To the editor:

Thank goodness for newspapers. In January ’08, I wrote a short piece about the beauty of Huebner Creek, near Huebner Road and Babcock, and its potential as a neighborhood park if we could just clean it up. Northwest Weekly printed it on Jan. 13. Neighbors called and offered to help. A gang of us picked up a few tons of junk. The Express-News sent out a photographer. They published a half-page spread on March 5.

Since then we have been in contact with the planning department at the San Antonio Department of Parks and Recreation. We have enjoyed wonderful cooperation with the managers and department heads with whom we have been in touch.

The Parks Department has been instrumental in having the easement or access road between city streets and the 25-acre (+ or -) flood plain cleaned, graded and made useful. They have filled the kid-trapping water holes at the ends of four gutters where runoff from Wellesley Manor is dumped into the Huebner Creek flood plain. They have also cleared, graded and reestablished the channel and banks of Huebner Creek to reduce the danger of damage to the flood plain in times heavy rains and runoff.

David Anciniga of the Planning Department has advised that land at this point on Huebner Creek is “owned” by the Parks Department and SARA (San Antonio River Authority), and that should pave the way for the development of a neighborhood park on the flood plain, however it may take awhile.

It’s time for the neighborhood to act again. The flood plain is choked with undesirable hackberry saplings. They should be thinned or removed to make room for the old growth live oaks, mountain laurel, cedar, mesquite, etc. As neighbors we can do this ourselves. A good, new chainsaw has already been provided. We need a good 6-inch brush chipper to turn tons of water-sapping trees into easy-to-walk-on, chip-surfaced foot paths and water-saving mulch.

We also need volunteers to clear the paths, find and operate the chipper and chainsaw, help in the formation of a community planning group, make phone calls, but first and foremost, to help turn a smoldering liability into a growing asset.

Chet Lummen

San Antonio

Editor’s note: Interested volunteers may call Chet Lummen at 694-0014.

To the editor:

We have a mayor with a great imagination and an apparent dislike of children.

The three-acre children’s playground at Parrigin and 1560 (in Helotes) – which volunteers have spent countless hours clearing, to which over 60 trees have been donated and planted, for which Boy Scouts have worked tirelessly and for which a grant was applied for in order to secure the play equipment – has all come to a screeching halt.

What was called the Parrigin playground is now deemed by our group-think City Council and mayor as the Helotes Natural Area. We have over 100 acres in Iron Horse Canyon as natural area and he wants to call this little three-acre tract a natural area? 

Now, here’s where the even greater imagination becomes apparent. With a new fire and police station being built on our already tight seven acres at City Hall, he’s going to move the children’s playground there.

Sound good? Let’s see, three acres in a residential area versus half of a tight acre where children can play as emergency vehicles come and go. Sounding better? The imagination gets even wilder when he adds, to that already tight seven acres, a city park. Can you believe it? 

Wow. Will the park be a half acre or one acre? Maybe we can apply for status in the world record books as the smallest park and the most dangerous playground in Texas.

He ruined our chances for funding on the Madla Park and has had over a year to rectify that situation, and this is the best he can do? And his five cohorts should be ashamed. 

If you don’t have any better ideas than to blindly follow him (and you haven’t to date) you guys might as well take turns showing up because your absence won’t have any impact.    

Lorraine Castillo

Helotes

Chris Riley
LEON VALLEY MAYOR
 
The 14th annual Fourth of July Parade and Picnic in Leon Valley was a smashing success! Special thanks to U.S. Rep. Charlie Gonzalez for serving again as our grand marshall.

We had over 30 entries in the parade, the largest yet.

The Community Events Committee and Sylvia Gomez, administrative assistant for economic development, are to be thanked for their organization of the event. Food, entertainment and community spirit were fantastic.

I have invited Congressman Gonzalez to hold a town hall meeting at our Community Center as soon as he can fit it into his schedule.

In June, two representatives of the American Institute of Architects, Erin Simmons of Washington, D.C. and James Sherrill of Tennessee, the project manager of our Sustainable Design Assessment Teams (SDAT) planning grant, met with a broad spectrum of Leon Valley citizens and local experts.

Based on the information they gathered, they will bring back planning specialists from around the country for the three-day work session in October. The top citizen concerns I heard were economic (re)development, transportation/ congestion, beautification/code enforcement, water/flooding, and developing a more livable community.

Thanks to all who participated in these listening sessions – the level of discussion was fantastic.

Mark your calendars for the week of Oct. 6 for the follow up visit. More details will be forthcoming and we hope to have a large participation from as many people as possible.

AACOG awards two

grants to Leon Valley

A grant in the amount of $38,000 is for Leon Valley to conduct an “E-Cycling” or Electronics Recycling program. In February 2009, when the television industry goes digital, there will be many old TVs going to the landfill unless they are properly recycled. Many of our electronic gadgets/appliances have hazardous waste components and should be disposed of properly. We will have a Saturday collection next year to collect televisions, computer equipment, cell phones, etc. Our second grant, for $7,000, was awarded to the Earthwise Living Committee to assist in bringing in an educational speaker for the 20th annual Earthwise Living Day on Feb. 28, 2009.

