People you s“hood” know: Irving Heritage District’s Lorraine Taylor

by Catherine Cuellar

IRVING — Lorraine Taylor, her husband Craig, and their daughter Grace live in what's known as “the mayor's house” in the Irving Heritage District. Built 1905 by Otis Brown, who served as Irving's first mayor from 1914 to 1917, it was subsequently occupied by Otis' son Lynn, who was mayor from 1959 to 1967. The Taylors bought their South O'Connor home seven years ago from yet a third Irving mayor, Morris Parrish (who served from 1995 to 1999). But Lorraine insists neither she nor Craig are interested in the job, so Grace — who is 12 years away from being old enough to vote — is the only possible candidate from their family.

But that doesn't mean Lorraine is not a willing public servant. Since October, Lorraine has served as chair of the Irving Arts Board — an organization with a budget of $3.5 million annually and a staff of almost two dozen people. Lorraine joined the board, which supports 11 resident arts groups at the Irving Arts Center, in 2003.

Last December, she was appointed to the Irving Heritage Society Board. This year Lorraine also co-founded the Irving Heritage District Neighborhood Association with a mission to provide “a voice and watchdog for redevelopment and a social network for residents.” Taylor found the city of Irving to be extremely encouraging of the new group, paying for their first mailing to residents in the area. “We had 47 people at our first meeting,” Lorraine says. Ten of them wanted to serve as officer, including Lorraine, who was elected president.

In addition to these civic activities, she runs a business. Taylor House Properties manages a handful of rental properties in the Heritage District, where streets are lined with century-old post oak trees. When Oncor power lines damaged some of these historic trees, Lorraine realized the inadequacy of Irving's tree ordinance, which says it's OK to cut down a tree if you plant another (even if the one you cut down is 200 years old and the one you plant is only six inches wide). That's something she hopes to change as an appointee to Irving's green advisory committee, which she joined in April.

Since the fall of 2007, she has also lobbied for the creation of a city-appointed architectural review committee. “Developers don't want citizens saying what they can and can't do when trying to make money,” she says of initial resistance, “and I understand the need to make money.”

But during a council work session in February that she attended on art center business, she was surprised to hear a presentation on the proposed Olde Towne redevelopment in her neighborhood that would preserve historic churches and the city-owned senior center, but replace almost everything else with new construction. She spoke passionately at the council meeting the next day and met with Mayor Herbert Gears, who ultimately created the citizen panel. But since the Olde Towne plan had previously been presented to the council, she fears that the developer, McDougal Companies of Lubbock, will say it's too late and too costly to revise.

Meanwhile, the Irving Heritage Society has selected Lorraine to represent them at the July 10th council meeting, where former Irving mayor Dan Matkin, the Irving Heritage Society president, will explain to the council their position on redevelopment. “I don't think anybody's evil,” Lorraine's quick to explain. “But [McDougal] needs to know what we want, because we live here.”

Got a suggestion for someone in your 'hood we need to meet? Contact Catherine Cuellar.