The cramped conditions of Little Elm’s police station are looking to be a thing of the past. A new public safety building is one of several items the city has planned for its future.
Little Elm Town Council voted in favor of an $11.59 million bond at its Jan. 19 council meetings, allowing it to pay for future improvement projects. The largest of which is the city’s combined police and fire station it has planned.
The ad valorem tax will raise about three cents per $100 value.
The council began working on the 2009 bond in late 2007, and has been an ongoing project that took on several capital improvement projects.
“We had a work session where we just prioritized them and based them on what was most important and what was least important,” Councilmember David Hillock said.
The council examined future tax rate impacts as well as took into account citizen suggestions.“Ultimately council has final authority but we certainly take the citizens committee pretty seriously,” he said. “A lot of them are things citizens committee put at the higher priority and some are some the council put at the higher priority.”
The five-year capital improvement program was put together in response to the rapid growth of the area in the last decade which spiked from about 3,600 to about 23,000 people.
“While we’re only technically servicing the 23,000 in town we have a service area of about 58,000,” he said, using an estimate based on a five mile radius from town hall.
In addition to a $6.6 million joint police and fire station, the project focuses on a new fire and rescue engine for about $650,000 and backup emergency generators for about $500,000.
Little Elm trivia night returns
Little Elm Library is had its 12 Annual Trivia Night where several dozen tables of contestants compete to win prizes.
“We’ve been doing this for quite along time,” said Tina Hager, library director. “They’ve got it down to a well-oiled machine. They’ve got a lot of committee members and they do a lot of work on it throughout the year.”
About 40 to 50 tables with eight people each were signed up for the event. The event will be overseen by judges, a question coordinator and a runner who picks up the answers.
“There’s a lot of hard questions and many different categories,” Hager said. “You’ve got sports, geography, pop-culture. It’s a mix of different stuff. It’s good to have different people on different teams who know different stuff.”
Senator Nelson speaks at Chamber
Sen. Jane Nelson (R-Flower Mound)was the guest speaker at the annual Little Elm Chamber of Commerce Banquet. Nelson gave an update on the state of the State of Texas.
Nelson recalled the last time she spoke at a Little Elm Chamber Banquet. A storm knocked out power but the event continued by candlelight.
“It was kind of romantic,” she said.
At this year’s banquet, the power stayed on and Nelson recapped her year and made predictions for the next year at state senate. The chamber also took that time to announce its annual firefighter and police officer of the year awards.
Driver Clif Anderson won fire fighter of the year and Sgt. Steve Garst won police officer of the year.
“I know these heroes will be there for us when we need them,” she said, before continuing into her speech.
Nelson said 2009 was a tough year for businesses throughout the United States and in Texas, she said. Falling revenues and lost jobs were prominent problems for most businesses.
“Even though we were forced to endure tough times, Texas fared much better than other states,” she said, crediting the positives to sound fiscal management at the state level.
Lobos withstand coyote’s rally, win 50-42
The Little Elm Lobos have done a great job taking care of business against teams they are ahead of in the standings. Now, Head Coach Jim Arendt knows the team needs to hold its own against the district leaders, Denton Ryan and The Colony.
First things were first on Tuesday night, though. The Wichita Falls Coyotes came to Little Elm High School with a 3-4 record and, despite trailing Little Elm in the District 5-4A standings, very much alive in the playoff race.
Arendt’s senior trio of Chris Burks, T.J. Birdie and Clifton Murphy helped the Lobos put the Coyotes away early, as Little Elm cruised to 50-42 victory that was not as close as the score may have suggested.
“We played an excellent first half,” Arendt said, speaking of the Lobos 32-16 halftime advantage that would prove to be too much for the Coyotes to overcome. “Birdie had 2 big three-pointers in the first quarter, and Burks scored 12 of his game-high 18 in the first half. Defensively, we played well in the first half and offensively passed the ball to the open man for easy shot.”
Other HeadLines
2009 - Year in Review.
Page By Page.
Little Elm Police and Fire Reports
Little Elm
Calendar
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