Dodson Sept. 23 presented the city with 28 pages of signatures gathered from Windcrest residents who, like Davis and Dodson, want to see residents have the right to vote on the improvements – which include the new City Hall, to be built on a portion of 23 acres of land along Windsor Hill; a new dormitory for the city’s volunteer firemen; a law enforcement center/headquarters formed from the existing City Hall; and additional park/green space.

The city submitted a letter dated Sept. 25 to the Attorney General’s public finance division. Leonhardt said the city likely would have heard from the AG’s office “within a matter of days” on the tax note proposal had it not been opposed by the petition.

Davis said residents who organized the petition are still hopeful.

“We’re waiting for the AG to make a decision. We have made no firms plans beyond that; we’ll have to see what happens,” Davis said.

An armed man wearing a disguise allegedly robbed a Garden Ridge bank Monday morning, getting away with an undisclosed amount of money, a Garden Ridge Police Department spokesman said Tuesday.

Police, along with FBI agents from the San Antonio field office, are still investigating the robbery that occurred at 8:20 a.m. at the American Bank of Texas branch at 19501 FM 3009.

Garden Ridge Police Sgt. Abel Mireles said a white male wearing a blonde wig with dark sunglasses walked into the bank and approached a clerk. Displaying a handgun, the man gave the clerk a note and then made out with the money.

The robber is described to be between 5-5 to 5-7 and in his early 20s.

“No one was hurt,” Mireles said. “The clerk acted appropriately under the circumstances. We have a couple of leads we are following on.”

Anyone with information concerning the robbery should call Detective Donna O’Conner of the Garden Ridge Police Department at (210) 651-6441.

Reversing a decision they made three months ago, Marion School District trustees have reinstated the high school girls’ basketball coach.

After meeting for hours in executive session Oct. 15, trustees voted 6-1 to reinstate Marion High School girls’ basketball coach Kollyn McWhinney.

McWhinney, along with former girls’ athletic coordinator Cindy Manley, were removed from their positions by district trustees in July after a grievance was filed against both of them by a parent/employee, who reportedly is a middle school coach.

After both were removed and reassigned to other coaching positions, Manley and McWhinney retained the counsel of Austin attorney Karl “Tiger” Hanner and appealed the board’s decision, wanting to be reinstated to their former athletic positions.

While the board granted McWhinney’s appeal, trustees 5-2 voted against reinstating Manley as girls’ athletic coordinator.

“We are delighted,” said Hanner about McWhinney’s reinstatement. “It is unfortunate this had to happen. She was excluded from participating in the prior grievance. I believe the board did not have enough information at their disposal (at the July meeting). It is hard to get someone to realize they made a mistake and correct it. Coach McWhinney is delighted they were willing to do that.”

Board President Victor Contreras said trustees decided to grant McWhinney her appeal and deny Manley hers after listening to the arguments presented to them by Hanner and the district’s attorney.

“We listened to both sides,” Contreras said. “We made the decision based on added information.”

Contreras said the actions of McWhinney and Manley involved “two different situations and cases.”

Hanner said the grievance against McWhinney and Manley was filed in May, but said neither woman knew about it until before the July board meeting.

“They were never given a copy of it (grievance) and were never allowed to go before the board in executive session (at the first meeting),” he said. “They were told no big deal, that they had not done anything wrong and that they did not need a lawyer. So you can imagine they were amazed when they were reassigned.”

At the July meeting, the district’s attorney was present in executive session. District officials have not commented on why both coaches were not allowed to present their cases before the board at the July meeting.

Manley will still coach the girls’ softball team, which she has done for the past eight years, and has been coaching the cross country team, which she was reassigned to.

Hanner said Manley can still appeal to the state education commissioner if she so desires.

“At this point she is still weighing her options,” Hanner said. “Her primary goal was getting Coach McWhinney reinstated. She was pleased about that. That is what she cared about.”

After being removed as the head girls’ basketball coach in July, McWhinney agreed to stay on as an assistant girls’ basketball coach after Marion Athletic Director Glenn Davis named Greg Dydalewicz as the girls’ head basketball coach.

Now that McWhinney has been reinstated, Dydalewicz will remain with the girls’ basketball team as an assistant.

After Manley was removed as girls’ athletic coordinator, the position was dissolved when Superintendent James Hartman made Davis the district’s full-time athletic director before the start of the school year.

Universal City firefighters stretch the basket of the city’s new ladder truck during training exercises Monday. The 50-foot-long ladder truck, which arrived in mid-October and cost $754,000, features a 104-foot ladder, a 2,000 gallon-per-minute pump and a fully automatic platform with remote operations capability. Fire Chief Ross Wallace expects the unit to be in service within 60-90 days. Photo by Jeff B. Flinn