Mark your calendars now and don’t forget to recycle. We have a goal of increasing our recycling participation to 90 percent.

EPA award

technical assistance

The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has announced it will pay for experts to assist our Superfund Citizens Advisory Group (CAG) in independently reviewing EPA’s work to remedy the aquifer contamination plume at the Grissom/Bandera area, according to CAG chairman Rudy Garcia. The next CAG meeting, open to the public, is 5:30 p.m. Aug. 7 at the Conference Center.

Leon Valley

ENEWS now available

Do you want to know what’s going on in and around Leon Valley? For e-mail news on such matters as City Council and committee meetings, Leon Valley Library, city events such as Trade and Market days or TxDOT closures and emergency advisements, go to the city’s Web site, www.leonvalleytexas.gov, and click on the link Leon Valley ENEWS to subscribe. Citizens’ e-mail addresses are not open records under the law and will only be used for this new subscription service. For more information, please call Marie Feutz, city secretary, at 684-1391, ext. 216.

Upcoming dates

Aug. 2 – Second FY 2009 budget workshop, 9 a.m at City Hall.

Aug. 5 - City Council meeting, 7 p.m. Discussion on Economic Development Tax will continue with a decision by council to put this on the November ballot.

Aug. 6 – Public meeting to discuss possible mixed use development at the corner at Evers and Huebner Road. This will be held at the Conference Center at 7 p.m. All interested citizens are invited to attend.

FYI – Trade and Market Days has taken the month of August off due to the Texas heat, but will be back in the saddle on the second Saturday of September.

By Sarah Snyder
Staff Writer

A recent attorney general decision doesn’t affect Northside ISD, but is another example of an unfunded mandate, Superintendent John Folks said last week.

Texas Attorney General Greg Abbot ruled on July 8 that school districts will need to cover $100 million annually in Texas Retirement System costs, related to a teacher pay rate enacted in 2006. The Legislature had mandated a $2,500 salary increase.

The opinion will have no impact on Northside’s budget because the district has been paying the increased benefits and will continue to do so.

“It’s another unfunded mandate, no question,” Folks said. “I do think the state should pay the additional retirement, but they passed that cost onto the school district.”

Northside didn’t join with other districts who pursued a formal challenge of the rule, but “I do agree that the state should pay for the increase in retirement,” Folks said.

In recent months, however, Folks has expressed dismay over other “unfunded mandates.”

Athletes are safer after NISD purchased 192 Automated External Defibrillators (AEDs) this past school year for every campus and sporting event. But the sticker shock from the 2007 state mandate is an example of NISD’s school finance woes.

The devices, meant to jump-start the heart during cardiac arrest, go for $1,450 a pop and cost the district $310,000.

While that means 85,000 NISD students are now safer, the district is dismayed at receiving only an $11,000 reimbursement from the state.

“It’s a case of Texas NOT keeping its word,” reads an NISD “Board Talk” at the district’s Web site at www.nisd.net, asserting that the school expected to be refunded.

During the 2007 announcement of Senate Bill 7, Section 38.017, which enacted the AED mandate, officials said they hoped that donations, private/public partnerships, grants and state revenue would offset the cost to schools.

NISD received no donations, and schools across the state paid more than $20 million for AEDs while Texas Education Agency grants for the cause amounted to $9 million.

School districts such as NISD are feeling the brunt of Texas school finance reform, said Folks, who during the month of April delivered three “Monday Messages” to staff imploring them to spread the word about “inequitable” and “unrealistic” school funding.

In May testimony to the state’s Select Committee on Higher and Public Education Finance, Folks asked that the state: change how it distributes money to school districts; allow districts to benefit from a higher tax revenue; allow the school board to raise the tax rate buy up to two cents annually; and increase assistance to growing districts that make debt payments because of bonds.

“Currently, we are the only school district in San Antonio that has not accessed any of the additional four pennies that are authorized by the Legislature. But under the current school finance system, our good times are about to end,” Folks said in his testimony of Maintenance & Operations (M&O) tax rates.

NISD grows by about 3,000 a year, is the fourth-largest district in Texas and is projected to receive $10 million less from the state next school year.

Folks said NISD’s “target revenue” – a number the state uses to decide funding – is based on the 2006-2007 numbers.

“Like many other school districts across the state, we take issue with the ‘target revenue’ funding system. Under the target revenue system, we are getting the same amount of money per student this year as we did last year, and we will receive the same amount of money next year. That’s three consecutive years of stagnant funding,” he said.

Meanwhile, Folks said while property values increase, the amount schools receive is deducted from what the state will provide.

“Microsoft is building a data center in Northside valued at $550 million, but it will have zero impact on our finances,” he said.

Folks said that “unfunded mandates” cost NISD about $1 million this year.

Northside ISD’s Board of Trustees has been named a Regional Honor Board of the Year, and the district’s nomination now will be forwarded to a statewide selection committee for Texas’ Outstanding School Board competition. The Northside Board of Trustees last was named a statewide Honor Board in 2000. The board includes (front row, from left) Karen Freeman, Katie Reed, Superintendent John Folks, M’Lissa Chumbley, (second row) Lynn Britton, Annie Holmes, Bobby Blount and Randy Fields. Courtesy photo